I wanted to make something harder.
To communicate this, I replied, “I know ways to make it awhole lot easier.”
“Daisy, honey, you lost it at dinner.”
Damn.
“We need to work up to it,” he repeated.
He was right.
And that stunk.
“All right,” I grumbled.
“All right,” he replied sweetly.
“Can we make a deal that if I have forty-eight hoursdrama-free, you’ll consider banging me?”
He smiled down at me.“Honey, I’m never going tobangyou.What we’re going to do will not include banging.”
I didn’t know what to make of that.
“What’re wegonnado?”I asked,not to get a rise out him (in that way, or any way).
I was curious.
“We’re not going to bang.”
“Okay, so what’re wegonnado?”
“You bang someone you give a gold bracelet to to saygood-bye when you’ve lost interest in banging her.The man I am does not bang awoman like you.”
Oh Lord.
His brows drew together as he watched my face.“Are yougoing to cry again?”
“No,” I snapped, though I was feeling close to it.So Ineeded a retreat, stat.“Go away.I need to crawl into your huge-ass bed, smellyou on your sheets, and fight the desire to ask you to let it bemewho puts a bullet into that jackass’s forehead.”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
I blinked at the sudden change in the tone of his voice.
It wasn’t just firm.
It was steel grating against steel.
“I was justjoshin’,” I told himcarefully.
“Well, I’m not.I do what I do.I have other concerns thatI’m growing alongside those you don’t know about, you’ll never know about, butknow they’re there.I do this to assure the future I intend to have.That’s thepart of my life where you’ll have your place.Theonlypart.This getsdone, you live in that light.I never put you in any dark.”
“Okay, sugar,” I soothed, because I needed to soothe.Thesparks flying off his steel were singeing me.
The heat went out of his gaze, he bent and touched his mouthto mine, and then he gave my neck a squeeze.
He did all this right before he didn’t play fair.
“Now, go to bed, baby.And if you do something while you’rewrapped up in my sheets that I’d love, but right now knowing you were doing itwould kill me, please be quiet.I intend to be.”
