“You haven’t even met her,” Sam said.
He gave a little shake of his head. “Don’t need to to know she’s awesome. I mean, you don’t need to meet Irina to know she’s the shit, do you?”
“Are you always this perfect?” Sam asked, situating herself so she could see his profile without having to crank her neck.
“No.” A bashful look crossed his face.
“I don’t know that you’re being honest.” Was she teasing him? She was totally teasing him. And it made her chest swell and her cheeks hurt from smiling.
“I’m always honest.” The glimmer in his eyes as he said this was absolutely wicked.
“No one isalwayshonest,” she countered with a dash of innocence.
“So you’re notalwayshonest?”
“Well, sure. But we’ve only known each other for like a minute. It’s not like I’ve had time to have a reason not to be.” She chewed on that for a second. “I guess it also depends on what it means to be dishonest. I mean, sometimes we have to keep things to ourselves, so we don’t hurt others.”Or ourselves…“Sometimes the truth hurts worse than not knowing.”
“I can’t think of a time when that was true.”
“Like if you miss a beat at a concert—of course, it doesn’t sound good. But telling you that won’t help. It’s best to keep that kind of thing to oneself.” She toyed with the ends of her hair, realized she was doing it, and forced herself to stop.
“Or tell me so I can fix it.” He glanced to her lips.
Did she have something there? She tested her top lip with her tongue, then lifted her fingers to check the edges.
His pupils flared
“I think honesty is important with the big stuff,” she assured, not finding anything wrong with her lips at all. “There are also some things from the past that don’t need to be brought up in the present. That’s not being dishonest, just protecting yourself. You know?”
“The little stuff can add up to be big stuff.” He cleared his throat and his words were rumbly and rough.
“Maybe,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows and a low pull tugged deep in her belly. A good pull. The kind of arousal that felt like all of this talk was foreplay for something more.
She focused outside the window for a beat to recollect herself. They’d merged onto I-70, just passing Coors Field where the Rockies played.
“I think the past is important to understand, for the future,” he said, finally.
Nope. She shook her head. “The past should stay in the past.”
“I guess if that’s the case then the present is where we should focus.” He moved his hand to grab a water bottle in the cupholder between them, his fingers brushing against the skin of her arm and making all those fine hairs perk to attention.
He drank the water.
Honest to hell, she’d never been turned on by a guy drinking water but the way his Adam’s apple moved and his lips got wet? He might as well have taken off his shirt and given her a lap dance.
Whew, had someone hit the heated seats in this thing?
Nope, that was only her reaction to Tanner and a water bottle.
They drove up to the garage, but he didn’t pull inside. Instead, he parked right at the path leading to the front door.
“This is me.” He jerked his chin to the mansion.
This wasn’t a house. This massive lair of bricks and stone was overwhelming. Gorgeous, too.
She climbed from the car to get some air and hopefully give her body some perspective on reactions to Tanner. “It’s massive.”
