“Yes.” Why did that not sound convincing? “It shouldn’t happen again.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She grabbed the keys this time. “It was casual sex between two consenting adults.”
“You said that already.”
“I know.”
He nodded.
“So you agree?” She inched back toward the door. Distance felt safer.
“I didn’t say that.”
She frowned. “So…it wasn’t casual sex for you?”
One side of his mouth lifted. He stepped forward. She stepped back. She hit the door.
Slowly, he lowered his head. His warm breath brushed against her ear as he whispered, “There was nothing ‘casual’ about what we did last night, Sunshine.”
Out. She needed to getout.
Blindly, she reached for the doorknob behind her. “Well…I…you should… I’ll see you later.”
She took off outside. She was actually pretty sure the run to her car was her maximum speed. Which wasn’t saying a lot, just that she was beyond ready to get away from sex-on-a-stick Joel.
The second she dropped into the seat, she pulled out of the driveway like someone was chasing her. She told herself not to look—in fact, she freaking screamed it in her head—but damn her for being weak, she looked. And he was just coolly standing in his doorway in nothing but those gorgeous snug briefs, looking like a man who’d been sent from the heavens above.
The second she got home, she had the shortest, coldest shower of her life before leaving again for Bloom. She was almost at her café when her phone rang, Maggie’s name on the screen.
She hit the Bluetooth on her steering wheel. “Hey.”
“I tried to wait as long as I could to call because I didn’t want to wake you. How are you after yesterday?”
Yesterday. The bodies. God, she’d been so preoccupied with Joel that she hadn’t thought about them. “I’m okay.”
“Are you in the car?”
“Yeah. I’m almost at Bloom.”
“You’re working today? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I need to stay busy.” She parked in front of the café and wrinkled her nose before blurting out, “I had sex with Joel.”
There was a brief pause. “You did?”
“Yes. And then this morning I told him it was just casual sex, and he…”
“He what?”
“He put those washboard abs really close to me and whispered that there was nothing casual about it.” She closed her eyes, swearing she could still feel his breath against her skin.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” She revealed big, life-altering news to her best friend, andohwas all she got? “Maggie. I’m in the middle of a quarter-life crisis, I’m seeing dead bodies and falling for guys who I have no business falling for.”
“You’re falling for him?”
