“Well,” she says, “you don’t seem to have the best judgment on that—”
“Clearly.”
“—because I’m not lying.”
“So, you’re telling me that your whole damsel-in-distress act wasn’t designed to manipulate me?”
She huffs out a laugh. “You have a very inflated sense of self-importance. I literally don’t know you from Adam. And there was noact.”
“Then everything you said to me was true?”
“I don’t knowwhatI said. I was drunk!”
“You said your boyfriend dumped you, just days ago.”
She looks away. “So? He did.”
“So, you were just gonna use me for a rebound lay,” I press. “A casual hookup. Nothing else.”
She looks up into my eyes, hers flooding with resentment and ... hurt. But that could be a lie, too.
“As you know,” she says coldly, “there was no ‘lay.’ But if I wanted to, yes. It would’ve been a rebound.”
My heart thuds dangerously. Anger and mistrust and something much more thrilling at war in my blood.
I swallow.
If I wasn’t so damn attracted to her, would this be easier? Would I be seeing whatever’s going on here more clearly?
Yes.
“You’d just have sex with a total stranger you met in a bar,” I press. “For no reason.”
“Youwere going to have sex with a total stranger you met in bar,” she snaps back, “when you thought I was with that bachelorette party, which means I’d be leaving town tomorrow. Double standard much?”
“I wasn’t planning to have sex with you.”
She laughs in disbelief. “You would have. If I didn’t tell you to keep it in your pants.”
“You were the one who tried to take itoutof my pants.” I scan her shocked expression. “Or did you forget that part?”
She did forget, maybe. Until right now, when I said it.
Now, I can feel her soft, warm hand wrapped around my cock, and wonder if she can feel it, too. Because last night, in bed, she put her hand right down my pants.
And now I’m getting fucking hard all over again.
“Get out of my way,” she grits out.
I decide I need her gone. All the blood in my head is rushing south, anyway. I’m probably not thinking straight.
I push away from the door, clearing her way.
She grabs the doorknob but pauses, her green eyes spitting cold fire at me. “You know, I thought you were a gentleman. But all I learned from that is that I have a really broken asshole detector. So, thank you for the learning opportunity.”
She leaves, and I still don’t know what to believe.
It’s just past sunset and I’m standing out in the bar parking lot, alone. Staring at Pier Seven across the intersection, lit up in the night. The door is propped open and pop music pulses out, impossibly bright in the evening air.
