Page 30

She blinked at him, not sure how to process the switch. One moment, melting into bliss. The next, lying by herself on the couch, wondering what was going on.

“We have to stop,” he told her, though she could see that he wasn’t wearing that scowl she’d gotten used to already. This was different. This was far more…

It was his eyes, she decided. There was a storm in all that blue, but it wasn’t the storm she’d seen earlier. It wasn’t anything like self-loathing. Unless she was very much mistaken, the way he was looking at her had everything to do with a temptation he didn’t want to give in to.

Ruthie had to wonder if that was what the kiss had done. If it had given her the ability to read him, suddenly. Or maybe her memories were kicking in—but only shading in her ability to interpret him, not enough to know him, which seemed odd.

Either way, she was certain that she could tell what was going on in that beautiful head of his.

“If it’s up to me,” she said when he didn’t elaborate, “I vote for not stopping. I’d like to continue this experiment. What if we kiss some more, only maybe a little more naked this time?”

She couldn’t tell if she’d ever propositioned a man before. What she did know was that it felt right here, now, because it was Dallas. Because she’d seen how much they’d loved and enjoyed each other in those pictures. Because they’d had a whole life together, once upon a time.

But mostly because it was Dallas.

And she watched the way that fire in his gaze kindled. She watched the sharp breath that he took, and she thought for a second that he was going to come back over to the couch.

“That’s not going to happen,” he told her, like the words were a little too thick on his tongue.

“Why in the world not?”

Ruthie stretched a little, and maybe she was doing that deliberately too. She was still lying flat out on the couch with her legs bent and open, because until moments ago she’d been holding him between them. Her long-sleeve shirt and hand-knit sweater were shoved up a bit, so that a generous swathe of her belly was exposed. And her arms were thrown up over her head, languidly, because she wished that she still had them on his shoulders.

Maybe she really was as insatiable as he told her she’d been back then, because she was pretty sure she knew exactly the kind of wanton display she was putting on here. And she liked it. She more than liked it—and she did absolutely nothing to change it.

“We won’t be doing any of that,” Dallas said, sounding stern now, which…did not make any of that fire dim any.

But Ruthie sat up, with a sigh. And she studied him where he stood, his whole face closed down, trying to figure out what was happening over there. She liked the fact that she could see that his mouth looked the way hers felt. Not swollen, exactly. But clearly, there had been kissing.

Kissing. Even thinking the word made her shiver, and that might have embarrassed her, but he still didn’t have his breath back, either. She liked that.

Maybe she liked that too much.

“I think I should have a vote, Dallas.”

“You don’t.” He eyed her. “Unless you have your memory back now.”

She considered. “You mean because we kissed?”

“I said this once before, but the only thing I know about amnesia comes from television, so why not a kiss?” he replied.

“Good point.” She checked in with herself as best as she could under the circumstances. The circumstances being that her body was involved in some kind of riot, and didn’t appear to be calming down any. And she could read him better now, but still… She shook her head. “So much for that theory. I guess the fairy tales and TV shows were wrong and you can’t solve everything with a kiss.” She smiled. “Maybe we have to go a little further, and see if that solves it? Maybe you have a magical—”

“Ruthie.”

And really, it was the way he said her name. She couldn’t get over it. She couldn’t get enough of it. Maybe she never would. Maybe she’d had to leave because it was too tempting to stay, and from what he told her, there was toxicity to go around.

Either way, she bit her tongue and let him speak. “I get what you’re doing, and honestly, in a lot of ways, I love it,” Dallas said, gruff and stern, but also serious. “I like that you can’t remember anything about me and even the things I told you about our past don’t put you off. I’ve had eight years to tell myself that what I remember is self-serving and that maybe we never had that kind of chemistry. Maybe we never connected like that. Apparently, we did.”

“I think we did, yes,” she agreed. “We obviously still do.”

It made sense to her now. She could see the life he’d told her she’d been living much more clearly now. Why on earth would she want to spend time at some job when she could be doing this instead? When she could kiss that man until her own mouth tasted like his, and roll around with him, and play with this fire until they were both half-burned? No one in their right mind would make that choice unless they had to.

So maybe that past version of herself wasn’t quite as messed up in the head as she thought.

“But I do remember what happened,” he was saying, in that same serious way.

Ruthie didn’t actually roll her eyes. She thought that would be unduly disrespectful. But it was hard to keep that sigh inside her.