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“I said she was annoying, not unattractive.” I take a seat at the kitchen island. “She’s … tolerable.”
“Tolerable?” he repeats, cocking an eyebrow as he joins me. He slides a plate in front of each of us. “Is that how you lured her into bed? You told her she wastolerable?”
I take a sip and hide behind my coffee mug when I feel my cheeks warming.
Wait, am I blushing? When did I become shy about sex, especially in front of my brother, who knows more of my secrets than anyone and is less mature than his teenage kid most of the time?
“I’d rather not talk about it,” I say flatly.
He gasps, bringing his hand to his chest in mock surprise. “Youdon’t want to talk about your sex life? WHAT?”
“I’m not telling you about the night I got her pregnant.”
“You mean, you think it’d be disrespectful to discuss the specifics when it involves Loren? Sort of the way I felt a few months back when you kept pestering me for details about the physical part of my relationship with Tenley?”
I purse my lips in distaste. I hate it when he’s right, and he’s been right about entirely too much today. “Sure. If you say so.”
He stares at me for a second, squinting and reading me like a book. “And there was only the one time, so you can’t talk about what ain’t happening, even though you’ve been spending a ton of time together and totally want it to happen again. Am I right?”
I growl. I’ve also been hoping he wouldn’t figure out that particular detail, but there it is.
“Hmm. Blake the Snake, exclusive with a woman and celibate by choice. Sounds like you’re in love with her.”
That earns him a dangerous glare from me, and he raises his hands innocently, though he’s grinning like the cat that ate the canary.
“How do you know I’m not already seeing someone else?” I retort.
“Are you?”
“Well, no,” I huff. “But we’ve been trying to convince everyone we’re a real couple by going out together and having her stay over at my place. I’m not going to risk being seen with another woman and subject Loren to any more gossip than necessary. People are already going to give her a hard time when they find out she’s pregnant with my baby.”
“Oh, so she’s only been spending the night because it’s part of your cover-up and not because you can’t get enough of her, then?”
“Thought you’d be happy to hear I’ve been keeping it in my pants for once,Padre.”
“I don’t know how you’re doing it, man,” he says, shaking his head. “I mean, say what you want, but Tenley was right. If we’d have given into temptation and started having sex earlier, we’d never have been able to stop or even think rationally.”
“What are you talking about? Nothing about your relationship is rational to begin with,” I reply, scowling.
“I thought I was infatuated with Ten before our wedding night, but it’s a million times worse now. I couldn’t have just walked away from her after, you know, forming that physical connection, much less if we’d been playing house.”
I swallow hard, remembering how empty I felt when Loren walked out on me after I thought we’d formed that same kind of connection. “Then it’s a good thing I’ve got years of experience with casual hookups, right?”
He furrows his brow. “Don’t do that to yourself, Blake. It doesn’t have to be like that this time.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have much say in the matter,” I blurt out.
“You do want more with Loren, though,” he says, stating it as a fact.
I press my lips together. “I don’t know what I want. I only know Loren doesn’t wantme, so thinking about her as anything more than a friend would be pointless.”
“But it’s too late, isn’t it?”
I realize I’ve revealed too much again, and JD takes a huge bite as another satisfied smile crosses his face.
“Don’t look at me like that. All I’m saying is I don’t hate her, and if I absolutelyhadto do this with someone, I’m not disappointed it’s her. I mean, she’s definitely the smartest of all the women I’ve been with.”
“And the sexiest?”
