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“You’re kidding?”
She shook her head, but he still wasn’t looking at her, so she reiterated. “No joke. She’s a bit short on funds at the moment. She can’t hold a job. Keeps screwing around with coworkers, her boss, the janitor.”
“Is she a nympho? I mean, not just promiscuous, but legitimately has a mental condition that makes her need sex all the time?”
“No, she’s not a nympho. Her shrink says she wants to belong to someone, and it’s easiest for her to get that feeling by sleeping around. Of course, the feeling doesn’t last long, because no one sticks around after they use her for sex.” Jacob Silverton being a perfect example. Melanie crossed her arms over her chest.
“I get why you enable her.”
Melanie did enable her, and she knew it. She refused to apologize for caring about someone who had no one else to look after her.
Gabe continued, “But I’m not sure it’s in her best interest.”
“You’re enabling her too! Who decided we should go see her today?” She lifted her eyebrows at him, but he was focused on retrieving his driver’s license from his wallet.
“Would you please find the proof of insurance for me?” he asked, dropping the subject.
Not unlike the way he’d dropped the subject of her love confession.
So she’d gotten a bit mushy on him. She hadn’t realized he’d freak out so much over her utterance of three simple—or not so simple—words, especially since she’d told him once before. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he’d started to doubt her feelings because she didn’t say it often enough. But he was as guilty of that as she was.
“And registration,” he added. “Not sure if we need it in Oklahoma.”
“And we’re just going to ignore what I said a few minutes ago?”
“That you pay Nikki’s bills?”
She waved a hand at him, but he still wouldn’t fucking look at her. He was now holding his license between his forefinger and middle finger while staring at the side-view mirror.
Melanie huffed out an exasperated breath and after finding the little wallet with the appropriate papers—Melanie knew they were in there because she’d put them inside herself—she slapped it none too gently on his thigh.
Gabe rolled the window down, and a hot blast of Oklahoman summer air entered the car.
“Can you shut off your engine?” the police officer asked in a calm but authoritative voice.
Gabe complied, and the air conditioning cut off as well. Ugh, it was already hot. This was going to be hell. Why had he been driving like a maniac? Trying to off her so he didn’t have to break her heart? If he’d been joking about shacking up and if he didn’t return her love, he should just tell her. She was a big girl. She’d been dumped more than once. It wasn’t ever fun, but it hadn’t ever killed her either. This oppressive heat, on the other hand, just might do her in. She tried rolling down her window, but the ignition was completely off, so the glass stayed shut tight. She lifted the heavy mass of her hair off her nape and held it against the back of her head as she used her free hand to wave hot, thick air into her face.
“License, registration, and proof of insurance, please.”
The officer’s voice drifted down into the car. Melanie couldn’t see anything but the man’s middle, which included a holstered pistol.
Gabe handed the cop the required documents. “How fast was I going, sir?”
Melanie scrunched down so she could see the officer’s face. He was a bit thick around the waist, but not overly fat. A pair of dark sunglasses hid his eyes, but when he glanced at Gabe’s license, Melanie saw him do a double take before he looked down at Gabe. He even held the license next to Gabe’s face to make sure it was the same guy. Apparently he’d never seen a highly tattooed, Mohawk-sporting hunk of a drummer driving a melon-orange VW Bug before.
Gabe took off his ball cap, revealing the dragon tattoos on his scalp that must be visible on his license. They didn’t allow ball caps in Texas driver’s license photos, not even Texas Rangers ones. “Yep, that’s really me.”
“I see that. I clocked you at ninety-six.”
Ninety-six? Holy shit!
“Huh,” Gabe muttered. “I had no idea this little car could go that fast.”
“Just because there’s no traffic doesn’t mean you should test the limits of your—” The officer choked on a laugh as he eyed the adorable Bug. “—vehicle.”
“That isn’t what I was doing,” Gabe said. He flicked a hand in Melanie’s direction. “She just told me she loved me.”
So he had heard her.
The officer leaned slightly to peer into the car. Hot in the face, Melanie offered him a little wave.
“Does your daddy know who you’re dating?” the man asked.
Her slight embarrassment turned into heated outrage.
“My daddy has no say in who I love,” she snapped.
Gabe giggled and pressed the backs of his fingers to his nose. It was a sound Melanie hadn’t realized he could produce, and one she never wanted to hear from him again.
The officer flicked the car’s registration against his thigh. “I’ll just run this to make sure everything checks out and write you a very large ticket. Are you Nicole Swanson, ma’am?”
Melanie shook her head. “No, that’s my roommate. She let me borrow her car because mine’s in the shop.” Technically it was sitting in the parking lot of her apartment building collecting bird poo, which in her opinion was all it was good for at the moment.
The officer returned to his vehicle, and Gabe sat stone still, staring straight ahead as if she were a T-Rex who wouldn’t notice he existed if he didn’t move. Was the thought of her telling him she loved him really that terrible? Did he find her feelings humorous or just pathetic?
“Gabe, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“I feel like my heart is going to explode as it is. If I look at you now, I don’t think I’ll survive.”
“It’s not like I’ve never said it before.”
“But that was after an argument. It doesn’t count.”
What the hell? So when he’d returned her hastily spewed loved confession after their argument about Nikki, he hadn’t meant it? Her heart twisted so hard, she covered her chest with a fisted hand.
“It counted,” she said, her voice tight with a mix of hurt and anger. “Of course it counted. I don’t say such things to every guy who comes along, you know.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “I just . . . I believed it more this time. Last time it felt like we were just trying to soothe wounds inflicted by arguing.”
“So you’re not upset that I said I love you?”
He emitted a slight whine. “Please don’t say it again until we’re alone in a relatively safe location. I’m dying to pull you into my arms and show you that I feel the same way.”
Her heart lightening with relief, eyes brimming with tears of happiness, she said, “I know we were planning to drive the entire way to Topeka in one day, but I’m a bit tired. I think we need to find a nice hotel soon.”
“I’m a bit tired myself.”
“Ten hours is much too long to sit beside you without you buried inside me.”
He cleared his throat and nodded, still not looking at her. “I completely a
gree.”
“Will it be okay for me to say I love you when our bodies are one?”
He bit his fist and groaned.
She laughed. “I do love you, Gabe Banner.”
He turned in his seat to check out the state trooper behind them. The officer sure was taking his sweet time.
“How big will my ticket be if I leave for the nearest hotel right now?”
She slid a hand over his thigh to nestle between his legs. Though she wasn’t close to touching his cock, he squirmed beneath her touch.
