“Bits and pieces.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things.”
“Is it me? Do you think I’m just using you for sex?”
“If you are, then I’m doing it right back. I mean last night was pretty mutual.”
It wasn’t just what they’d done when they first entered the place, but later in bed.
The two of them never seemed to get enough of each other when they were alone.
As if the week they were pretending it was nothing more than work built their desire to skyscraper peaks and the minute they could do a free fall off the top they were.
“It is, but you didn’t answer me.”
“Since you heard what I said, I might as well tell you it.”
“I’d like that.”
“This is moving fast for me.”
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Too fast?”
“Is it for you?”
“Do you always answer a question with a question?”
“That’s what you’re doing.”
“We could go back and forth like this all day and miss out on the water fun,” he said.
“It’s not fast in a bad way, just a confusing one and that has me concerned. That’s what I was telling my mother. She’s concerned if I am. She doesn’t want to see me get hurt or lose my job.”
That laid it right out there for him.
In the past if any woman he was with talked like this, he sidestepped it and shut it down fast.
With Nora, he couldn’t do that.
Could be because he was feeling it just as equally as she was.
“You’re not going to lose your job. We talked about that.”
“I know. I told her that.”
“And I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I want you to hurt me.”
She laughed. “Now you’re just joking.”
“Why?” he asked seriously. “Because I’m a guy and guys don’t get hurt this early in a relationship? Or is it because I’m a Bond and people think I can do and get what I want and just move on quickly if I lose interest?”
“Sounds as if you’ve heard that a time or two.”
“And then some. But those people don’t know me well. I’d like to think you do.”
“I’m learning, Ethan. But we haven’t known each other that long.”
“Sometimes the time doesn’t matter as much as the quality of time with that person.”
