“Because if you’re here, you’re with me.”
“Like a sponsorship thing?”
When my parents joined their country club, an existing member had to sponsor them. If there were so many hoops to jump through to play boring golf at an overpriced facility, I was betting the ones for Gilded were a lot more extensive.
Not that it mattered. I didn’t have the money to throw away on a membership I doubted I had the nerve to use.
“No,” he said, cutting off my racing thoughts. “Withme. You want to explore, you’ll do it with me.”
“Why?” I asked, taken off guard by his demand.
But smart enough not to read too much into it.
Maybe if I hadn’t been fucked over by the two men who’d meant the most to me, I might’ve let myself hope there was more behind his words. But my first thought was that he was fucking with me and was going to burst out laughing. He wasn’t a dick, though, so it wasn’t that. My second thought was more accurate.
Tripp was being his usual thoughtful self—albeit in averydifferent way. “Gilded isn’t the kind of place you dive into with a stranger. It should be someone you trust.” He paused, the silence heavy before he added, “Unless you have someone else in mind.”
I shook my head, too distracted to be self-conscious about my lack of options.
“It wouldn’t matter if you did, but good to know there’s one less obstacle.”
I’d only been with one man, but it wasn’t out of some misplaced sense of morality. I’d just always been too busy to dip into the casual dating pool during my off-again stints with Josh. But that didn’t mean that I thought sex required any prerequisites of emotion.
Tripp was proposing something physical. Scratching an itch. Lending a hand—or tongue or different appendage—to a friend.
A naughty mentorship.
It was a tempting offer, and it took every ounce of willpower in my body to shake my head—and not just because his firm hold made it difficult. “That’s not a good idea.”
“I think it’s the best fucking idea I’ve ever had.”
My body agreed.
Too bad for it, my brain was busy having a crisis.
And then he can see how boring I am? How basic? He’ll know that I’m not leather or lace.
I’m cotton.
Boring, breathable cotton.
Making a fool of myself in front of a stranger would be bad enough, but in front of Tripp? I wouldn’t be able to face him again. I would have to quit, and I didn’t want to do that. I liked my job.
I liked him.
Clearly too much since I was still standing there when I should’ve been walking back to Golden where I belonged.
Somehow, he read the panic that I was usually an expert at hiding. “Tell me what just went through your head.”
“Just that this is a bad idea, like I said.”
Moving his hands to span my waist, his fingers dug in. Not painfully, but also notnotpainfully. That should’ve increased my panic. Or made me mad. At the very least, I should’ve been trying to extricate myself from his hold and that building.
But I wasn’t.
I stayed in place as he bit out, “Don’t lie to me, Greer. Why do you look ready to run?”
“I don?—”
