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“What did I say about putting yourself down? I was only joking, Rory. You don’t need my help to shock the world.”
She glides her finger around the rim of her glass.
With the dark of the forest behind her, and with so many lights surrounding us, it seems like she’s glowing.
She looks like a damn angel. Cheesy or not, it’s the truth.
“So I’ll ask you again, what are you basing that on?”
“Are you getting feisty with me?” I tease.
Her face lights up, her cheeks glowing as a flush spreads partway down her neck. I love how expressive her body is, as though there’s a force within her trying to speak to me. And even if that thought should make me laugh in disbelief, the effect is exactly the opposite…
It makes me burn with ironclad certainty, with the absolute unwavering conviction that her body wants to give me a family as hungrily as I need to fuck one into her.
Which is dangerous.
Just because I feel it, it doesn’t make it true.
“Feisty?” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t know if I’m capable of that. But I think it’s a fair question.”
“It’s the passion you showed me when I asked about your book,” I tell her. “There was something in your voice, like a flame, a spark… something. It’s the same passion I heard many times during my years in the SEALs. The men who showed it were always the ones who performed the best, even if they showed it in their own gruff ways, nothing like how cute and excitable you get.”
Her blush deepens and she looks down at her food, cutting her steak slowly and methodically as though it’s easier than looking at me.
“Plenty of people are passionate. It doesn’t mean I’ll become a bestselling writer.”
“I believe in you,” I say sharply. “I’ll always believe in you. Even if you don’t believe in yourself.”
I need to be careful using words like always. As far as she’s concerned, this date is nothing more than an expansion on the lust I elucidated in my letter. She doesn’t know about my primal compulsion to make her mine, to claim her, and start a family.
And how can she?
It’s not like I can tell her, especially not before we’ve explained to Rick…
But then, wouldn’t it be an easier pill for Rick to swallow if he knew that my intentions were to be with her, truly be with her, and not just use her and let her go?
“Bennet, where do you keep drifting off to?” Rory murmurs. “It’s like you’re disappearing.”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter.
She nods knowingly. “It’s dad, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. But I don’t want to ruin our first date. I guess I’m just logistically minded. I blame my work. I’m trying to work out how we can tell him without him completely losing his shit. I mean, hell… our plan has failed, hasn’t it, the one where we said we’d figure out if we really cared about each other?”
“I never believed in that plan, to begin with.”
“Neither did I,” I tell her passionately. “I've been obsessed with you for a year. I’ve wanted you with even more fire every second since I read your letter. I knew that having a date with you wouldn’t lessen any of that. But we’re also in a bind here, Rory. Family is the most important thing.”
She glances at me, down at her plate and then back at me… and then down at her plate again.
“What is it?” I urge.
“I’m just thinking about something dad said a few months ago. Ever since we almost kissed, I’ve been thinking about you a lot too.”
I smirk like an idiot. “Are you trying to give me a big head?”
She laughs. “I don’t care if I do give you a big head. It’s the freaking truth. I’ve been thinking about you nonstop, so every now and then I’d talk to dad about you, you know, in a sort of roundabout way…”
“Okay,” I say, wondering where this is going.
“A few months ago I asked him about your family. And he…”
“Let me guess,” I say, as a darkness comes over me. “He refused to say anything. He said it wasn’t his place.”
She bites her lip, making me forget about the past and the emotional turbulence for a second. All that exists is my picture-perfect woman, trapping me with her unique combination of nervousness and confidence, my Lorelei.
“Yeah,” she says after a pause. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I’d like to get to know you. You know pretty much everything there is to know about me.”
“Why now?” I ask.
She shrugs, her breasts shifting, my fingers twitching as I repress the urge to reach across and touch them. “It was the look you got in your eyes when you said that family is the most important thing. I don’t know… it was like there was extra significance there or something.”
