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“I’d say the key words there are ‘between the legs’ and ‘run.’ If you asked me, it sounds like your heart knows exactly what you want.”
I opened my mouth and shook my head. “You’re exhausting.”
“You’ve done nothing but try to get rid of me since we met. What other option do I have, Elizabeth?”
I folded my arms. We’d reached the fence and the elephant was looming beside us. It took all my energy not to look up at the animal in wonder. Instead, I focused on Travis and tried to stay mad. “There’s one super obvious, very easy option coming to my mind. Give up.”
He looked like he was about to object, then he flashed a deprecatory smile. “That’s fair. But I like you, and I have a hard time letting the things I like go.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Which part?”
“Why would you like me?”
“Because I have a talent for seeing people. You may not want to show it, but I can see there’s more to you. You’re like the big present under the tree wrapped tight. Of course I want to unwrap you.”
“You will do no such thing.” I hated that I kept feeling my cheeks burn when he said things like that. It was just biological, though. Despite his many faults, the man was unnaturally attractive and disarming.
He chuckled. “Emotionally, Elizabeth. I want to get to know you. Find out what makes you tick. Your favorite flavor of ice cream, what movies you like, the first time you got your heart broken. Yada yada.”
“I’m not sure I feel comfortable with the way you looked at me when you said, ‘yada yada’.”
He bit back a smile. “Was it the part where I looked at you like this?” he mockingly bit the corner of his lip and narrowed his eyes a little, tilting his head as he sex glared me into oblivion. It was supposed to be a joke, but there was nothing funny about how good the damn man looked.
I swallowed, then pretended to scratch my nose so he wouldn’t see my mouth twitching as I fought back a smile. “Are we here to see elephants, or is it so you can stand around looking ridiculous in that pink poncho?”
He popped the hood of his poncho up and nodded. “Let’s get dirty.”
I shook my head and followed after him. We walked along the fence to a little building near a large gated section. I noticed the little elephant lumbered after us, following along on its side of the fence like it wanted to keep up with Travis.
My brain was nagging me all the while because I knew I could’ve avoided all of this if I really wanted to. The way he worded his “promise” to leave me alone was so obviously strategic it was laughable. He knew it and I knew it. But I was only here because I still needed to figure out how to break things off in a way that wouldn’t make me look worse than I already did in front of my mother. She believed I was in a relationship. Shockingly, she didn’t just believe it, she was thrilled by it. I also needed to figure out a plausible reason to tell her I’d broken things off with a man I was just telling her I was moving in with.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy having my mother’s approval for once, even if it was under false pretenses.
But I was still planning to end this thing once the opportunity came. Somehow.
10
TRAVIS
Inch by inch, Elizabeth forgot to be a grouch with a stick up her finely sculpted ass. The keepers came out and guided us through the routine as we fed carrots to the elephants, posed for a picture together sitting on the thigh of a kneeling elephant, watched one paint us an abstract picture with its trunk, and eventually took them into the huge barn to hose them off. Elizabeth giggled—not laughed—when the elephant raised its trunk in front of the hose and started gulping up the water she was trying to spray it off with.
The whole ordeal took about forty minutes, and by the time we were done, Elizabeth seemed to have temporarily forgotten she wasn’t supposed to smile.
We walked back to the car with our dirty ponchos under our arms and she was still grinning a little. We stopped at the passenger side of my little car, and she took one longing look back toward where three elephants were watching us go.
“Is this where you demand I admit I had fun?” she asked.
“No. I’m not looking for a gotcha. I just wanted to get to know you a little better.”
“How many girls do you bring here? This whole thing is like a routine for you, right? The bulletproof method to win over any woman in the world, or something?”
