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Not a single lie had passed his lips. Even so, he ought to correct her, but the flare of jealousy he’d unintentionally provoked proved a little too rewarding.
Her lips hitched into a jaded smile. “Last night suddenly makes a lot more sense.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You showed up out of the blue, crashed my party, and fucked my brains out. Now I know why.”
He already didn’t like where this was going. “Lauralie, I don’t know what you think you know, but—”
“You came looking for the time-honored cure for a bruised heart—mind-numbing rebound sex.”
Okay, he should have corrected her. “Last night had nothing to do with rebound sex.” And that’s all he could say, because if he told her last night had been about them, she’d take off so fast she’d leave skid marks on the shoulder of the road.
“Don’t worry.” She patted his arm. “I happen to be a big proponent of mind-numbing sex. I don’t need to complicate things with a bunch of pretty lies. I never have.”
She didn’t have the first clue what the hell she needed. “You’re a cynic.”
Sunlight slanted across her face, turning her eyes to sapphires. “I’m a realist. Do you honestly think most of us are cut out for forever?”
“Yeah. I do.” He reached out and smoothed the little V from between her brows.
“Hmm. Who would have guessed you were such a rosy-eyed romantic.”
“I’m not a rosy-eyed anything. I don’t think it’s easy. From what I can tell, it takes work, and compromise, and”—he laughed at fate’s way of punishing him with this discussion—“a shitload of patience, but I know the meaning of the word commitment, and if I make a one, I stand by it. Forever.”
“I know the perfect girl for you.”
“You think?” He brushed her hair away from her face. Were they about to have an epiphany?
“Yep. Unfortunately she just moved to Maui.”
The near-term choices were let her go or shake some sense into her. He let go. “Chelsea’s a great girl, but she’s not the one for me.”
“Well, I’m going to give you the same advice I gave her before she left.”
“What’s that?”
She wrapped her arms around her body and sat with her back against the door. “Guard your heart. You let people in, and they trash it like a cheap motel room.”
The strength of her belief showed in every stiff line of her body. Not for the first time, he wanted to hunt Denise Peterson down and rail at her for failing to muster up even a basic degree of accountability. Or rail at Lauralie for turning her mother’s shortcomings into a personal philosophy instead of laying them precisely where they belonged—at Denise’s doorstep—and expecting better of herself. But mentioning all the ways she was adopting her mother’s limitations would push her away, and he wanted to reel her in. “You proved my point.”
“What point?”
“You’re the wrong woman for the job. You don’t believe in forever, and you can’t even talk about the possibility without wedging yourself into a corner and getting defensive. You think my mother won’t pick up on this?” He gestured at her. “My mom misses no detail. She’s not going to buy us as a couple.”
Lauralie uncrossed her arms, shook them out, and then tipped her head back, to the left, and the right, working the kinks from her neck. Finally, she looked at him. “Yes, she will.”
“You think you can sell her on us? How?”
“Like this.” She leaned over the center console, sank her fingers into his hair, and fused her mouth to his. Her breasts landed against his chest, and even through two layers of clothes he knew she didn’t have a stitch on under her sweatshirt. He imagined she was equally bare beneath the shorts.
Painful as it was to resist finding out, he fought his way back to the well of restraint he’d drunk from for too many fucking years, because he hadn’t meant to turn this into a sexual challenge. Yes, he wanted her, and yes, less than twenty-four hours ago he’d unapologetically used sex to get her. Last night that move had felt fair. Today, after the universe had conspired to throw her world into a tailspin? Defining fair got much trickier.
Trickier still when she moaned and arched against him, and what started as her trying to prove something turned into her trying to ask for something.
Comfort.
Instead of good tidings, the New Year had rained a shit-storm down on her. She sought shelter. Temporary shelter, granted, but even so he wanted to be the man to give it to her. She’d accept it from him—as long as it took this form. He got a grip on her hips, hauled her onto her knees, and took control of the kiss.
