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Every possible sexual connotation of that sentence stood up en masse in the middle of Siena’s brain and waived pompons. She stared at him, trying to see if he’d meant to be flirting.
He stared back. God, his eyes were amazing. She would swear their color seemed toswirl. Brown and green and gold, shifting as she watched, different every time he blinked. How could they be real?
They widened, and then they narrowed. “Oh—hey,” he said. “I wasn’t ... that wasn’t a line, the thing about you getting me sweaty. I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry if it came off that way.”
Oh. Right. Well, good. She didn’t want him to flirt with her.
She didn’t. Not at all.
Nope.
With a laugh she’d meant to be carefree but was pretty sure came out in bimbo, she shook her head. “That’s okay. I got what you meant. I ... I don’t know if I want to train now. I just came over to figure out when. Set up a schedule or something.”
“A set schedule might be tough for me. I’m not always sure when I’ve got shit going on. Can we be a little loose with that?”
“Sure. You’re giving me free self-defense lessons, so whenever works for you.”
“Now works okay. At least come back and I’ll show you my setup. It’s not much, but it works for me and’ll probably be okay for both of us.”
“Okay, sure. And we should exchange numbers. You think?”
“Sure.” He crossed to the bar that divided the kitchen from the dining room and picked up his phone. “Here, call yourself.”
She liked that, how he handed her his phone rather than expected her to hand hers over. She keyed her number in and handed it back—and then remembered that she hadn’t brought her phone over. She’d meant this to be a quick hop next door to ask a question.
He slipped his phone into his jeans pocket. “You want to take a look at my home gym? Again, no ulterior motives, I swear.”
His continual insistence that he wasn’t trying to get into her pants was wearing a raw spot on her psyche. “I get it. I don’t think you’re hitting on me. So you don’t have to keep reminding me that you’re not into me.”
Her tone had been a lot more petulant that she’d given it permission to be. She’d been going for wry commentary but instead she’d practically whined.Stupid voice.
His head tipped to the side, and his smile faded. “I’m ... I just want you to feel safe, Siena. I know I’ve fucked up a few times, and I can see you’re uncomfortable, so I’m just trying to make sure you understand you’re safe. Doesn’t have anything to do with whether I’m into you or not.”
Again, she felt mesmerized by the way he was looking at her. Yesterday had been more than a simple reset between them. She had the strong, strange feeling that they’d both somehow beenrebornin each other’s eyes while they’d sat at her flimsy table and talked about basically nothing over Cuban sandwiches and iced tea.
A memory from yesterday rose up and filled her head: when she’d tried to run from here, through the door she’d just come in, and he’d put his hand on it to keep it closed. How he’d insisted that he wanted to help her. The way she’d just ... wilted, and he’d pulled her into his arms and let her rest there.
Then he’d tucked her in for a nap. And then he’d gone out and fixed her car.
God. He was an actually good man, wasn’t he? And she’d been such abitchto him.
“Siena,” his voice was soft, like a gentle nudge. “You’re safe here.”
Swallowing down the balloon of tears that had suddenly inflated in her throat, she nodded. “I know.”
His grin filled his whole face again, all the way to his magical eyes. “Good. You want to see where we’ll train?”
Her heart beating heavily, her stomach quivering, Siena returned that smile with one of her own. “Sure. Lead the way.”
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~oOo~
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He led her to the roomthat, in her house, was her bedroom. If they hadn’t had the conversation they’d just had, and if she’d hadn’t been feeling much warmer toward him in the past couple days, yeah, her alarm bells might have gone off as he brought her into what should have been his bedroom.
But it wasn’t. “You put your home gym in the biggest bedroom?” she asked as she stood in the doorway and surveyed the stack of thick red gym mats, the rack of free weights, and one of those punching things that looked like the top of a mannequin.
