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Here I’d acted as if she was going to fuck up my life by moving in next door, and now I’d clearly fucked up hers. Somehow. I mean, beyond the obvious of bringing her to Lookout Point for a quick fuck when she deserved so much more than that.
Stiffening my shoulders, I moved back to my truck and yanked open the driver’s door, bracing myself for whatever I might see inside.
Instead of the quiet, shellshocked, nearly motionless Vanessa I’d walked away from, she was dressed in her shirt and mine was tossed carelessly on the driver’s seat. And she was scrolling on her phone, cackling as if nothing had happened.
“Bet he got an eyeful, huh? Depending on how he liked the view, that might help me with my backlog of tickets. Or not. I’m not exactly my sister in the nature’s bounty department.” When I didn’t respond, she glanced up. “Cat got your tongue, GQ?”
I climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door, then gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead at the lake, shimmering with moonlight in the dark.
As much as I was tempted to rush home to the dogs, I couldn’t leave Vanessa on her own after whatever had happened. And if I let her stay closed down like this, I had no illusions I’d ever be able to pry open the locks on her vault again.
If I even could now.
“Tell me what happened.” I kept my voice soft and forced myself to relax my grip on the wheel.
“What happened? Pretty sure we did the deed and the angels sang and then we got busted.” Her casual tone rankled. “What’s your take?”
“My take is that more was going on than you admitted.”
“Oh, really? As if you coming in my bare pussy in a town like Crescent Cove isn’t plenty enough.” She tossed her phone on the dashboard with a snap of her wrist.
I shut my eyes. I’d kinda forgotten that part in all the rest. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean for any of this.”
“Yeah, well, don’t sweat it. After you drop me at my vehicle, I’ll stop at the drugstore and make sure we’re all good.”
“What?” I stared at her. “What does that mean?”
Her laughter was too high-pitched. “Haven’t you ever heard of a morning-after pill?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” I repeated flatly. “No pills. Nothing like that. If we made—”
“Ifwemade anything, it won’t be us handling it, so you don’t get to decide. I need to get a damn pill.”
“Look, it’s your choice. I’m not saying it isn’t.”
“Thanks so very much.”
Fighting the instant panic boiling in my gut, I rushed on. “But I told you I’d stand up. I’m not that guy, Van. I don’t know who did you wrong in the past, but I swear to you, I’m not like that. I didn’t intend to have sex with you tonight when I left my apartment, but somehow we went to that place. Probably when you messed up my head with all that worried about me crap. And you’re so fucking beautiful and sexy and you make me stupid.”
When she cut me a sharp glance, I took a breath. “Correction: I make myself stupid from wanting you. It’s not your fault. This is my fucking fault, and I take full responsibility.”
“Oh, stop it already. You didn’t do anything that horrible. We were horny and forgot where we were for a few minutes. Not like plenty of other people haven’t done exactly the same.”
I didn’t say anything. Just like with Christian, I didn’t want any free passes. Tonight I was more than willing to marinate in my mistakes.
“Did that fucker give you a ticket?”
“I wanted him to, but no.”
“What?” She let out a laugh. “You wanted a ticket?”
“It’s my fa—”
“Maverick McNeill, you need to stop. Taking responsibility is sexy as fuck, gotta say, but it’s only words until your actions back them up.”
