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For a moment in time they were isolated from kids who spilled things, dogs that peed on rugs, and the truth of the world in which they lived. Addy didn’t think about her past or her future. Just the sensuous, enjoyable present in Lucas’s arms.
And she loved every precious second of lying beside him, discussing favorite TV shows, the best New Orleans restaurants, and the places he’d traveled and photographed. She’d never had a better first date, but then again, she’d never spent an entire first date naked either.
But eventually they rose and tugged on the clothes Addy had scooped up on her return back to the room.
Lucas tossedSurrender to Meonto the bed. “No more Sophie, Sheriff Cade McGarrity, and hot Texas sex.”
“This had nothing to do with a book,” she teased, running a brush through her hair.
“So why do you read this stuff? It’s almost silly. No man says that when he’s coming,” Lucas said, tapping the book as he reached for his shirt.
“It’s not silly. It’s about two people falling in love. And you may not yell what Cade yells when you come, but you did say some pretty sweet things in my ear.” She smiled, pulling her hair into a low ponytail.
“You believe love like in those books is real?” His question was a crack of the gun. Heavy. Serious.
She jerked her head. “Don’t you?”
“What’s written between those pages is a woman’s fantasy. The whole concept of romantic love is flawed and overrated. Those feelings Sophie and Cade have is a lust thing. Sex. Not love.”
She snapped the elastic in place on her shoulders. “Is that what this is between us? Two people acting on lust?”
Lucas stilled, and she could see on his face he didn’t know what to say. A cornered dog didn’t look as scared as Lucas did at the moment. “Uh, I’m sure whatever my answer is it won’t be right.”
“No, I want to know. I can’t imagine someone not believing in love.”
Lucas glanced away. “I believe in love, but not the whole true love, one person for one person, meant to be kind of crap. That doesn’t exist inmybook. Maybe at one time I thought it did, but I think I forced that feeling.”
“So your parents aren’t in love? Ben and Courtney? Millions around the world? They’re all duped?”
He glanced away. “I don’t know. I’m not them.”
“Hmm,” she said, studying him in the fading light of the afternoon. Lucas looked spooked.
He tugged on the cowboy boots he’d kicked in the corner. “Honestly, I haven’t thought about this much. I haven’t had to.”
“Oh,” she said, tossing her brush on the dresser. “I have thought about it. I’ve always believed one day love would find me, and I would just know. I’ve never pushed it, and if I never found it, I suppose I would be okay, but I always thought one day love would walk in.”
His eyes met hers, and something moved between them. Addy didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was something. And it worried her because she’d never thought that once love found her, the feeling wouldn’t be returned.
“We better get downstairs. I think I heard a car in the drive.” He scooped up his hat and shot out her bedroom door like a scalded cat.
“Chicken,” she called, trying to find the lightness that had briefly fled. She shouldn’t have pressed him. Wasn’t any of her business what he believed.
“You know it,” he yelled back, his boots thumping down the stairs.
He didn’t believe in love.
Or did he?
Cryptic answer from a forthright man. But should it matter to her?
No.
But it did because she’d started falling toward love with a man who said he’d never go there.
Sure, he’d murmured he’d never felt the way he felt about her, but how did he truly feel?
If it wasn’t love and wasn’t lust… then what the hell was it?
