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“What if I need another date?” I stare through the windscreen, wondering what the fuck I’ve just said.
“I can’t give you that,” she says with a gentle sadness, but when I flick my eyes to her, I find her smiling still.
We pull up to the estate, and I turn off the engine. “I only want to know who you are, Scarlet. I want to know more before I take you to bed—and don’t ask me why. I tried to figure it out all afternoon while you slept.”
“You don’t know why? I’m wounded.”
If I could return her smile, I would. But I’m hanging on by a thread, not knowing if I should walk away and leave her alone or pull her over my lap and fuck her senseless.
She sighs, mistaking my silence for something else. “I guess the men in my life haven’t always been the most reliable. I know it might seem unfair, but right now, while Dad is so sick and with what’s to come when he eventually gets his transplant, I can’t commit to something more. Even a date. We barely know each other, and I don’t have the time to get to know you. It seems like messy territory, throwing feelings around.”
Her dad drank from when she was just a kid, and then Mase left her to deal with everything that followed alone. That shit’s bound to change you. She’s hurting, even now.
And fuck if that doesn’t make my head spin.
My nostrils flare as I look back at her.
Reaching out, I cup her face, lifting her chin up so she can see my eyes fully when I say, “What if I said I won’t let you down? What if I swear it? One date. If I lose interest, I’ll be honest with you. I’ll fuck off and leave you alone. But I won’t disappear before you give me a chance.”
The need to have this woman in my bed, locked in my penthouse barefoot and in my arms long after dark, it’s toxic. Because there’s nothing, not a damn fucking thing I wouldn’t do to get her there.
Her eyes dart between my own, the hopefulness on her face making my heart pound. I wet my bottom lip. “I won’t disappear on you, Scar.”
Her head tilts as her eyes narrow, but then she leans in, shocking me as she softly and quickly kisses me. “You get one more date,” she whispers.
I can’t help my grin.
She rolls her eyes, turning to sit square in her seat.
One more date.
I don’t know what I’m playing at, but as I reach out and grasp the back of her neck, pulling her to me so I can kiss her properly, nothing has felt so good in a long time.
“I’m going to date the fuck out of you, Scarlet Lowell.”
She smiles against my mouth, but I don’t let her go, needing more.
When I ease back, dipping to her neck, kissing the length of her throat, she buries her fingers in my hair and forces my head up.
“Can I show you something?”
I nod. “Show me everything.”
THIRTEEN
Scarlet
I won’t disappear on you, Scar.
And my needy little heart beat for it. Begged me, even, to open up a little and let him fill the cracks.
I’m not sure how he knew, but with one dinner and a car ride home, Lance found a way to call out the darkest parts of me, smothering my biggest fears with promises he shouldn’t be making.
I can’t even imagine having someone I trust wholeheartedly to be there for me, and I’d be a fool to assign that task to a man I barely know—a man like Lance Sullivan. But maybe having someone to get lost in right nowiswhat I need.
After today, a date doesn’t feel as impossible as it did when I left him in bed yesterday morning.
“You’re not leading me to my death, are you, Lowell?”
