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“I’m so sorry.”
“You spend way too much time apologizing to me.”
“Because I keep saying and doing stupid things.” She sniffed before shaking her head and holding up a finger. “No, don’t argue.”
Spencer hid a grin at that, since he’d had absolutely no intention of arguing. He said nothing, wanting her to do the talking for now.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I felt bad about what happened in the car tonight. I don’t think you’re dumb. If anything, I’m a little jealous because you did the whole college thing and made something of yourself. I’m such a loser. Same dead-end job for sixteen years, moving from one crappy failed relationship to the next. I mean, I lived with my parents up until a year ago, for God’s sake.”
“You moved from store clerk to manager. I wouldn’t call that a dead-end job,” he reminded her, and she laughed bitterly.
“Please, if I took my credentials elsewhere, they’d laugh at me. The only reason I got that promotion was because nobody else stuck around as long as I did. I know how the business works. And instead of taking the time to find, and possibly train, a new manager, Alison”—her boss—“just slapped the label onto me and barely increased my salary to reflect the title. And the worst of it is . . . I hate my job. I hate the sight of that store every morning, hate the smell of it, the very thought of it. But I have no idea how to do anything else.”
“Why did you kiss me?”
“I thought it was what you wanted,” she whispered, the words timid.
“Was it what you wanted?”
Her eyes widened a little, as if his words shocked her. “I don’t . . . I think . . . if you wanted it, then I wanted it.” That answer was so fucked-up on so very many levels, and it pissed him off beyond reason. He fought hard to hide his flare of temper from her and took a deep, fortifying breath before he trusted himself to speak again.
“Yes, but was it what you wanted?”
“I think so.”
“Daff, it’s a straightforward question, requiring a yes or no answer.”
“Didn’t you want to kiss me?” Again in that tiny, timid voice that was so unlike the brash, outspoken Daff he knew.
“Why is this so hard for you?” he asked, confused, and her eyes welled with tears.
“I don’t know if I wanted to kiss you, I just felt that I should. It’s what you do when you like someone. Right?”
“No, it’s not,” he corrected. “You talk with them, get to know them, you decide if you really like them, and then, when you’re absolutely convinced that you can’t take another breath without feeling their mouth on yours, that’s when you kiss them.”
“What about chemistry? What if you just know?”
“And did you? Just know? Is that why you kissed me? Because you just knew you had to?”
Her brow furrowed, and she looked completely confused.
“You’re complicating this. It was just a kiss, for God’s sake,” she said with some of her old spark. “Why do you have to overthink things like this? Why can’t we just be in the moment and share a kiss?”
“Because we weren’t just in a moment. You showed up at my house at two thirty in the morning, soaking wet, rambling on about liking me, and then you planted your mouth on mine in the most desperate excuse of a kiss I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience.”
“You liked it, I know you did. You were hard!”
“Physically, yes, but emotionally it left me stone cold, because it felt . . . frantic and forced.”
“What kind of man is ruled by his emotions when his cock is hard?”
“Clearly not any kind of man you’ve ever been with.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her voice strained and the tears now flowing freely. He knew that acknowledging them, or hugging her close the way he was desperate to, would be met with rejection. So even though it was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, he ignored them.
“It means that I’m not like the assholes you’ve been with before, Daff. You want to kiss me, you’d better fucking mean it. You’d better want it with everything in you, because I’ll want every part of you. Body and soul.”
“What is it with guys?” The words practically exploded from her, rife with frustration and . . . fear? “Why do you all feel the need to own me?”
Whoa.
“That’s not what I meant,” he corrected calmly. “I’m talking about you opening up and willingly sharing those parts of yourself. Not demanding ownership of your body and mind.”
“I fail to see the difference.”
“There is one, a big one.”
“Oh, do elaborate,” she invited him sarcastically. She was definitely getting her spark back, and it relieved him.
“You’d have every part of me, too. Body and soul.”
