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CHAPTER12
“I’m not normal.”Lacy’s words were so soft Jonah almost didn’t hear them. She’d been a little wobbly and quiet as they made their way out of the club and back to their apartment building. Currently they rode in the elevator and she leaned into his side against the backwall.
Lifting his arm, he slid it around her shoulders and pulled her tighter against his side. “Normal is highly overrated.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to hook up.” She tilted her face up to his. “Forget hooking up. I don’t even date. I just sit back and dream about dating. I’m thinking normal would at least be dating.”
He stroked his finger over her shoulder and upper arm, lost in his thoughts, enjoying the warm, smooth feel of her skin. Was Lacy normal? No, and thank God for that. If she’d been normal, he never would have left his room after meeting her. He would have avoided her like she carried the plague.
She shivered against him and he met her gaze. Her pupils were dilated and her lips parted. Her cheeks heated. Her lips were so near he could easily close the distance between them. His lips would be against hers and. . . .
Everything would be over. He wasn’t the right man for her. Neither was Logan but definitely not Jonah. Jonah would ruin her worse than the asshole frat boy had. Because he would leave. He always did. It was all he knew how to do. He’d never stayed anywhere long enough to be someone’s. He was untethered.
Sure, he wanted to stay and had even committed to stay this time, but things could change. He hadn’t even been able to commit to an apartment for a year. Which was why he sublet instead of leasing.
“If you want to date, then date.” Lord knows it would help Jonah to stop obsessing over her if she was some other guy’s girl.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
The elevator stopped and they got off and walked to the door.
“I’m not like you guys.” Lacy slipped her shoes off inside the door and headed to the refrigerator. “I can’t just go up to a guy and flirt. I can’t just start a conversation with someone. I have these ridiculous crushes on guys who would never actually want me.”
She pulled out a bottle of water and downed about half of it. “I didn’t learn how to flirt with guys in a normal way. You want to know what I did last weekend?”
Jonah moved to the table and took a seat. She didn’t need him to answer. He just waited.
“I stayed at home and googled how to flirt with a guy. All because my best friend who has put up with my weird-ass obsessions told me to shit or get off the pot. Finally do something to get Logan to notice me as not his fucking little sister but as a grown-ass woman.”
She drank more of the water. His little bird had her feathers ruffled and needed to let everything out. It had to be hard to watch the guy she liked go off with another woman when she’d done everything to make herself available to him.
“You know what was so hilarious tonight?” She didn’t look like she was about to laugh or even allow him time to answer. “Kiss, marry, fuck.”
She started pacing.
He leaned back in his chair. Logan had pissed him off during the game. But Jonah hadn’t misstepped or lied. Honestly he didn’t want Claire or Phoebe. The only woman he wanted to kiss and fuck stood in front of him, ranting about another man. Saying he wanted to fuck her hadn’t been just about helping her out. Even though he hoped it would help Lacy’s case to be seen as someone desirable to that fuckwad Logan. In the end, it was all Jonah could think about when she was near.
Of course, he’d been only partially surprised when Lacy had put him in the fuck category, but he could follow her logic. One didn’t tell a fuckboy they would want to fuck him if that wasn’t what she wanted from him.
Lacy had been occupied drinking more water. “Sure, there are guys I’d want to marry or kiss, but how should I know about fucking?”
Not where he thought she was going with this. He leaned forward and listened.
“I’ve never even had a boyfriend. In high school, my brothers scared everyone away. Not that many were looking. Chet went from zero to sixty so I didn’t even get to do the whole courtship rituals with the one guy I slept with. I thought it was great because it finally meant this one must love me, right? In my messed-up brain, sex equaled love. And all that other stuff would come afterwards because he would want to be with me.”
She stopped and finished the rest of the water, throwing the bottle in the recycle bin.
“Instead I’m left wondering what I did wrong. That maybe somehow I’m defective because the one guy in my history of crushes only wanted me one time. I don’t even know if I did it right. There’s obviously a right way to do it right. Right?”
She swung around until her gaze landed on him. His breath caught at the determination in her eyes. Fuck, he wanted her.
“You.” She pointed and started toward him.
He took a breath. “Me.”
“You obviously know what the hell you’re doing. I mean, I wasn’t even involved when you had sex and felt something, which is more than I can say about that bastard Chet.”
Fuck. He shouldn’t be getting turned on by Lacy at this particular moment, but even before she said she “felt something,” his dick had hardened. Her skirt swung with every dramatic turn. Her hair was off her shoulders, falling down her back, and he couldn’t help himself from wondering how responsive she would be to his touch. She had shivered when his leg brushed against hers. What would happen if he kissed her?
