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“If I had done that I would have kissed you when you were sixteen.”
She blinked. “You would have?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no way that you... You haven’t... You haven’t wanted to kiss me ever since I was sixteen.”
“I first wanted to kiss you when you were sixteen, and I made a decision to just not want to do that afterward. Because you’ve always meant more to me than that. Always. Look, I messed up. Just now. I’d... I couldn’t help it. I saw the way that you... I could see that you were...begging for it.”
“That’s horrible,” she said, frowning deeply. “I don’t want to hear about how you pity kissed me because I looked like I was pleading for it.” She shoved his chest and pushed herself backward. “That’s offensive.”
“It’s not what I meant,” he said, grabbing hold of her arm and stopping her from getting too far away. “You wanted to kiss me.”
“I don’t know what I wanted. You said you wanted to kiss me. So why are you trying to make it... Why are you trying to make it my fault now?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t handle that well. I didn’t like what you said. About me...just doing whatever the hell I want. Because I stopped kissing you, didn’t I? I didn’t want to. I just knew that Ineededto.”
She shivered violently, and he felt a whole load of guilt dump down over the top of him. Dammit.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About everything. But most of all about all of this. Every single thing that I’ve said since I stopped kissing you.”
“You’re supposed to be dating Fia. And I’m engaged to Byron. And this would never have been a good idea, not ever, but it’s a worse idea now.”
He growled out a breath. “It happened. Okay? I wanted to do it. I did it. You’re right. I didn’t think it through.” That was a lie, though. He had thought it through. He had thought about this so many times over the past few years. He had thought about kissing her. He had tried to make himself stop. He had. For the most part. But more and more, he noticed how pretty she was. And...
“Don’t worry about it. It won’t happen again. I’m not going to get in the way of you and Byron,” he said.
“Well, I’m not going to get in the middle of you and Fia.”
He couldn’t care less about Fia.
That made him feel terrible. Made him feel guilty, because he had convinced her to go out with him, and she was an extremely nice woman.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with her. She was beautiful, she was funny, she cooked like a dream. On paper she was everything that he should want, but there was just no spark. He could happily go six months without sex as long as he was dating Fia. Because he wasn’t desperate for her. Not even a little bit. He was... He was...Hell.
“I need to go,” she said. “I’m wet.”
He gritted his teeth and groaned.
“What?” she asked, looking angry.
“You should go,” he said. “Because you’re soaking from the rain, and I can’t listen to you say things like that without... We need to reset. Just go home. I’ll see you later.”
“Okay,” she said, turning and beating a hasty retreat from the barn before realizing that she hadn’t driven.
He walked out after her. “You don’t need to walk all the way home,” he said.
“Yes, I do. It’s fine. I’ll just walk.”
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“It’s not even raining anymore,” she said. “It doesn’t bother me.”
“Dammit, Charity, let me give you a ride home.”
Charity didn’t push him away. They were friends. They were each other’s person. The only person who wasn’t family who was always there for him and now she was pushing him away.
“I don’t want to be in the cab of the truck with you,” she said. “I don’t want to be next to you right now. I need space.”
