Page 26

“No, I’m good.”
Sports talk droned in the background on the TV, giving me something to think about rather than the tension between us.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked, pushing his cleaned plate away.
I gripped my beer and lifted it toward my lips. “Sure.”
“Why are you still single?”
Snorting around my mouthful of beer, I set the bottle back on the table. I forked my last bite of bacon and shoved it into my mouth. “I get bored too easily,” I spoke around the food.
“Bored, huh?”
“Yep.”
“If that’s the case, the men you’ve been with obviously don’t know what they’re doing.”
I lifted a brow and met his gaze. “Unlike you?”
He grinned, startling butterflies to life in my chest. “I don’t hear too many complaints.”
I smirked but refused to stroke his ego by stating I could imagine he didn’t.
“It’s all about reading your woman. Figuring out her likes and dislikes. Deepest desires and fantasies.”
My brow pulled down for a second. “I’ve never kept a guy around long enough to get into the deep stuff.”
“Why not?”
“They didn’t interest me or were boring as hell.” I shrugged. “I’ve never had a chance to put myself out there like that.” Not that I would if even if given the chance.
“Can’t make a connection if you don’t allow yourself to be vulnerable.”
I eyed him for a few seconds before replying. “I don’t have walls up if that’s what you mean.”
Jarod leaned back in the chair, tipping onto its back legs while eyeing me as though wanting to call me out on my bullshit. “Everyone has walls of some sort, and most can be crumbled in the right circumstances.”
“Reid and Jessie,” I stated.
He nodded.
“It was worth my bonus,” I murmured, thinking about the two of them, the happiness I saw on my friend’s face every day at work.
“Your bonus?”
I shrugged. “I used it to give Jessie that date with him.” I smirked across the table at Jarod. “Originally, I’d planned to spoil myself by booking an evening with you because you’re hella hot, but she needed a night of freedom more than I did your dick. I’d say it all worked out the way it was meant to.”
He once more studied my face with an intensity that made me antsy. “That was a very unselfish thing to do.”
“Meh.” I brushed off his words of praise. “She’s one of my best friends and never got to experience freedom or a good time thanks to her ex. A person has to live. Do all the things so there are no regrets. You could be in the basement switching your laundry and get trapped by fire—” I cut off and swallowed hard before forcing a fake-as-shit smile.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I managed, still trying for brightness I did not feel.
“That was too specific, and the hurt in your eyes is making my chest ache.” Dark orbs filled with empathy peered at me, further tightening my throat.
Only a handful of people knew what had happened to my mom, but for some reason, I found myself wanting him to understand why I chose to live the way I did when seconds earlier I’d been locked up like a clam. Perhaps it was the softness in Jarod’s eyes. Maybe it had been the way he peered into my soul in those moments after we’d climaxed together. We had been bound up in an emotional connection I didn’t know how to name.