Page 7 of She's Like the Wind

Sexy.

“You came to tell me it was over, and I’m….” She paused and took a deep breath. “And I’m just pre-empting that.” She chuckled. “So, I can pretend to hold on to my pride.”

Her candor, as always, undid me. She was honest about how she felt and who she was.

It was enchanting.

“Maybe I’m not here to say it’s over,” I taunted.

I didn’t want us to be over. I wanted to spend time with her, be with her, just keep doing what we were.

Why the fuck did she have to say those blasted three words and ruin the best fucking casual affair I’d ever had?

Her eyes widened. “You’re not?”

“Let’s forget what you said and move past that, yeah?”

She gave me a perplexed look.

“We can just keep doing what we were.”

She looked confused now, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Gage,” she whispered. “I’m in love with you, baby.”

The words struck me like a hammer. Stole my breath away.

“You don’t love me,” I remarked flippantly. “You’re just infatuated with my dick and started to make up?—”

“Gage, I know who I am,” she cut me off, her voice gentle. “I know how I feel. I know you know that too, which is why you”—her breath hitched—“brought a date to Maison after ignoring me for two days.”

She bit her bottom lip, eyes clouded.

My eyes lingered on her as my mind searched forthe right response. “Baby, I never said we were exclusive.”

Her eyes gentled as she looked at me. “I know.” Her head moved in a slow, solemn nod. “Ah…were you before? Did you that night?” She swallowed, and I saw it—the agony in her eyes as she waited for me to respond.

“What is it that you want me to say?” I demanded, letting irritation ride me.

Why was she complicating this shit?

Fuck this!No woman was worth all this drama.

She lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture. “The truth. Were you sleeping with other people while we were…you know…together?”

“Baby, you and I had a thing; we werenottogether…and as I said before, it wasn’t exclusive.”

Her eyes filled with emotion. I wanted to scream at her for being so naïve, for having feelings for an asshole like me—for letting me see how I affected her.

Didn’t she have any sense of self-preservation?

“So…that woman at Maison…she wasn’t the first,” she said as if she were talking to herself.

I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. “Didn’t fuck anyone else while I was with you, baby. But that was just something that happened; it doesn’t mean shit.”

I didn’t want her to get ideas, but I also didn’t want her to think that I was screwing around on her.

When the hell would I have done that? I was with her nearly every night, and we had sex at night and inthe morning—how much stamina did the woman think I had?