He let go of his cock. “What don’t you get?”
“You want me?”
He lifted one eyebrow and pointed to his flag flying at full staff. “Cariña, isn’t that obvious?”
“No.” She shook her head firmly, looking so adorably ferocious that he had the strangest urge to boop her on her button nose. And then, you know, fuck her. “Because if you wanted me, if you really wanted me, you wouldn’t have said what you did.”
His eyebrows pinched together. “What did I say?”
“That I’m nothing you need and you aren’t anything I should want.”
He waved a blithe hand through the salt-tinged air. He would swear the sun dappling down through the trees overhead heated her flesh until he could smell the subtle scent of her lotion. A smell that always reminded him of money and class and sweet, soft Mia. “I stand by that statement.”
“I—” She stopped and glared at him, looking like she suddenly wanted to reposition his nose onto his forehead. “Are you being intentionally obtuse or are you trying to make me so confused I tear my hair out?”
“We’ve already established that I really like your hair, so I’d say—”
“Spiro!” She threw her hands in the air, her cheeks flaming with irritation.
As much as he fought to keep the satisfied smile off his face, he couldn’t help himself. His name on her lips was everything. “Yes, Mia?” he asked innocently.
“Don’t bat your lashes at me.” She pointed at him, and he was careful to stop blinking at all. “And put away your dimples while you’re at it,” she grumbled, and he sucked in his cheeks.
He knew he must look ridiculous. But he could tell she was mollified because she gave a quick, satisfied dip of her chin.
“Now explain yourself,” she demanded. “Explain how you can claim to want me, but also think I’m nothing you need and you’re not anything I should want.”
“That’s easy. I want you because you’re sweet and smart and sneakily funny. But mostly because you’re sexy as hell.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he shoved a finger over her lips. Her hot breath bathed his skin and his cock lurched behind his fly as if it thought to replace his finger with itself.
The imagery that brought to mind made him ache so badly, his eyes nearly crossed.
He had to clear his throat to continue. “If I take my finger away, do you swear to be quiet and let me finish?”
Indecision made her hesitate. For a woman who chose to remain quiet so often, she sure seemed to have a hard time keeping her mouth shut when she had something to say.
Eventually she nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s try this again. I want you because you’re amazing and sexy as hell. But your phone battery lasts longer than my relationships. Which is why I’m not anything you should want. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I don’t want you to be one of them. I like you, Mia. More than that, I care about you and respect you as a person and a friend. If I hurt you, that would be a scar I carried forever. Which is why you’re not anything I need.”
Proud of himself for how eloquently he’d framed his explanation, he couldn’t help adding, “See? Simple.”
He expected her to say something along the lines of Oh! Yeah. That makes total sense. So he was a little perplexed when she just continued to blink at him.
Eventually, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said slowly, “Let me see if I have this right. You want me. But you won’t act on it because you’re bad at relationships and—”
“Not bad at them,” he cut in. “I just don’t do them.”
She rubbed her temple. He wasn’t sure if that was a step up or a step down from fiddling with her earrings. “Okay. So you want me, but you won’t act on it because you don’t do relationships. And because you don’t do relationships, you think I’ll get hurt. Have I got the gist of it?”
He nodded. “Told you it’s simple.”
Her snort was delightfully unladylike. But there was nothing delightful about her next words. “Wow. Too bad you can’t count jumping to conclusions as exercise. If you could, you’d be able to skip a week’s worth of workouts.”
The look he shot her said he heard her sarcasm. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you assume I want a relationship.”
His chin yanked back so hard he was surprised it didn’t hit his chest. “Don’t you?”
“No!”
He didn’t realize his mouth had slung open until a gnat buzzed by. Slamming his jaws shut, he shook his head and stared at her in disbelief.
Despite her current vagabond lifestyle, she’d always struck him as the type of woman who’d settle down someday. Probably with a history professor who wore tweed and drank fine Scotch and golfed on the weekends. They’d live in Chicago, have two kids—a boy and a girl—and raise them in one of those old three-flats the city was known for.
She’d still go on excavations, of course. And in the summers, Mr. Tweed and the two rugrats would join her in faraway lands where they would eat exotic foods and learn a little of the local languages.
He’d seen it all so clearly in his mind’s eye.
How could I have been so wrong?
Then it occurred to him...
Maybe I’m not wrong. Maybe when she says she doesn’t want a relationship, she doesn’t mean ever. She just means with me.
The thought shouldn’t bother him. It shouldn’t; he’d just admitted he didn’t do relationships. So why did he suddenly feel like someone had stabbed him in the heart with a fixed blade KA-BAR?
Yet again, she proved when it came to assuming things he really did make an ass out of himself, because she added, “Not every woman dreams of the wedding and the husband and the house in town with two point three kids running around. You get that, right? You get that it’s not 1950?”
“Alex says the new statistic is actually one point nine kids.”
“Hear that?” She cupped her hand around her ear. “It’s me not caring because that’s not my point.”
Had he really thought discovering her salty wit and dry sense of humor was more exciting than unearthing long lost treasure?
I take it back, he thought irritably.