“I don’t want to talk about my mom,” I whispered, turning to look up at him. He stared down at me with that tender expression I’d come to know and love. “Tell me about your ex-girlfriends before I expire of curiosity.”
He flashed me a quick, boyish smile. “What do you want to know?”
“Who they were, what they were like, why it ended?”
Roane shook with laughter. “Not much then?”
“Stop teasing and talk.”
With a melodramatic sigh, he brought the hand not tracing patterns on my skin to rest above his head, as if settling in to tell a tale. “Excluding primary school sweethearts, at high school there was one serious girlfriend. Justine Miller. She lived in Alnwick and was an absolute swot.”
“What’s a swot?”
“Someone that prefers school and learning to socializing. That was Justine. But she was cute and funny, and when she made time for me, I liked being around her.”
“Did you lose your virginity to her?”
“Aye. She actually was the one that pushed for it. She had a thirst for knowledge about everything, including sex. We were fifteen.”
“Wow.” My eyes almost bugged out of my head. “That is young.”
“I suppose. It didn’t seem so to us. We grew up knowing about the mating rituals of animals,” he chuckled. “Sex was always around us.”
“I guess.”
“What age were you?”
“Eighteen. Chace had been pushing for it since we were sixteen, but I wanted to wait. Still pisses me off that he’s the guy who took my virginity.”
“No regrets, Evie. Justine wasn’t the love of my life, but she was my first time. No changing it. And I wouldn’t want to. She’s a piece of my story. Just like Chace is a piece of yours and without him you’d be a slightly altered version of yourself. Who wants that?”
Huh. That was true. “You’re very wise.” I snuggled deeper into him. “Okay, tell me more about your women.”
Roane chuckled. “You speak as if there was a harem of them. There wasn’t. Justine and I broke up just before graduation. Then first year of uni, I met Saskia. She was from Kent and so gorgeous and popular, I judged her as shallow before I really knew her.”
Ugh. She sounded stunning. Her name evoked an image of a tall, tan blonde with feline green eyes. Someone who could play tennis and ski and hobnob with royals.
Jealousy was an ugly creature stirring to life in my chest.
“But . . . well, she fancied me.”
I bet she did.
“And she made it her mission to make me her boyfriend.” There was a tenderness in his voice I didn’t like. “We were different in so many ways, opposites really. But underneath the shallow socialite, there was a loyal girl with a kind heart. Which I broke.” He sighed heavily. “We were together all through university. I’d stayed at her parents’ place during the summer, she’d stayed at mine. But the closer we got to graduation, the more she was talking about us getting engaged and moving to London to work, and I knew that it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to travel, aye, but I think I already knew deep in my heart that I wanted to work the farm. And Saskia wasn’t made to be a farmer’s wife. So, I broke up with her.”
Emotion clogged my throat. When I’d asked Roane to tell me about his past relationships, I honestly hadn’t thought I’d feel so possessive . . . and so ludicrously upset by what he’d had with this Saskia person.
It was silly.
She was an ex for a reason.
“She must have been devastated,” I managed, my voice a little hoarse.
“She might have been but not anymore. She’s engaged to a television producer in London.”
“Was she it or was there anyone else?”
“The last was Chloe. We split two years ago after dating awhile. She wanted to travel, and I wanted to stay put.”
It sounded like neither of the last two relationships had ended because they’d stopped loving each other.
And I had to know. I had to know how he felt about them before I let myself get in any deeper here. I lifted my head to look at him. “Did you love them? Do you still?”
Roane studied the ceiling as he replied, “When I was with them, I thought I did.”
What did that mean? “But you don’t think so now?”
His gaze returned to mine, and my breath caught at the raw emotion in them. His voice was gruff as he replied, “Now I know I didn’t, Evie.”
Nineteen
Without saying those three little words, Roane had just implied them. I was sure of that. Even more so when he rolled into me to make love to me once again.
When his phone rang just as we were snuggling in the aftermath, I insisted he answer, knowing it could be some important issue about the farm. Whoever it was on the end of the line, whatever it was they wanted from him, Roane asked them to “deal with it.”
“I might as well take the rest of the day off,” he said, grinning as he got out of bed. “Now.” He turned to reach for my wrist. “We shower.”
Showering with Roane was the perfect experience to follow an afternoon of sex. As we soaped each other up with his citrusy-smelling shower gel, we touched and petted and explored. When he spread kisses across my breasts, I confessed, “I love your beard.”
I did. I loved the way it felt against my skin. There was something so appealingly masculine and rugged about it.
Roane lifted his head, his grin pleased. “Then the beard stays for however long you want it to stay.”
Forever.
But I was too afraid to say that out loud.
Once we were done with the shower, we dressed and hurried downstairs to Shadow, who got up from his cool corner of the kitchen to greet us with lethargy.
“These hot days are no good for dogs, are they, baby,” I crooned, scratching behind his ear with one hand while I gave him a rubdown with the other. He swiped me with his warm tongue in thanks. “You need to drink more, gorgeous.”
I straightened from petting the dog to find Roane smiling at me. “What?”
“I love that you love my dog.”
“He’s very easy to love.”
“True.” He stroked a hand across Shadow’s head. “Dinnertime, boy?”
His sudden wagging of the behind suggested he was up for that.
Not long after, all three of us jumped into Roane’s Defender and we drove back to Alnster. After parking outside the bookstore, Roane rounded the SUV and took my hand as I let us inside. Shadow ran ahead, his claws clattering on the wooden staircase, and we could hear Caro upstairs greeting him in delight.