Page 55 of Nothing to Tell
Flattered and overwhelmed, she had no idea how to… All she could do was accept her certainty was his.She’d never been so grateful for, or to, another person.Showing him that wouldn’t be easy.She slid her hand over his on the gear stick.When he opened his fingers to accept hers between them, she begged him to understand.
“Stay the night,” he said.
“Okay.”
There was no way she had the power to say no.Whether what he’d said was true or not didn’t matter.He gave her what she needed.Every time, somehow, he managed it.
He picked her hand up to kiss her knuckles.“I promise I’ll leave you alone this time.”
Did she want to be left alone?
Their connected hands muddied the conviction that this wasn’t real.They weren’t together.She wasn’t even sure they were friends.They were acquaintances, associates… partners in crime, offering each other a mutual alibi.That was it.Nothing more.Nothing.
TWENTY
LIKE ON HER FIRST visit, he gave her a tee-shirt, shorts, and a toothbrush.Not just any toothbrush.Hertoothbrush, the one he’d kept since her last visit.He kept it.Wonders never ceased.That suggested he’d expected her back.
She had a toothbrush.At Bastian’s.
Sorry, that required a moment of… huh.
As promised, after setting her up in the same bedroom as before, he left her alone.She didn’t stop him from leaving, even when he hesitated.No matter how much she wanted him to stay, she did not want to wake up on top of him… again.Liberties like that shouldn’t be repeated.Once was an accident, twice was pathological.
Despite the warmth of the room and the luxurious covers, her second experience sleeping there didn’t match the first.They weren’t in the same ballpark.Not with him so tantalizingly close, yet completely out of reach.
Kind, generous, understanding.A man like Bastian shouldn’t be alone.
Everything about him suggested a desire to share, to care.He needed a companion.He deserved children, friends, family.He was built to be part of something.Half of a whole.For whatever reason, he’d decided he didn’t want a romantic relationship with anyone.It had to be his conscious choice.No other explanation made sense.His determination and perseverance were apparent in everything he did.He didn’t leave things like that to chance.If he wanted romance, he’d have gone out there and got it.
Maybe Robyn hurt him and he was still raw.
Guilt crept in.Bastian knew almost everything about her personal life.He’d asked questions and been so attentive.To her shame, she hadn’t paid the same attention in return.She would fix that.He’d been her confidant, now she would be his.
That was her last thought before falling asleep and the first when she woke up.On leaving her bedroom, she ran down the stairs.
“May I borrow a pen?”Harper asked, reaching the kitchen.
At the opposite side of the kitchen island, Bastian stopped chopping fruit.His concentration ebbed.The flash of his dimple reinforced her faith.Did she put that there?Could he be pleased to see her?Sheesh, talk about excitable.Calm down.
“Did you sleep well?”he asked, popping a fruit segment into his mouth.
“I did,” she said, smoothing her hands from waist to hip.
It hadn’t occurred to her to be self-conscious about coming downstairs in his tee-shirt with mussed hair, not until she was faced with him.
“Good.”
Oh, it would be so easy to lose herself in his mesmerizing dimple.Tugging the hem of his tee-shirt down on her thighs, she was grateful to have, at least, donned underwear.In her defense, appearing for breakfast in a cocktail dress wouldn’t have been much better.
“Did you?”she asked.“Did you sleep well?”
He half-shrugged and put the chopped fruit into the blender.His tee-shirt was far too big for her.When the neck slid down her arm, she didn’t bother pulling it up.It would only fall again anyway.
“What does that mean?”she asked.“That shrug?”
“Are you hungry?”
Damn man was bullheaded.He was really going to ignore the question and expect her to let it go without getting an answer.Getting to know him would be more difficult if he resisted.
