Page 48 of Love In Hiding

He’d expected her to ride his ass. That was practically her default setting with him. She’d started that way, sure.

But now? Somehow this had turned into a damn comedy routine, and he was today’s headliner.

“You could have taken your shirt off and didn’t,” he said. “Then it would have been even.”

Her laughter cut off instantly. Her head whipped toward him, her mouth dropping open wide enough he could have tossed a baseball straight in.

“Why?” she demanded. “I got the impression I wasn’t your type. We kissed and you moved on. I got my answer.”

Ah. So that was it.

She thought he wasn’t interested.

Jesus.

He could let her keep believing that. It would make this so much easier for both of them. Clean lines. Boundaries. Professional distance. All the crap he’d been telling himself he wanted.

Or he could do the right thing, the honest thing, and explain.

Just like he’d been trying to do and was failing miserably.

“What answer was it you got?” he asked. “Be honest with me.”

He wanted her to say it. To admit that maybe she was hoping for more and could be hurt he didn’t feel the same way. Even if he didn’t feel what she was thinking.

“I just said it. I’m not your type.”

“I don’t have a type.”

Silence greeted him. Ten seconds of it. He’d wait until she spoke again before he did. She caved first. “Then you and I just don’t vibe.”

“Our lips seemed to think otherwise,” he mumbled.

She turned to look at him again, a slow smile filling her face, but her eyes full of doubt. “They did. But that doesn’t mean much.”

“It doesn’t. You want the full truth? No dancing around with fancy words?”

“I always want that.”

“Then you can do the same.”

“I have been. It rubs you the wrong way. Admit it,” she said.

Another sigh escaped. “Fine, it does.”

“That’s our problem,” she said. “And that is what you’re struggling with, right? Back to not being your type.”

“What I’m struggling with is that we work together. We’ve both got something to prove and we are in the infant stages of it. Making a move on anything other than work isn’t smart.”

“And you always do the smart things. Got it,” she said.

“Isn’t that what you want? You just said you haven’t had sex in so long you can’t remember.”

“It’s not that I can’t remember. It’s I choose not to,” she said primly.

Back to being snarky.

This was going nowhere. He wasn’t sure why he thought otherwise.