Page 14 of Slow Burn (Driven 5)
I hear shuffling and garbled words. “Hello?” Her breathless voice fills the line, and even though I’m not really sure what in the hell is going on, my balls tighten at the sound of her sexy-ass voice.
“You have my phone.” I’m not trying to be a dick, but I can’t help it. Less than ten hours ago, we were having sex, and now she has some guy answering my phone? I guess when she says no strings, she really means no strings. “When can you take time out of your busy schedule to meet up so we can switch?” I can’t hide the sarcasm in my voice.
Seems like sweet Haddie isn’t so fucking sweet.
She’s silent for a beat. “Becks?”
“Yup.” At least she remembers my name. Fucking ridiculous. “When can we meet up?”
“Becks, are you okay?” There’s
a concern that I don’t want to hear in her voice, but by now I’ve moved from shocked to bitter. Fucking women. “Oh. Oh,” she says as she realizes why I’m pissed. “It’s not what you think. Dante’s—”
“How about tomorrow? What time can you meet tomorrow, babe?” Did I really just say that? What the hell am I jealous for? No fucking strings, right? So then why do I feel like I’m tangled in a goddamn cobweb?
“Oh …” I hear the hurt in her voice. And now I’m pissed that I’m acting how I’m acting. It was a night of incredible sex. Get over it, dude. Grab your balls back and suck it up.
Then I hear her sigh. And fuck if that sound doesn’t bring back memories of burying myself in her last night, over and over into the early morning.
“Um, I can’t,” she says, and I can hear the television in the background fading as she moves around. “I have a commitment tomorrow, and then an event all night.”
I bet you have a commitment. I shake my head. “Where’s the event?”
“Downtown. I can meet up with you in the afternoon before I have to be there if you want.”
“Fuck,” I say, since I was hoping to head back to the ranch after I met with the trucker. “Yeah, okay … I’ll figure out how to make it.”
“Becks?”
I hate the searching tone in her voice. If this really was a onetime thing, then why are we both acting like fucking teenagers?
And they say sex doesn’t complicate things.
“Yeah?” I respond, but I’m getting impatient. I want to hang up, get my phone back, and take a break while Ry and Colton are on their honeymoon so that we can skip this awkward stage where both of us are overanalyzing what the other is thinking.
She sighs again. “I just … last night …”
And then I hear his voice again. “Babe, I’m gonna hop in the shower.”
“… was a mistake,” I finish for her. Great sex but huge mistake. You don’t fuck friends. Lesson learned.
“No, it wasn’t. I thought that—”
“Apparently it was.” I shift and move toward my bedroom just in case Walker is listening. “We may have agreed to no strings, Had, but fuck if we didn’t fray the edges some.”
“‘Fray’?”
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath.
“What the hell does that mean, Becks? We both went into it knowing what was there.”
“Yep, we sure did.” Mayday, Mayday, this conversation is going downhill fast.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“We blurred the lines,” I say, “and now we need to clear them up.”
“You sound pissed.”
