Page 45 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
“Questions always get you in trouble,” he murmurs.
“Not always,” I muse.
“Does she want to be more than friends with him, Getty?”
Hello, trouble. Guess he’s trying to prove his point.
An even intake of breath. The pounding of my heart. The scent of his cologne. The hope of possibility. “She’s afraid.” My voice is barely audible.
“Of him?”
All I can do is nod my head. His lips are right there. The memory of how they felt on mine front and center. “Of everything about him.”
My chest hurts to draw in air. My body aches in a way I’ve never felt before. Anticipation. Fear. Uncertainty. All three surge through me. Deplete me. Revive me.
“Why would she be afraid of him, Getty?”
My name again. It’s his way of bringin
g me back to the moment and out of my head, where the ghosts swim. His way of reminding me of my new name, of my fresh start, of new beginnings.
“Because she’s the disaster. The one who can’t do anything right. The one who can’t teach him anything and so he’s going to be disappointed when he finds out she’s nothing like who he thinks she is.”
He angles his head and stares at me, eyes searching and so intense that I break our connection and look down to where his hands are on my thighs. “Not hardly a disaster. A little timid maybe. A lot gun-shy. But time will help that.”
With a rebuttal held on my tongue, I visually trace the lines of his hands on my legs to distract myself. The broad fingers with a few cuts and scrapes from working on the deck. This whole conversation has pushed my thoughts out of my comfort zone. And I wonder what they’d feel like running over my body.
The thought makes me want to hyperventilate. The idea of him seeing me naked. Ethan’s criticisms trying to force their way in my head.
You’re the worst lay I’ve ever had, Gertrude. So bad I may need to take up with the housekeeper just to be satisfied. Your body’s too soft; your tits aren’t big enough. And for fuck’s sake, it’s not my job to make you come. It’s not my problem you can’t get off. And if I ever see you try to do it on your own, we’re going to have a big problem.
“Uh-uh. Look at me. What’s going on in that mind of yours?”
I can’t. I don’t want to lift my head so he can see every single thing about me—my inadequacies, my fear of experiencing more, my hope for more—in my eyes. Because I can’t hide it. I can fight it, but I definitely can’t hide it.
Since I’m focused on his hands, I follow the movement as they lift off my thighs and come up to cup the sides of my cheeks, forcing my eyes to meet his.
“I thought we were talking about her,” I assert, needing to get this back in the make-believe realm, because his eyes are too honest, his touch too tangible, and I am starting to imagine the possibility of there being something more between us when I know he can’t really mean it.
He nods in response, angling his head to the side as he studies me. “We are,” he murmurs as if it’s real, his eyes narrowing as he leans closer into me. “He wants to ask her so many questions but now knows she’s afraid and he doesn’t want to spook her.”
“Maybe he should just ask. Maybe she’ll answer him. Maybe she won’t. They’ve had quite a few glasses of wine after all.”
“Ah, yes. Liquid courage. It does wonders for the nerves, or so I’ve heard.” I’ve never been this close to another man for this amount of time besides Ethan. It’s unnerving and exhilarating all at once to know that this is my choosing. “Maybe he’s afraid of her too.”
I snort in jest. “You’re kidding, right? Look at him and look at her. There’s no need for him to be afraid of her. She’s average and he looks like he just walked off the pages of a magazine ad.”
“I think she’s not seeing herself clearly.”
“Well, I think he’s full of shit. Tell me why he’s afraid of her, then.” I sound defensive, bothered, and maybe I am. All that’s missing is a huff and crossing my arms across my chest in denial. But perhaps I’m so conditioned to the Ethan setup where he built me up just to tear me down that I’m afraid of believing any compliment.
“Because he’s afraid he’ll get too close to her. He realizes that regardless of how strong she is, she’s still fragile emotionally and that they have some kind of connection despite their constant bickering. He worries about what it will do to her when the fix-it list is done and he has to go back to his real life.”
His explanation captivates me. Pulls on my heartstrings. Causes an unexpected mini-flutter of panic at the idea of him leaving. So I decide to voice some of my thoughts out loud. “So he’s afraid for her?” I need clarification so my mind doesn’t run wild with this and make anything I want out of it.
“No.”
“No?”
