“We already talked about that...” Unless Tressa was a problem for him. It was pretty clear that the woman still considered him her property.
Lacey had assumed the problem was Tressa’s. Was it Jem’s, too? Was he feeling guilty?
The darkness was her friend, hiding her humiliation.
“The thing about Tressa is...there’s usually a grain of truth in the things she says. That’s why her words can be so lethal. She hits her mark and then screws it all out of proportion.”
“I don’t know what you’re telling me.” If he wanted her to believe he’d been a male prostitute, she just wasn’t going to buy it. He’d told her he’d never been unfaithful to his wife.
“After my divorce...I went out with a woman I didn’t know. Slept with her. And never saw her again. Tressa...found out about it.”
“You slept with a woman you didn’t know was safe?” The thought stopped her in her tracks.
“Hell, no.” The disgusted tone of his voice had her wishing she hadn’t asked that question. He pulled up in front of her house and put the truck in Park. “She was a perfectly respectable woman—a nurse. The sister of a colleague. She was open to having a relationship. I wasn’t.”
She nodded. Waited.
“I am now.”
Oh. God. Okay. Well...
The silence took away her ability to exhale. Or speak. And then all the air left her in a gush that had been building. And building.
She opened her door and jumped down, grabbed his hand as he met her on her side of the truck and walked with him, unsteadily, up to her door. “My bedroom’s this way...” she said as the door closed behind him, pulling him along down the hall. She’d changed her sheets that morning...and was ashamed for a moment, like she’d been planning this.
“Wait...” He didn’t move.
She didn’t want to wait. Afraid that the moment would pass, that this...thing...would end. And she’d never know... Looking into his eyes, she wanted to know exactly what he needed. So she could give it to him.
“I don’t want to rush,” he told her. “I have a feeling this is going to be something we’re going to remember for the rest of our lives, and I want to savor every second of it.”
“In that case, sir, could I tempt you with a glass of wine?” She’d never felt so stupid, so out of control and immature. And so...needy.
They’d held themselves to one glass a piece at dinner in deference to the fact that he’d be driving as soon as they docked.
“You can tempt me any way you’d like.” He followed her into the kitchen and pressed his hardness up against her backside as she reached for the glasses. With shaking fingers she poured the wine, managing to get most of it into the glass.
She turned, handing him a glass. “Here’s to a first time we’ll remember forever,” she said.
He clicked his glass against hers. “To remembering forever,” he said in return.
That was the moment Lacey admitted to herself that she was falling in love.
* * *
HE HAD NO idea he could feel as though he was making love without undressing. Or touching.
Wineglass in hand, Jem wandered outside to the footer he’d poured where Lacey’s dream room was going to be. He wrapped himself up in the feeling of being in her home. Her space. Alone with her.
He wanted to strip off his pants and bury himself in her. And he wanted to keep them on and enjoy knowing that he was going to bury himself in her.
“I heard from the inspector today,” he said, toe to toe with her in what was going to be the middle of the room. He pushed himself into the V between her thighs.
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“As soon as I saw you in that dress tonight, all I’ve been able to think about is getting you out of it. I completely forgot my good news.”
“We have the go-ahead?”