Maybe just being her was enough to turn him off forever.
She watched him set the tree down. She knew she was staring.
“Help me with the lights,” he said.
She did, and he took the end of it, beginning to wrap it around the large evergreen.
“So. Do you still want me?”
He froze. He arched one brow, looking at her with frosty eyes. “Why the hell would you ask that?”
“Because I’m trying to get a gauge on this. Are you just... Is it me? Is it me? Am I fundamentally a turnoff? Is it because I’m in a baggy shirt? Is it just the me of it all? Because you only see me as a child, and only when I was a disembodied pair of tits could you get excited about me.”
“Please don’t say anything like that to me ever again.”
“It’s a valid question.”
“We are in your living room. And Levi could walk in at any moment.”
“So what? I don’t care what Levi thinks.”
“Because Levi is your brother no matter what,” he said. “And Levi could go from being my friend to my enemy pretty damn quick. If you don’t think your brother would absolutely kick my ass for this, you don’t know him very well.”
“He doesn’t own me,” she said.
“No. He doesn’t.”
“I bet if you quizzed him, he would think that I’d probably had sex already.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that. And I’m not suggesting that your brother thinks that you’re never gonna have sex. But I do think he figures his friend who is twelve years your senior is not the one doing the honors.”
“What does it matter?”
“I’ve known you since you were a kid. It matters because I’m supposed to protect you.”
“Why? Because I’m a woman? That’s bullshit.”
Him and his overprotective nonsense. He thought that he knew more because he’d had more sex than her?
“It’s not bullshit,” he said.
“The orgasm felt good. How was it harming me?”
“Because you could get hurt. Because I knew what my limitations were, and what I was interested in and what I wasn’t.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions about me.”
He rubbed his hand over his face, and he looked tired. “Am I wrong about them? Do you want a family, Jessie?”
“I don’t know. I wanted you. I didn’t really think about what else there was.”
She felt really stupid having said that.
“Well, I was never headed toward family life. What I wanted was to build a business. That’s my focus.”
“You’re assuming a hell of a lot about me. That I can’t just have sex for fun.”
“I’m not sure if you can because—”