Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, #2)(41)

What had actually happened, anyway? Nothing.

Apart from seeing Hannah in a bra and panties, which was an image that would be burned into his brain for all eternity, he’d put his mouth on her neck, run his hands over her smooth skin. Dirty talked her a little bit. So what? Even though he’d almost slipped, no boundaries had been crossed.

There was nothing to be tense about.

No reason for this fissure in his gut.

Fox scrubbed a hand up and down the back of his neck forcefully, trying to rid himself of the tightness. He stood in the kitchen surrounded by ingredients for potato leek soup, vegetables finely chopped on the counter with no cutting board. He’d made a mess, and he could barely remember doing it. Or walking to the store to buy everything he needed. All he knew was that Hannah would be back from set any minute now, and he felt like he owed her an apology. She’d needed something from him, and he’d failed to give it.

He’d turned her off.

Not on. Off.

Hannah must like the director more than he thought. Otherwise she would have let Fox blow her mind, right? That had to be the reason she’d stopped before it was over. Couldn’t be anything else. Couldn’t be that Fox had exposed himself by accident, and she didn’t like what she’d seen.

Could it?

He stirred a dash of thyme into the soup, watching cream swallow the green flecks, very aware of the pulse beating thickly in his throat. It wasn’t as though rejection was a totally foreign concept to him. But after college, he’d kept himself out of situations where being denied was a possibility. He did his job well, went home. When he hooked up, the terms were already outlined with the woman ahead of time, no gray areas. No confusion about anyone’s intentions. No chances were taken. No new horizons were embarked upon.

This thing with Hannah was nothing if not a new horizon.

It was friendship . . . and maybe that was another reason why he’d fucking pushed it earlier today. Because he didn’t know how to be a friend. The possibility of failing at it, disappointing her, was daunting. Now, distracting her with sex? That was so much easier.

The sound of a key turning in the lock made Fox’s insides seize up, but he stirred the soup casually, looking up with a quick smile when Hannah walked in. “Hey, Freckles. Hope you’re hungry.”

She visibly took his measure, hesitating before turning to close the door—and Fox couldn’t help but take advantage of those few seconds she wasn’t looking at him, absorbing as much as he could. The messy bun at the nape of her neck, strands of sandy-blond hair poking out on all sides. Classic Hannah. Her profile, especially her stubborn nose. The practical way she moved, pressing the door shut and locking it, her shoulder blades shifting beneath her T-shirt.

Jesus, she’d looked so hot in her underwear.

In street clothes, she was someone’s little sister. The girl next door.

In a black bra-and-panties set, holding massage oil, eyes laden with lust, she was a certified sex kitten.

And she might have purred for him temporarily, but she wanted to get her claws into someone else. He needed to get on board with that. For real this time. Deep down, he’d believed that if he just put in a little effort, of a physical nature, she would fall at his feet and forget all about the director. Hadn’t he? Well, he’d been mistaken. Hannah wasn’t the type to genuinely like one man while hooking up with another, and it had been wrong, sickeningly wrong, to put her in that position.

Fox zipped his attention back to the stove when Hannah faced the kitchen once again. “That smells amazing.” She stopped at the island behind him, and Fox could sense her working up to something. He should have known she couldn’t just pretend this afternoon didn’t happen. That wasn’t her style. “About what happened today . . .”

“Hannah.” He laughed, adding a forceful shake of pepper to the pot. “Nothing happened. It’s not worth talking about.”

“Okay.” Without turning around, he knew she was chewing on her lip, trying to talk herself into dropping the subject. He also knew she wouldn’t succeed. “I just wanted to say . . . I’m sorry. I should have stopped sooner. I—”

“No. I should have let you have your privacy.” He tried to clear the pinch in his throat. “I assumed you would want me there, and I shouldn’t have.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want you there, Fox.”

Christ. Now she was going to try to make him feel better over the rejection? He would rather turn the hot pot of soup upside down over his head than listen to her explain she was being true to her feelings for the director. “You know, it’s totally possible to just eat this soup and talk about something else. I promise your urge to hash out every detail of what happened will pass.”

“That’s called suppression. It’s very unhealthy.”

“We’ll survive just this once.”

She moseyed around the far side of the island, dragging her finger along the surface. Then she reversed her course, filling one cheek with air and letting it seep out.

Man, it was wild that he could be frustrated with her inability to drop a sensitive subject while being grateful for it at the same time. He’d never met anyone in his life that gave a shit as hard as Hannah. For other people. She thought that compassion made her a supporting actress instead of a leading one, and didn’t realize that her empathy, the fierce way she cared, made her something bigger. Hannah belonged in a category far more real than the credits of a movie. A category all her own.