Mr. Wrong Number(60)

I took the beer but instead of responding, I rolled my eyes and left the kitchen.

“I’m going outside,” I said, going through the living room and out onto the dark deck, needing a little space for a split second. I had no idea what was happening, and I didn’t like it.

He didn’t seem fazed at all by Jack’s knowledge of what happened between us, which was bizarre. And not only that, but he was seemingly not upset with me at all over my bitchery.

It felt like he was messing with me. Like the old-school Colin of my childhood, the one who toyed with me but ultimately made me feel like shit.

I turned around and waited for him so my backside was resting against the railing, and when he came through the sliding door I said, “It was just a blind date.”

“And . . . ?” He dropped into my deck chair, stretching out his legs while opening his beer.

“And . . . nice guy but no chemistry.” I cracked open my own can and said, “Now tell me what the hell happened with Jack.”

“Well,” he said, looking at me like I was some sort of a rambunctious child, “after you dragged me out into the hallway, yelled at us and then just took off, your brother beat me to my phone and read your text messages.”

“Seriously?” I knew I’d texted the words Sex Night, so it wouldn’t have been hard for him to do the math. And Jack had always been an overprotective brother, so his reaction wasn’t a surprise, either. “Oh, my God, I am so sorry. What did you do? What did you say? Did you tell him it was just a onetime mistake?”

“Well, after we wrestled, because, yes, your brother wanted to kick my ass, we came to an agreement.”

I looked at his calm, cool, amused face, lightly illuminated by the downtown lights, and I didn’t know why he wasn’t freaking out. He and my brother had gotten into a fight about this and he thought it was funny? “What do you mean, an agreement?”

He stared straight at his beer when he said, “As long as I’m not trying to screw you over—his words—he’s kind of okay with this.”

“Wait, what?” I didn’t know what that meant. “He’s okay with what, exactly?”

“You and me.” He raised his eyes and was watching me really closely, while I tried my hardest to make my face absolutely unreadable.

Because inside I was absolutely freaking out. Like—what in the hell was happening? You and me? Did Colin want something with me, is that what that meant? There was a part of me that was excitedly jumping up and down at the thought of Colin wanting something with me.

He was funny, confident, beautiful, and downright masterful in the sack, but we’d never called “us” anything other than a onetime mistake. He was perfect and I was a shitshow. He was an Audi and I was a Corolla. Like, Colin and I made zero sense.

That couldn’t be what he meant.

I looked down at my can of beer, started wiggling the pop top, and said, “He’s okay with the fact that we accidentally slept together?”

“He’s okay with that.” He picked up his beer and raised it to his mouth. “And whatever we want to do now.”

“?‘Whatever we want to do now’?” I stopped trying to hide my emotions and looked at Colin with every bit of the what the hell that was pinging through my mind. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” he said, climbing out of the chair with a lazy, sexy smile on his lips, “that he’s going to be cool should we decide that maybe it wasn’t a mistake.”

I blinked and found myself at a total loss for words. I stumbled over “But, um, it was a mistake.”

He stepped so close that I had to look up at him. His voice was quiet and deep in the darkness when he murmured, “Was it?”

I swallowed and I could feel my heart beating in all ten of my fingertips. A motor revved somewhere down below, and I said, “I mean, I think—”

“Can you honestly tell me you haven’t lain in bed, replaying that night over and over in your mind, ever since it happened?” He lifted a hand, tucked my hair behind my ear, and said, “I’ve thought about it nonstop. I’ve become obsessed with the memory of the noises you made in the back of your throat and the way your face looked when you told me to show you my skills.”

I was melting, but I still had no idea if he was just talking about sex or something more. “Colin—”

“Why not follow this for a while?” His teasing slipped a little, and his voice was sweet when he said, “Where’s the harm in seeing where it goes?”

I was teetering, hovering this close to the edge. He had me hypnotized, mesmerized, at the thought of a full-on entanglement with him. The idea of Colin directing 100 percent of his attention in my direction was a little intoxicating and completely overwhelming.

But it was easy for him. Colin could “follow” this in a total no-harm/no-foul way because he didn’t have anything to lose. Colin Beck, mathematical genius with old money and a model’s good looks, could just shrug and walk away when he got bored.

I had a feeling, though, that if—no, when—he left, he’d have the power to destroy me.

“Doesn’t it seem like a bad idea to you?” I looked up at him, wondering why my voice was so breathy and lacking in conviction when I knew the words to be true. “We don’t even really get along when we’re not having sex.”