Nobody But You(52)

One corner of his mouth quirked. “You got that all from just looking at us, huh?”

She shrugged. “I’m good at reading people.”

His eyes met hers and held. “I’m getting that,” he said. “I’m also getting that you had to be.”

She didn’t want to go there. “You could just come right out and say you’re sorry for leaving, you know.”

“I’m working my way up to it,” he said.

“How’s that going?”

“Hud’s not ready,” he said.

“Ever think that maybe you’re projecting?”

He didn’t move, didn’t even breathe as far as she could tell, so she handed him the wine. “I project,” she said conversationally, taking the bottle back when he’d taken a drink. “And trust me, it’s not healthy. I projected all Lucas’s *ry onto myself, and I let it color how I see myself. But then I realized that no one’s going to like me if I don’t like me…” She trailed off and took another sip of the wine, and when she lowered the bottle, she discovered he’d moved after all.

Closer.

He slid his fingers over her jaw and tilted her face up to his. “You’re smarter than hell, sexier than hell, and I like you way more than I should,” he said. “Tell me you got over that hump, Sophie, and that you learned to like yourself even half as much as I do.”

She didn’t realize she was chewing on her lower lip until he bent his head and kissed that lip. And then the corner of her mouth. And then the other corner…And then he stared at her, letting her see that what he’d said was true, that he liked her a whole lot more than he should. Her breath caught.

“Tell me,” he whispered against her lips, making them tingle in anticipation. She knew how he kissed now, with his entire heart and soul, and it so contradicted everything about him that it always threw her off-balance.

He threw her off-balance. In the best way.

In fact, she wanted to be thrown off-balance right this minute.

As if guessing where her thoughts had gone, the very corners of his mouth turned up.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “But has anyone ever told you that you’re deadly up close?”

“Sophie.”

She sighed. While she could be distracted, she should’ve known that he couldn’t. “Yes, I got over myself. I know now that I didn’t do anything wrong. That I’m a good person.” She closed her eyes. “That I deserve better.”

“Good.” He kissed her then, until she crawled across the blanket and into his lap, sighing when his arms closed around her.

“This is a little scary,” she whispered.

“A lot scary.”

She tipped her head back to his. “I’m still not keeping you.” As if her body didn’t agree with her mouth, her fingers tightened on his shirt. “I’m not going to keep anyone, not ever again.”

“I know,” he said, and stroked a hand down her back, soothing her even as she did her best to hurt him.

“But you don’t want to love anyone either,” she said. “That hasn’t changed, right?”

He didn’t answer, and she closed her eyes. “Jacob.”

His big hand continued to stroke up and down her spine, and she felt hot tears prick at her eyelids. “We’re so screwed up,” she whispered.

“In a very large way,” he agreed.

He did that thing he did, where he lightly tugged at a loose wave of her hair. Then he produced chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

“I might have to rescind my no-love rule,” she said, a cookie in each hand. “Cookies are my sweet spot.”

He smiled. “They’re not your only sweet spot.”

Her “sweet spot” quivered, a fact she firmly ignored. “I miss baking. No oven.”

“Tell me again why you took this boat. Or better yet, why you stay on it. You could’ve gotten whatever you needed, money…nice things…”

“Money and nice things didn’t work out so well for me,” she said. “I’m trying something new to find my happy.”

He stared at her and then smiled, shaking his head.

“What?”

“You expect me to believe that being here on this boat is making you happy?” he asked, disbelief heavy in his voice. “And be careful here,” he said when she opened her mouth, “because I’m the one who held your hair back while you threw up from seasickness, remember? You hate this boat.”

“Yes, but…” She grimaced. “I’m still getting some mileage out of knowing Lucas is miserable because I’m living on his baby.” She didn’t look at him, not wanting to see what he thought of this.

But he laughed. “Okay, remind me to never piss you off.”

And that was just the thing. He had pissed her off, several times now. And yet she didn’t feel like retreating, or never speaking to him again, or strangling him with his own pillow in the dark of the night.

Well, okay, maybe she had once or twice…But she’d also felt like making up with him in ways that just thinking about made her squirm uncomfortably. In the best possible way.





Chapter 18