Wicked Sexy Liar (Wild Seasons #4)(20)

She leans to the side, scanning the parking lot. “Do you drive a Hummer?”

“I drove you home in my Prius,” I remind her.

She snorts. “You had a condom in your pocket.”

“I wouldn’t judge you if you had a condom in your pocket,” I volley back.

Her eyes narrow. I have a point and she knows it.

“And I would have been happy to play video games all night,” I add.

She aggressively shoves a fry into her mouth. “You had nothing but Sriracha in your fridge,” she says around it.

“There was also celery and string cheese. And I made you come four times. Four. Do you even bother to do that with your box of toys beneath your bed?”

London chews on her straw, and then says, “What makes you think I have a box of toys under my bed?”

And I swear to God, she’s blushing even more hotly now.

“You deny it?” I ask quietly.

She completely leaps over my question. “You banged someone else last night.”

“Technically, I didn’t.”

She laughs. “So technically Aubrey did give you car head.”

She didn’t—she sucked on my neck and reached for my dick until I gently pried her hand away and walked her to her doorstep. But London’s already got her mind made up, so why bother?

“You didn’t even care that I called you by the wrong name all night!” I fire back. “Why does it matter to you whether I did or didn’t get car head?”

Her eyes go wide. “It doesn’t matter to me whether you got car head. It matters to me that you won’t just let what we did be a fun night, and you insist on”—she makes circular gestures at the table and then in the air—“food.”

I cough out an incredulous sound. “I didn’t follow you here. I’m just trying to be polite. You would prefer that I say a simple hello and take my nachos back to my place? Who’s the manwhore here? It isn’t me.”

She looks to the side, which gives me an opportunity to admire the definition of her jawline, the smooth line of her throat. Her hair is sun-bleached and I can see a few grains of sand clinging to the nape of her neck. What is going on in that head of hers? I can’t even begin to guess.

“You make me insane,” she says quietly, more to herself than to me, as she stabs a fry into some salsa.

It hits me in an instant. “I think you don’t like how much you like me,” I say, unable to keep from smiling. “You can’t fit me into your Barfly Box of Shame. You want to dismiss me as a dickhead player, but then you think I’m hot and fun and you like watching me eat nachos.”

London turns her face back up to me, smirking. “Nailed it.”

“Apt phrase.” I pause, tossing another chip into my mouth before saying, “You sort of want to kiss me right now.”

She leans in, studying my face. “You’re thinking too much on this.”

It’s true. I am thinking way, way too much on this. But I also know I’m right. I bend, eating in silence for a minute, but I can feel her eyes on me the entire time.

“What?” I ask, pushing my plate away before wiping my mouth on my napkin.

“I need to head home and shower before work.”

There’s something there. Some . . . invitation? I feel my eyes go wide, wondering if I should gamble here.

“I live about three blocks away,” I remind her.

London stands, carrying her plate to the trash can before turning to me. “Fine. But you still don’t get to kiss my ladybird.”



* * *



LONDON’S COOL IS back in place when she pulls up at the curb behind my car. I watch her climb out and look around my yard as she walks up to meet me on my porch.

“I guess I didn’t give much thought to the fact that you live alone in a house in La Jolla.”

Tilting my head, I ask her, “Where do you live?”

“A loft downtown,” she says. “My grandmother left it to me.”

“Well, that’s something we have in common then,” I tell her, turning to the front door. “This house is Grams’s.” I slide the key in. “She lives in Del Mar now in a fancy retirement community. My sister, Margot, used to live here with me, but now she lives closer to campus with a roommate.”

“Isn’t UCSD, like, four miles from here?”

“Probably less, but she’s in grad school. Biology. She hates to drive and needs to be close to the lab.” I nod to indicate she lead us inside. “Come on in.”

It’s clear London isn’t here for idle conversation. She turns and heads straight down the hall, looking over her shoulder at me when she asks, “Is it okay if I shower in the bathroom down here?”

“Yeah,” I tell her, following. “You want company, or you want to rinse off alone?”

She’s put on a T-shirt for the drive here and turns to me fully, pulling it up and over her head, unties her bikini, and drops it at the threshold to the bathroom. “If I wanted to shower alone, I would have just gone home.”

My brows rise as I stare at her naked chest. “Fair enough.”

This whole thing is weird, and abrupt, but I can get on board with it if it means showering with a wet, slippery London.