Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(41)

She immediately slid her arms into the sleeves and hugged the material close to her. “Thanks,” she said quietly. Begrudgingly.

“She speaks,” he said lightly, when he was feeling anything but light. “Sadie. Look at me?”

She hesitated but turned to face him. Her face was closed off. She was always so tough and impenetrable, and yet in that moment also heartbreakingly vulnerable. And damn if that didn’t get him right in the gut because if anyone understood having to be tough on the outside to protect yourself, it was him. “I upset you. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated. “Because we’re friends and—”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Seriously? Friends? Because five minutes ago you believed I was having sex with a client. You actually thought I’d do that, on a job—” Breaking off, she shook her head and closed her mouth.

“Listen,” he said quietly. “I didn’t start this conversation by saying I was very smart as it pertains to women.”

She snorted her opinion of that.

“And whatever I thought when I first walked up to your workstation,” he said. “It was a knee-jerk reaction and a bad one. In my defense, the sounds coming from behind the curtain . . . They really sounded like—”

“A woman eating cheesecake?” she asked.

He smiled. “No one sounds like that eating cheesecake.”

“I do.” She gave him a look, an indecipherable look. “Good cheesecake is better than sex.”

He realized she was testing him, and that was fine. One, he wasn’t going anywhere. And two, he was going to always be himself—honest, if not brutally so. “If that’s true, then the people you’ve been with are idiots.”

“It was a recording,” she said. “My client’s a detective and he was just messing around through the pain of getting a tattoo, playing a tape of potential evidence that he never should’ve played for me.”

“Okay,” he said. “So that explains that.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t explain your reaction, or why you’d believe it of me.”

Good point. He met her gaze and gave her that honesty he wasn’t sure she was ready for. Guess he had some testing of his own to do. “I told you once that I have a bad habit of assuming the worst,” he said. “I wasn’t making that up. I assume the worst and go to a dark place.”

“To mull things over,” she said.

So she did remember. “And often, I’ll sabotage a good thing when I have it.”

She stared at him for a beat. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I guess because I don’t like being vulnerable.”

“Me either. And I guarantee you, my dark place is darker than yours, so I get that too.” She paused. “We were a good thing?”

His heart took a good hard kick at the past tense. “Yes. Sadie—”

“I’m sorry I kicked you.”

He was surprised and relieved at the words, but he shook his head. “No. Don’t be. I like knowing you can defend yourself.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“You’ve got a good hard kick, but I’ll live,” he said. “Next time you use a mawashi geri, extend your hip and hit with your straightened instep. And then pull your foot back faster so your opponent can’t grab your leg.”

She took this in for a moment. “Mawashi geri?”

“A roundhouse kick. It’s a Japanese martial arts move.”

She cocked her head. “Do you know a lot about martial arts?”

“Some. It’s a good workout,” he said.

She nodded and then hesitated, like she had something to say and wasn’t sure how to say it. Employing a tactic he’d learned at the knees of too many females in his life from a young age, he held his tongue and waited her out.

“I sabotage a good thing too,” she admitted. “Always have. I don’t trust them, I don’t believe them. So I mess with them until they go away.”

Their gazes met and held. Slowly, giving her plenty of time to kick him again if she wanted, he reached for her hand. Nothing with her was ever going to come easy, he knew this and was okay with that. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I hate that I let you think I’d believe you were having sex with a client on the job. That was shitty, really shitty. I don’t blame you for getting mad. You should’ve kicked my ass.”

She looked down at her hand in his. “I think I got mad because what you thought was happening is so far from my reality that it isn’t funny. I haven’t had sex with anyone for three years.”

He waited until she met his gaze. “That’s a long time,” he murmured, wanting to know more. What had happened three years ago to so thoroughly put her off being intimate with someone?

“It didn’t feel all that long.” She paused and slid him an ironic glance. “Not until . . .”

He went brows up.

“We kissed.” She looked at his mouth like maybe she wanted it back on hers.

“It was a pretty great kiss,” he said.

“Was it?” She shrugged. “I can’t remember.”

His laugh was low and rough as he pulled her into him. She always went toe-to-toe with him, challenged him in a way no one else ever did. It was sexy as hell. “Liar,” he whispered and cupped the back of her head, bringing her mouth to his. “But let me remind you . . .”