“And you are?”
“We’re brothers for a reason.” He shrugged.
“Your dad has to be a terror.”
“So was my mom. You should have met them.” He chuckled softly, and they paused their conversation long enough to order when the waitress arrived.
“Should have as in past tense? What happened?”
“Car accident. They went together, which they would have wanted.” Sadness darkened his gaze and it made her reach over the table and squeeze his hand. He turned his palm up and laced her fingers through his again. “It was not long after my divorce… about five years ago. When I came up to see Mason last Christmas, I realized how much I missed having family around. I talked to the former police chief about a job, found out he was retiring, and no one on the force wanted the position. So, here I am.”
“Here you are.” She took a sip of her water and decided to get right to the point. “Why are you pushing us dating?
This isn’t me playing hard to get. I don’t like those kind of games.”
They paused again as their order arrived. It was why she liked this place—the service was fast and the food was good. Price picked up his fork and his end of the conversation. “We’re not going to date.”
“Oh, good.” Relief flooded her because at this point she wasn’t sure she had the willpower to resist if he touched her.
“I’m glad we’re on the same page here.”
“You dump the guys you date after a few months. I’m not interested in that.”
“You are so right.”
He smiled. “Which is why we’re just getting married.”
She choked on the bite of the green beans she’d just swallowed. Her eyes watered, and she dove for her glass of water. After she’d chugged half the glass, she croaked out, “Are you out of your mind?”
“You can take as much time as you need to catch up with me on this one, but I’ve decided. And I’m all in. Get used to it.” He leaned back in the booth and laid his arm across the back of the bench.
“We just met a week ago. This is our first real date.”
His big shoulder lifted in a shrug. “When I make up my mind, I make up my mind.”
“Well, you can change your mind.”
“Not usually.”
“Price.”
“You know you turn me on when you get pissed.”
Her mouth gaped. “That is the most condescending, chauvinistic horseshit I have ever heard come out of a man’s mouth. And it’s fucking trite on top of that.”
“I still have a serious hard-on right now. It’s not something I can control.”
She sputtered for a second before she offered him a nasty glare. “You did that on purpose to try and get me to stop talking about how you’re insane to want to marry me on the second date. The first real out-of-the-house date.”
“Well, I might have mentioned this yesterday but you saw fit to strip naked. There was no way in hell I was letting you get sidetracked by anything. And I’d have told you this morning, but you ran out.” He took a swig of his coffee.
“I might have to spank you for that later.”
Fire exploded in her veins at the thought of his hand on her upturned ass. Holy shit. She just stared at him, heat flooding her cheeks. Her breathing hitched, and her hands clenched on the tabletop.
He met her gaze, his golden skin stretching taut over his sharp cheekbones. “Stop looking at me like that, sugar. I’m not fucking you again until you see things my way.”
“Then you’re not fucking me again.”
He just grinned. “We’ll see about that.”
“This is insane.” She tapped her fork against her plate agitatedly. “Do you really think it’s that simple to make a relationship out of thin air?”
“I knew you the moment I met you. End of story. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s how it is.” His heavy brows snapped together. “You think that’s easy for me to admit?”
“You make it sound easy.” She shifted uncomfortably. Hadn’t she thought that the first day they’d met? That she knew him… that she liked him?
“I’m divorced too, sugar. Don’t forget that. I’ve got a couple of scars of my own in the relationship department. I just haven’t written all women off.”
“I haven’t written men off.” But her protest sounded weak even to her own ears.
He arched an eyebrow. “You don’t think so?”
“I date.”
A derisive snort was his answer.
Uncertainty crawled through her. She was honest enough to admit she had written men off, but it sounded so much more cowardly when he said it that way, like she didn’t have a good reason to be leery of relationships… of men. “I don’t have to want to get married again. There’s nothing wrong with me if I want to be single.”
“Yeah, if you wanted to be single. You’re just scared.”
Anger simmered deep inside her, a knee-jerk reaction after being dicked around so badly in her last relationship.
“Drop. Dead.”
“It’s not going to make it untrue if you get mad.” He offered up a smirk. “But go ahead, sugar. You know how much I like it.”
The shriek that escaped her sounded like a whistling teakettle. Her hands fisted tightly and she had to think really hard about how stupid it would be to assault a police officer. Especially the Chief of Police. She tried to remind herself about how she was too pretty for jail, and about how much he would enjoy it and smirk some more if he got to lock her in a cell. That mellowed her right out. No way in hell would she give him the satisfaction. She bared her teeth in a smile. “Well, since we’re playing by your rules now, you can get as turned on as you want, sugar, but you’re still not getting laid because I’m not seeing things your way any time soon.”
His mouth opened and closed. He narrowed his eyes at her, and now it was her turn to smirk. He deserved it for making her wait. He wanted strings attached to his sex? Fine. He got to dance around like Pinocchio then. Of course, she was dancing alongside his stubborn ass. Damn it.
“Well, this is going to be interesting.” He grinned, challenge sparking in his gaze. “Finish your dinner.” Because she didn’t have a clue what else to say to him, she did as he said. They finished their meal in silence, her insides churning so much that she just picked at her food. The waitress dropped off the check, he plopped down a few bills to cover the tab and stood. It left her eye-level with his groin, and she got a good enough look to tell her he hadn’t been lying about the erection. Her mouth watered needing a taste. She hadn’t sucked him last night, and she wanted to. He folded her hand in his and tugged her to her feet and out the door. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
CHAPTER 4
Three weeks later, she still hadn’t convinced him that more sex was a good idea. No, a great idea. The man drove her up the wall, and she loved every minute of it. Damn him. She liked him more every moment she spent with him. He was everything she’d thought he was that first day—strong, steady, dependable—and a hell of a lot more. He made her laugh, he made her want, he made her crazy. That didn’t mean she was going to roll over and marry him because he said so. She still didn’t believe she was cut out for marriage, but she’d certainly like to roll over and do a lot of other things with him.
He’d dragged her out on a lot of non-dates—because he insisted they weren’t dating—and, on the fifth one, she’d talked him inside her apartment. In under thirty seconds, he’d had her pressed up against her living room wall, his tongue in her mouth and his hand up her skirt, stroking her through her soaking panties.
“I want you.”
“I want you too, sugar.”
And he still wouldn’t give in. The man had a will of absolute steel. It was unfair. She growled low in her throat.