Page 29 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

She smacked his arm, a little harder than she probably ought to have, too playful, too familiar for two people who were practically strangers, but Colin just laughed harder. “What did I say about mentioning those?”

He caught her hand before she could smack him again. Caught it and held it and didn’t let it go. “I’m sorry.”

Prove it, she wanted to say. Show me just how sorry you are.

If thinking the words was weird, saying them out loud would’ve been—unhinged. Her sense of self-preservation wasn’t anything to scoff at, so the only halfway decent explanation for her temporary foray into insanity had to be that Colin was still holding her hand.

She tugged her hand from his and tucked her fingers beneath her thigh for good measure, shoring up her—newly—tenuous self-control. All the while dutifully ignoring how her body had gone bloodless, half of it gathering in her cheeks, the rest rushing down. “You were saying?”

“I was going to ask if you’re the only one allowed to ask questions,” Colin said, looking so much calmer, cooler, more collected than she felt. Like her touch hadn’t just woken something within him the same way his had her.

Maybe Lulu was right. Maybe Truly needed to get laid.

Skin-starved was a thing, wasn’t it? Maybe that was it, maybe she was just skin-starved. That made infinitely more sense than Colin’s skin, in particular, being a drug. It had nothing to do with him at all. Skin was skin was skin and Colin just happened to be the one who had touched her. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong person.

The thought was a cold comfort when it felt like she had an auxiliary heartbeat between her thighs. “Was there, um, something you wanted to ask me?”

“How long were you and your ex together?”

An ill-timed inhale had her sputtering, coughing. “That’s what you want to know?”

“Turnabout’s fair play,” he said. “If I have flaws, surely you do, too.”

She was really starting to regret explaining her thought process. “Six years.”

His brows rose. “That’s a long time.”

Long enough that she’d convinced herself Justin was the one. Amazing how easy it was to lie to yourself when you desperately wanted something.

“I guess it is. Next question?”

“Assuming I have one?” He volleyed her own words back at her, serving them to her with a knowing smile.

“Ha, ha.” She jostled him lightly, careful to keep her hands to herself this time. “Just ask.”

“Okay, fine. Where’d you grow up?”

“Shut up.” She laughed.

“I’m serious! Unlike you, I actually want to know the answer to that question.”

“Ouch. And you call me brutal?” She held a hand to her chest in mock affront. Beneath her palm, her heart rabbited. “I was curious, too.”

Colin arched a single brow, calling bullshit without opening his mouth.

“I was! I was just, you know, more curious about other stuff.” Her ears burned. For some bizarre reason, copping to curiosity felt different than being curious. Like it was one thing to push and prod and press Colin, to put him on the spot, a horse of a totally different color to admit that she’d spent time thinking about him, enough to want to puzzle him out.

“If you don’t answer the question, you’re going to make me think you’re hiding something. Witness protection? Nah, that doesn’t feel right. I bet you’re on the lam.”

“The lam?” She snorted. “What are you, a 1920s mobster? Who says that—the lam?”

What a dork.

He shut one eye and pursed his lips. “I’ve got your number, St. James. Bet you’re wanted in, like, twenty states.”

“Wanted for what?”

She dared him to say something disgustingly corny like being criminally sexy or arrestingly beautiful. Stealing hearts or having killer wit.

---