Page 4 of Courageous Yearnings

“I think there’s been some m-mistake or misunderstanding,” she sputtered quietly in a hushed voice. Her face, throat, and breastbone were very pink now with obvious embarrassment – or she was still turned on and thinking about him.

“You want me… remember?”

“I want to get to know you, and I’m very interested… yes.”

“Well,” he chuckled, trying to pull her into his arms again. “I’m very ‘interested’, too.”

“In dating or a relationship?” she countered quickly, sliding out of his arms deftly and looking at him.

“Wait… what?”

Now, he was the one who was confused.

“Do you want to have dinner sometime?” she asked boldly.

“I’ll eat dinner tonight, yes,” Lance replied, only to see her roll her eyes and sigh heavily. “I eat dinner every night – sometimes twice if I’m starving or on duty.”

“No, no, no,” she began, putting a hand against her forehead. “You are misunderstanding me. I was thinking that maybe we could go on a date and start talking.”

“We are talking.”

“About dating.”

“We are talking – about dating – right now,” he said with infinite patience, trying not to get upset. If he could just get things moving, then there would be a whole lot less talking going on, yet she wasn’t playing along with him anymore.

“Maybe I misunderstood,” Blythe smiled nervously at him. “I thought you were implying that we were going back to your place to fool around, but if you want to grab dinner this evening… I’d love to go out with you.”

It was Lance’s turn to put his hand on his forehead – before rubbing the back of his neck.

“Hang on…” he began, feeling something change in the air between them. “You think I was implying sex… and you just want to go on a date? That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“And you would have a problem having lots and lots of fantastic, roof-shaking sex – without dating…?”

“Well, yes,” she replied, nodding. “Dating comes before a commitment like marriage, and that is so far in the future that I really didn’t think we needed to touch on something like that yet. I mean, we just met, and it’s intense, but…”

“Yet, huh?” he said quietly, feeling something wither inside him. “Yeah, we are misunderstanding each other.”

“Oh good,” she chuckled nervously. “I was really thinking that…”

“Yeah, I don’t really want a relationship,” he interrupted quietly.

Lance braced himself for the meltdown that was soon to come. This had happened before to him. He didn’t think that Blythe was one of ‘those’ girls, but if she wanted the whole ‘we’re dating,’ ‘we’re engaged,’ or ‘we just got married’ hoopla – and that wasn’t him.

“I just want to have a little fun, and I know that we’ll both enjoy ourselves…”

Lance saw Blythe draw in her breath, reeling, as he stopped speaking, his words fading before he could finish the sentence. There was something glistening in her eyes, and a look of angry pity.

She was pitying him? Really?

She smiled painfully and nodded before taking another step back from him. The look on her face practically made him feel like he was some leper or had a disease. It had been a long time since he had a little fun and blew off some steam – and he was ready.

“You know, I thought small-town life would be so different,” she said quietly and shook her head. “I was so wrong. Men are all the same everywhere you go, no matter what they do for a living or how they look. From a janitor-to-Junior CEO… you guys really don’t get to know women at all, do you?”

“Eh?”

Blythe let out a sharp bark of laughter as she suddenly had this ‘hard’ look to her expression, transforming that warm woman into someone who looked cool and formidable. Magnificent to Maleficent in record time – with no special effects needed.

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