Page 6 of Polished Off

“And I know better than to listen to gossip. Especially when I know you as well as I do. But then? We’d just become friends. It seemed like the people who said you were a hit-and-quit guy when you traveled knew you better than I did. So I believed them.”

“You know me better than that, Jill. Tell me you do.” Hurt lowers his voice to a deep rumble.

“I mean, I do now!” I rush to explain.

“Then why keep me in the friendzone? You had to know I was interested in you.” He sounds baffled, but there’s no ignoring the command in his tone.

“Because what if I was wrong? What if I messed up our friendship? Or what if…” I can’t bring myself to lay out my biggest fear. The real one. It has nothing to do with Tate, and everything to do with worrying I’d fall in love and turn into my mother. That I’d become someone who gives up on their own passions and interests to play backup to their partner’s ambitions.

“What if what? Where’s this pessimism coming from? That’s not you.” Conviction rings in every word. We may not be friends who share every little secret, but Tate knows I’m not the type to envision every possible way things can go wrong. At least, he knows I’m not that way as a business owner or friend. But romantic-Jill? Relationship-Jill? Yeah, that me has lots of worries.

Top of the list? Screwing up the best friendship I’ve ever had with a guy. I mean, sure sex is great, and after seeing exactly what Tate’s working with, I have no doubt it would be out-of-this-world awesome. Not that it’d take much, considering I haven’t been with anyone but myself since before I moved to Magnolia Point and bought the Diddled Fiddle.

Is it ironic for the owner of a bar, with a masturbation pun for a name, being a gold medalist in solo sexing? Most definitely.

I shove a giant bite of spicy citrus-pork, wrapped in soft corn tortilla, in my mouth. With my cheeks puffed out around the ridiculous amount of food I’m chewing, there’s no way I can answer him. Clever deflection. I pat myself on the back, metaphorically.

Tate narrows his eyes at me when I lift the taco to take another monster bite before I even swallow the last one. He leans back in his chair, thickly muscled forearms flexing when he crosses them over his broad chest. The same chest I’d ogled just this morning when his shirt had been tucked under his chin so he could stroke that magnificent cock without tangling in the wet cotton.

My unruly brain conjures the picture of every defined ridge and plane of sculpted brawn, his body bulked up from his job lifting heavy glass and frames. How such delicate stained-glass art can come from such a hulked-out guy has always surprised me. His right eyebrow lifts, and his lush smile curves into a cocky smirk. I know he’s caught the way I can’t help eye-fucking the way his muscles flex and relax.

Silence stretches between us, the only noise being my very impolite chewing and gulping. My lips are clamped down tight around the bulging mouthful of food. Not just in an attempt to avoid being that gross person who chews with their mouth open, but to stifle the confessions bursting to get out of my chest.

The urge to confess my biggest fears about falling in love bubbles alongside the impulse to admit how absolutely horny Tate makes me. How much I love his body and fantasize about his hands on me when I touch myself.

“Cute but it’s not gonna work, babe. You have to finish that taco at some point. Then you’ll be out of excuses, and I’ll still be here, waiting for you to admit what’s between us will be so good any of your worries will disappear.”

I grab for the bag of tortilla chips, the need to stall while I process his bold claim riding me hard. Before I can seize the queso, Tate snatches the container of melty gooey goodness out of reach.

“You can’t hold the queso hostage. It’s inhumane!”

Chapter

Eight

TATE

“He who holds the queso makes the rules, my darling.” My attempt at an evil villain snarl is an epic fail, but it makes Jill laugh and relaxes the heavy tension still choking us.

There’s an ease with Jill that I’ve never found with anyone else. As much as the two years of cold showers and late-night fantasies has sucked, the time hasn’t been wasted. I know this woman. I know what makes her laugh. What makes her sad. How to cheer her up when she’s got the blues. The way to tease her out of them.

I also know whatever’s scaring her about us isn’t anything I can drag out of her. In all the time I’ve known her, she’s never gone on a single date. And I’d know, because her refusal to hook up with any of the pricks brazen enough to ignore my obvious warnings to keep away from her is all that’s kept me sane on the sidelines.

Is it a dick move to cockblock Jill’s prospects every chance I get? You can count the fucks I give on one hand and have a fistful of none left.

The way I figure it, if a single one of those guys was as serious about her as I am, no warning on earth would stand in their way. Knowing Jill, she’d probably be irritated if she knew about my high handedness. She’s never noticed though, which tells me she didn’t have any interest in the guys trying to flirt with her. I have no regrets.

“What do you want from me, Tate? Really?” I hear the vulnerable note. It shouldn’t surprise me, but damn, if I’m not rocked to realize she’s not always boldly self-confident.

I never want my Jill to wonder what she means to me, and it kills me to realize she has for all this time. I’m ashamed for so passively accepting she wasn’t interested in me, even though chemistry so often blazed between us.

“I don’t want to take anything from you. I want to give to you. Share with you. Be for you.” Fuck, I’m not even making sense. I shake my head and issue a silent demand to pull myself together.

Jill’s silent through my rambling, but there’s no missing the laughter dancing in her warm brown eyes. My word vomit doesn’t bother her. I’ve never been one for flowery speeches or poetic claims. She knows I’m more likely to put my foot in my mouth than to dance through a complicated conversation.

“What’s so funny, huh?” I don’t pull the villainous snarl bit again, but the growly inflection brings the laughter from her eyes to her lips.

“It’s wildly inappropriate, I know, but I almost said, ‘that’s what he said’ when you said you want to give to me.” And that right there is the Jill I know. My Jill.

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