Page 47 of The Thought of You

“Don’t stop kissing me, Owen,” she pleads.

“Wait.” I grip her upper arms and shift backward, putting enough distance between us to help clear my head. “We’re kissing. You and I are kissing.”

“We were, anyway.” She inhales, and her nostrils flare in the process.

“You and I don’t kiss. Why are you kissing me?” I urge as normal function slowly resumes in my brain. “Is this some kind of elaborate prank? Bat your eyelashes and lick those pouty lips until I drop my pants, then you toss them out the window or something?”

“Not at all what I was thinking, but it’s a solid prank for future reference.”

“Cute,” I deadpan. “What’s really going on here?”

She tries to ease back into my embrace, but I tighten my grip and lock her in place. She drags her teeth along her bottom lip as her gaze zeroes in on my mouth. “I thought it’d be fun, just this once, to be unpredictable. To be anything but adorable little Addie who never changes.”

“Who told you that?”

The corners of her eyes sink until they’re frowning, and my stomach turns. “Everyone,” she whispers. “Even my mom thinks I’m no fun. You heard her last night.”

“She was kidding.”

She throws her arms over mine and jerks away from me. “Of course, you’d say that. You think everything’s a joke, but you don’t know my mom. You don’t know me.”

“Is she the one you were talking about in the closet last night? The person you don’t want to be?”

She combs her fingers through the ends of her hair and shakes her head. “Forget it. Forget this ever happened, okay? It was stupid.”

“I don’t want to forget it,” I assert, moving toward her.

She glares, but it doesn’t stop me.

Instead, I sweep my arms around her and tug her back into me. “Talk to me,” I beg.

“I like kissing you.”

“Me too.” I lean my forehead to hers again as she traces indiscernible patterns on my chest with the tip of her finger. “And I want to keep kissing you, but I need to know what’s going on.”

“What’s going on is that I want you. Right here. Right now. Just once.” Her labored breaths fill the little space between us. “I can be unpredictable and spontaneous. Sleeping with you in a room we’re not supposed to be in would cover both.”

I cringe as her request skitters over me like tiny knives. What she’s asking feels… wrong.

I’d love nothing more than to ease her onto this ancient bed and leave our mark in history by leaving my mark on her, but it would be for the wrong reasons.

“Not like this,” I say, and the words are heavy, like my tongue is made of cement.

“What are you saying? Are you rejecting me?” She jerks back, attempting to wiggle out of my hold, but I just grip her tighter.

I hover over her, using my body to fill the space she’s trying to put between us. Then I slide one hand up the back of her neck and spread my fingers, cradling her head in my large palm. “I don’t want you for just one night.”

“I thought that was your thing—one-night stands are in line with the Owen Conrad brand just like baseball and wavy hair.”

I clench my jaw against the sting of her statement. It’s not the first time I’ve heard something of the sort about me. People have always believed I’m the hit-it-and-quit-it type. That I hooked up with countless women while I played baseball, because I’m a flirt. Being a flirt and a professional athlete equals a serial dater to a lot of people.

But the truth is, very rarely did I ever go out with women, and when I did, it was with a girlfriend. I’ve always been a long-term kind of guy.

The gossip around town suggesting otherwise is largely misguided, but I’ve never felt the need to correct the rumors because they’ve been innocent enough.

Until now.

None of these assumptions have bothered me until Addie just tried to use me because of them.

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