Page 74 of Never Forever

I almost lied, just to get him to leave.

“No. I’ll call Annie.”

He made a face, like that wasn’t the best idea. And sure. Fine. My sister was in some all-encompassing sex fest or whatever with Levi, but she’d answer my call.

I tapped on her name and it went straight to voice mail.

“I’ll just call one of my many assistants,” I lied.

“Okay,” he said. And waited.

“You can leave.”

“You know I can’t leave you alone here.”

“I’m not a child and the bear thing was always bullshit.”

“Carrie, I can drop you at the hotel,” he sighed like I was just such a problem.

“Or you can leave.”

Lightning crashed in the distance and the wind suddenly blew so hard all the trees practically bent sideways.

He stared at me and I stared back until finally I threw my hands in the air. “Fine. But no touching.”

“Definitely not,” he agreed.

“No kissing.”

“No shit,” he said.

“Total silence.”

“Amen.”

We ran through the rain to the truck, and as mad as I was and planned to be until the day I died when it came to anything Matt Sullivan, there was something rather fun about running in the rain. So when we were on the bench seat, wiping wet hair off our faces, we were both smiling.

We took one look at each other and immediately stopped smiling.

The air between us grew thick and heavy.

Matt swallowed. “The Dumont?”

“Yes, please.”

We pulled to the edge of the lot, stopping to look both ways before easing out into the street. The windshield wipers were going full blast.

“About yesterday-” he said.

“Let’s not talk about it,” I said, cutting him off and reaching down to crank up the heat and move all the vents so they were pointing at me and not him.

“Not the kiss.”

“That didn’t happen.”

“Oh, it happened. You kissed me, Carrie Piedmont.”

“Yes, but you kissed me first,” I said. “So it was one hundred percent your fault.”

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