Page 25 of To Die For

“ ‘Getsgoing’?” he echoed. “Seems to me we’re halfway around the track already.”

“Not really. We haven’t left the starting line yet. We haven’t even been out on a date. This time, I mean. Two years ago doesn’t count.”

“We had dinner tonight.”

“That doesn’t count, either. You used your physical strength against me, then coerced me with threats.”

He snorted. “Like that would have stopped you from screaming your head off if you hadn’t decided you were hungry and I might as well pay for it.”

There was that, of course. Plus I was never in the least worried that he might actually hurt me. I felt remarkably safe and secure when I was with him—from everything excepthim,of course.

“So here’s the deal. I go out with you the way I would if we were starting all over again. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Another chance? That means no sex, because sex clouds the issue.”

“The hell it does.”

“Okay, it cloudsmyissues. Maybe when I get to know you better, and you get to know me, we’ll decide we don’t like each other that much, after all. Or maybe you decide you don’t like me nearly as much as I like you, because like I said, sex clouds the issue for me. Maybe men aren’t that influenced by having sex with someone, but women are. You’ll be saving me a lot of possible heartbreak if we back off and take our time with this.”

“You’re asking me to close the barn door after the horse is already out.”

“So round it up and put it back in your pants—barn, I mean.”

“That’s your point of view. In mine, it goes against every instinct tonotmake love to you as often as possible, because that’s how a man makes sure a woman is his.”

From his voice I could tell he was getting testy now. I sort of wished a light were on so I could read his expression, but that would have meant he’d be able to read mine, too, so I left well enough alone. “Ifwe were that far along in our relationship, I’d agree with you.”

“From the evidence at hand, I’d say we are.”

So we were both naked and in bed together. So what?

“But we aren’t. We’re very much physically attracted to each other, but we don’tknoweach other. For instance, what’s my favorite color?”

“Hell, I was married for three years and I never knew her favorite color. Men don’t think about colors.”

“You don’t have to think about something to just kind of notice it.” I glossed over the fact that he’d been married before. I’d known it, of course, because his mother had told me before she ever introduced us, but I didn’t like thinking about it any more than I liked thinking about my own failed marriage. In Wyatt’s case, however, I was just plain jealous.

“Pink,” he said.

“Close, but no cigar. That’s my second favorite color.”

“Good God, you have more than one?”

“Teal.”

“Teal’s a color? I thought it was a duck.”

“Maybe the color comes from a duck. I don’t know. The point is, if we had spent a lot of time together and really gotten to know each other, you’d have noticed that I wear a lot of teal and you might have guessed it. But you couldn’t, because wehaven’tspent a lot of time together.”

“The solution to that is to spend more time together.”

“Agreed. But without sex.”

“I feel as if I’m banging my head against a brick wall,” he said to the ceiling.

“I know the feeling.” I was beginning to get exasperated. “The point is,I’m afraid you’ll break my heart if I let you get too close to me. I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with you and then you’ll walk away again. I want to know you’re with me every step of the way if Idofall in love with you. How can I know that if we’re having sex, when sex means so much to a woman and it doesn’t mean much more to a man than just jerking off? It’s chemistry, and it short-circuits a woman’s brain, sort of drugs her, so she doesn’t notice she’s sleeping with a rat until it’s too late.”

There was a long pause; then he said, “What if I’m already in love with you, and I’m using sex to show you that, and to get closer to you?”

“If you’d said ‘infatuated,’ I might have believed you. I repeat, you don’t really know me, therefore you can’t truly love me. We’re in lust, not love. Not yet, and maybe not ever.”

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