“Youdon’t drive with both hands on the wheel,” I pointed out.
“I don’t have to, because I’m in charge. You’re not.”
I snorted, but let that bit of provocation slide past. “As for all of that, the only reason I didn’t go to Mom’s in the first place is because you said Dwayne Bailey might look for me there and I could be endangering Mom and Dad as well as myself. Well, Dwayne Bailey’s been arrested, and there’s no reason for him to look for me anymore. So I can go to Mom’s.”
“Not tonight,” he said.
“I’d like to know why not.”
“Because I’m not taking you there.”
“Do you have something you have to do tonight? She can come pick me up.”
“Stop being deliberately obtuse. I’m not buying it. I’ve got you right where I want you, and I’m keeping you there.”
My temper began to fray. “I amnotgoing to be your little sex toy for you to play with whenever you get the urge. I have a life to get back to. I have to go to work tomorrow.”
“You can go to work tomorrow. But I’ll take you, not your mother.”
“That makes no sense whatsoever. What if something happens and you have to work? I’m correct that you can be called in at any time, right?”
“It’s possible, but I’m not called on to go to the crime scenes very often. That’s what my detectives are for.”
“I don’t need to be taken to work anyway. My car has an automatic transmission, and I can buckle my seat belt one-handed. I’m perfectly capable of driving, and don’t start with that two-hands-on-the-wheel stuff again.” I was as determined now to leave as he was determined for me to stay. I hadn’t been before, but he was calmly assuming he could tell me what to do, and I had to nip that in the bud, now didn’t I?
He was silent for a moment; then he completely undermined me with a quiet, “Don’t you want to be with me?”
I stared at him, mouth open. “Of course I do,” I blurted before I could catch myself; then reason reasserted itself and I said indignantly, “I can’t believe you’re that underhanded and sneaky. That was agirlargument, and you used it against me!”
“Doesn’t matter. You admitted it.” He gave me a smugly triumphant smirk, then blinked. “What’s a girl argument?”
“You know, appeal to the emotion.”
“Damn, if I’d known it worked that well, I’d have used it before.” He reached over and squeezed my knee. “Thanks for the tip.”
He winked at me and I couldn’t help laughing. I swatted his hand away. “I realize circumstances got in the way, but you haven’t lived up to our bargain. You haven’t courted me at all. So I want to go home.”
“I seem to remember having this discussion before. Your idea of courting and mine aren’t the same.”
“I want to go out on dates. I want to go to movies, to dinner, dancing—You do dance, don’t you?”
“Under great protest.”
“Oh, dear.” I gave him the BSE—big sad eyes. BSEs are just one step below tears in the arsenal. “I love dancing.”
He darted an alarmed look at me, then muttered, “Shit. All right. I’ll take you dancing.” He said it with a long-suffering air.
“I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to.” If that wasn’t the perfect place for the classic feminine low-blow, I’d never seen one before. If he took me at my word, he knew he was disappointing me, but if he did take me dancing, he had to pretend he was enjoying it. This is one of the ways women get back at men for not having periods, you know.
“But—after the date is over, we do what I want to do.”
Two guesses whatthatwas. I pulled a shocked look. “You want me topayfor a date withsex?”
“Works for me,” he said, and squeezed my knee again.
“Not going to happen.”
“Good. Then I don’t have to go dancing.”