Page 70 of The Outsider

“No,” he said, coming into the kitchen and jerking the fridge open. Her eyes slid to his body, to the play of muscles in his biceps. The movement of his chest.

He was hot. He was so hot. And now she felt terminally distracted by it. By the glorious way his body was constructed. The way his skin played over his muscles. His pants rode so low she could see that deep-cut mark that seemed to form an arrow pointing down to...

She started breathing a little bit too fast. She couldn’t help it. He reached into the fridge and took out a beer.

“Just a hookup then?” she pressed.

“Not really. She was somebody that I used to see sometimes.”

“But not a girlfriend.”

“I’ve never had a girlfriend,” he said.

Her eyes went wide. “You what?”

“Never had one. I don’t do relationships.”

This was an out-of-body experience. Talking to him half-naked, in sweats while he was drinking a beer. About the kind of guy he was when it came to relationships or the lack of them.

Not in uniform. Not above reproach.

“You don’t seem like that kind of guy,” she said.

“I’m not the kind of guy my brothers are. I don’t go out to the bar and pick up a different woman every night.”

“You just have... arrangements.”

“Yeah. I don’t know why this is of interest to you, but she sells vitamins. She used to come around to the ranch every few months. We were part of her route that she was on. So she and I... used to see each other.”

“Fuck,”she said. “Used tofuck.”

“Yes,” he said.

And she could honestly say she had never been quite so aware of what that word meant as she was right now. She threw around hard language because it was a way for her to blend in. A way that she became part of the group with her dad or her brother and all the other men. But the truth was, she was blessedly, physically innocent, and because of that she had never really had to ponder the meaning of that word.

But when she said it in connection with Daughtry, it created a distressingly graphic series of images in her mind.

“We were friends too,” he said. “Weare. As you can see, we are on good terms still.”

“So then why didn’t you sleep with her?”

“Why do you care?”

She was jealous. She was miserably, smally, horribly jealous.

It made her want to lash out.

So she did.

“I’m curious,” she said. “Only because you seem so sexless. It’s like when I found the condoms in your nightstand drawer. It was just weird.”

That earned her a hard stare. He looked angry, and so sexy she had to press her knees together to manage the pulse that radiated through her. “I’msexless?” he asked.

“Yep.” She wished she had more pizza so she could take another bite and stop herself from talking. “Like a cardboard cutout of Captain America. Pretty but... you know. Cardboard.”

“Okay,” he said, turning and heading toward the doorway. He lifted his arm and tipped his beer bottle back, and the muscles on his back shifted. A mockery of what she had just said. And he didn’t stay and argue with her. He just left her there. Marinating in her misery and arousal. Her knowledge that he had arrangements, and that she was hopelessly, miserably attracted to him. And that he was completely out of her league.

Because what did that even mean? She had never kissed a man before. She had never wanted to.

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