Page 143 of The Puck Stops Here

‘Can you stay the night?’ she whispered.

‘Just you try and move me…’

* * *

They’d made love three times already and still he wasn’t satisfied.

She lay on his chest as the first rays of dawn seeped into the room, not quite asleep but not quite awake either.

It was impossible to sleep with all this racing inside him.

He wanted more. From her, from this, but what was more? An actual relationship. Hell, he’d never had one of those. Not of the serious kind. Sex, sure. But commitment, no.

And that was what he wanted. Exclusivity. The whole of her. No half measures. But how to broach that when he knew her stance on relationships, knew it as well as he knew his own. But if he could change…

‘What’s wrong?’ She lifted her head to look at him and he forced himself to relax as he traced circles on her shoulder.

‘Nothing. Not really.’

‘You’re a rubbish liar, you know that?’

He gave a tight chuckle. ‘I might have heard that once or twice before, yeah.’

‘So out with it…’

He couldn’t just say what he was thinking. Hell, he wasn’t even sure hetrustedwhat he was thinking. And maybe this was the norm for her, getting close to people she worked with, creating a bond that led to…

‘Am I the first… what are we – subjects? The first subjectyou’ve slept with?’

Her face froze over, the panic in her eyes telling him to leave it alone. But too late, he’d asked. And he wanted to know. Even as the green-eyed monster reared its ugly head.

‘Astrid?’

‘No,’ she whispered, tucking her head into his chest. He didn’t know what pained him more, the confirmation or the fact she couldn’t look at him as she said it. ‘You’re the second.’

‘Who was the first?’

He felt her swallow. Was she protecting the guy’s identity? Or protecting herself from something that still hurt? And if it was the latter – fuck, thatdidhurt.

‘You don’t need to tell me.’ What came before him was her business, not his. He had no right, but… ‘I just?—’

‘He was an artist.’

‘An artist…?’ Another creator like herself. Someone who would’ve inspired her as much as she did him. A perfect fit. ‘How long ago?’

She wriggled even closer. ‘We broke up six months ago.’

Broke up?That suggested anactualrelationship… from the woman who claimed love and marriage weren’t in her future.

‘How long were you together?’ He couldn’t help himself now. He had to know it all.

‘A few months.’

‘Monogamous?’

Nothing.

‘Astrid?’

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