Page 100 of Torrid Love
Her eyebrows knit together. “I don’t follow.”
“We should make it official and start dating.”
Her head jerks back and she fixes those piercing blue eyes on me.
She opens her mouth, then shuts it. She does that a few times.
“Huh?”
“I said we should start dating.”
“Dating?”
She blinks at me so furiously, you’d think she’s trying to take flight.
I nod. “Obviously it has to be mutual.”
“You. . . us. . .” she ping-pongs her index finger between her chest and mine. “Dating?” she repeats. “As in girlfriend-boyfriend? That kind of dating?”
“Yeah, that kind of dating, silly.”
“Whoa.”
This isn’t going quite as planned.
“You don’t want this to go any further?”
“Did you hear me say that?” she borrows my words from earlier. I chuckle. “Rod, you don’t know how to date. You’re a consummate bachelor.”
“You’ll be my tutor like you were all those years back.”
Bouncing around between two homes didn’t bode well for a kid who already struggled in school. As a result of my mother’s inability to be a decent parent, I ended up straggling by one year. It was embarrassing. Without Dom’s unwillingness to give up on me, I would’ve never graduated. She saw intelligence where I—and all my teachers—saw inadequacies.
“We’re no longer in high school, Rod. We’re adults and this is a big decision.”
“One I’ve thoroughly thought through,” I affirm.
She considers me for several long seconds.
“I may have a little bit more experience, but it doesn’t mean I’m really any good at it. My relationships don’t tend to last very long.”
“Maybe because you were with the wrong guys,” I argue.
“And you’re the right one?”
“I am.”
Loki and Roark’s intervention got me thinking hard. I woke up this morning with an unwavering sense of urgency. I’m here to stake a claim on my girl.
“Wow. You’re pretty confident.”
“I’m just feeding off what happened between us.” I pause. “Why don’t we learn together?”
Her gaze intensifies. “You understand you’ll have to become a one-woman-kind-of-guy? No more chasing skirt.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“What about Dark Compulsion?”
