Page 73 of Rebel Bride
“Oh, yes, we can. I would have thought you’d be thrilled for me to be out of your hair. I ruined your vacation.”
“Vacations are all about sex, sun, and more sex. You’re denying me two out of three.”
“Could you be realistic about this? I had to go, to sort through the rubble of the life I just blew up. I couldn’t do that in Saugatuck.” I tapped his chest lightly. “I’m very grateful, though.”
“Not looking for gratitude,” he said moodily.
“Well, you have it. I don’t know what I would have done without your help. Not just the ride out of Dodge, but everything.”
“Don’t thank me for the orgasms.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
He was still annoyed, and I was rather miserable about the whole thing myself. “Are you going to stay mad at me forever?”
“Not mad at you.”
“Oh, please, Dino Boy! I’m having flashbacks to every run-in over the past year. I know when you’re mad at me.”
He growled.
“So. Mad.”
“I just thought we were getting somewhere.”
He sounded so woebegone. I felt his—I wouldn’t dare say heartache, but something more like disquiet—in my soul.
“We were. We’re friends now, aren’t we?”
He blew out a breath. “And if I want more?”
“You don’t think the Rebels have had enough teammate drama after your dad and Lars last season?”
“It’s not the same. Carter and I aren’t close.”
“It would still be a shitty thing to do to a teammate. And a shittier thing to do to the man I left at the altar.” Plus, I needed to figure out things on my own.
He leaned into me, and just the nearness of him almost undid me.
He cupped my jaw, and I found myself curling into his touch like a fool. It would be so easy to let him hold me, to lose myself in him. But that was my mom. That was me with Dash.
“Tell me you can stop what’s happening here, Summer.”
I shivered. “I’m not going to deny my attraction to you, Hatch. But if we were to follow through on this, it would look … incriminating. Like I planned to jilt Dash for you.”
“No one would think that.”
“I already look like a flake, and with you, I would look like a cheating flake.”
He studied me. “Do you feel like this is cheating?”
“No. I feel like it’s …” More than I could have ever wished for. And definitely more than I deserve. “Getting out of control. I just exited a long-term relationship and I’m not ready to jump into another one. My life has too many loose threads right now and if I pull on this one, the whole sweater will unravel. Not that you want a relationship?—”
“I do.”
The shock of it, those two little words—the ones I had not said to Dash in the church—now repurposed in a different context almost knocked me over.
“But you barely know me. Up until a few days ago, you didn’t even like me.”
