Page 52 of Don't Call Me Sweetheart

“No,” she cut me off. “Don’t call me that.”

My first attempt at an affectionate nickname was a bust. “Everyone calls you that.”

“You’re not everyone.” Her words were low and furious. “Every time someone calls me sweetheart, I want to run naked down Main Street, flipping cars and setting fires. Something to shock them. Because they say it, and all I hear is pity. Sadness. George’s widow. But you don’t say it like that.” She stepped close to me. She thumbed a wooden button on my cardigan before grabbing the thickly knit lapels in her fists. “And when you say it, I don’t want to run naked down Main Street. I want to run naked into your arms.” She sighed, shaking her head. “That’s not good, Max.”

My dick begged to differ. It twitched now, letting its feelings be known. “It sounds good,” I said carefully. “I am not opposed to you being naked in my arms. Sweetheart,” I added purposefully.

Except it didn’t come out the way I intended. I meant it to sound sexy. Teasing. A dare. Instead, it sounded…soft. Hopeful. My dick was getting harder by the second, but the opposite thing was happening inside me. Inside, I was turning soft and warm like liquid butter.

She scowled. “See, there it is again. You call me sweetheart, and I melt. How am I supposed to stay mad at you when I’m feeling all gooey inside?” she demanded.

Well, at least whatever this was, it was hitting us both squarely. It wasn’t just me—

Wait.

I caught her hands, still holding tightly to my cardigan, in mine. “You’re mad at me? How? The last time I saw you was yesterday, in my bed, and if I recall, you left me pretty damn happy.”

She flushed. “I’m not mad about that. I’m mad because—” She broke off with a frustrated noise. “Do you know how many times in the last decade I’ve wanted to shake up my life? Break the damn box I’m in, be someone other than George’s widow? Probably…once a year, it’s happened. But I never acted on it. There was a lot of almost. Moments when I could have, with a tourist or a hiker, or a businessman one year at a bachelorette party in Las Vegas. But I always let the moment pass. I never wanted it enough, I guess. Until you.”

“Because I was convenient?” A stupid question. Why did I ask? I definitely didn’t want the answer.

“No. Because you’re you.”

My heart kicked hard against my chest. And I knew. I had asked that stupid, needy question just so I could hear her refute it.

“I was so close to chickening out, you know.” She toyed with one of the wooden buttons, shifting even closer to me. “Maybe I would have, except you rolled up your sleeves, and I was overcome with lust for your forearms.”

I stared at her. “Are you being facetious?”

“No. That was definitely the moment for me.”

“My forearms? Huh.” I pushed up my sleeves and held my arms up, studying them. They looked…normal. Muscular enough, but not venturing into Popeye territory or anything. “I don’t—”

Our eyes met, lust flashing unmistakably in hers.

And I felt like I had downed an entire bottle of whiskey in one gulp.

I’d had sex before. Good sex, even. With Kate, it had been spectacular; there was no denying that. But no one had ever been overcome with lust. Not me. Not the women I had been with either—my ego wasn’t so fragile that I couldn’t admit the truth. But here was Kate, telling me that my forearms had been enough to override a decade of chastity.

That I had been enough.

And that was…something. I didn’t know what. I had never been special to anyone, and the idea that I was somehow special to her, in some way, even if it was just my forearms, seemed like a damn miracle.

“So, you see, this is all your fault,” Kate said. “Because everything changed that night. If I had known that the person waiting for me when I broke free was just my old teenage self, maybe I would have thought twice about it, forearms be damned.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I said. Maybe because the blood that was supposed to power my brain had headed south.

“It means that I’m making a mess of things. It’s like teen Kate is taking control of my mind. I’m horny and competitive, and everyone is disappointed in me. Everything feels wrong.” Her gaze sharpened on mine. “Except you. You feel right.”

Again, that kick of my heart against my ribs. “Sweetheart,” I said softly.

I hadn’t meant to say it.

But that didn’t matter.

I meant it.

She tugged off my cardigan, then pushed her hands beneath the hem of my shirt, taking it up over my head and tossing it aside. She pressed a kiss to my mouth, sliding her tongue against mine in a way that made me desperate and needy. I reached for her, but she pulled away, laughing, and pressed a line of kisses down my stomach, lowering herself as she went.

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