Page 23 of Falling For The Enemy (The Gilbert Curse)

“Driving.”

“Do you have your learner’s permit?” he asked.

“Yes. I took the written test a few months ago. But Dash doesn’t drive after his accident and Conrad...he said he doesn’t have the patience to teach anyone.”

“Are you just doing it because he said no?”

At first maybe that had been part of the reason she’d wanted to learn to drive, but the truth was more complicated. “I need to be able to do things for myself, you know?”

“I do. I’ll give you your first lesson tomorrow,” he said. “I should let you go. Good night, Rory.”

“Good night, Kit,” she said.

Seven

Rory pushed her doubts about Kit aside as she got ready the next morning for her driving lessons. Elle had been busy at the hospital. She worked with long-term trauma patients, like Rory had been, but she was also the on-call brain trauma specialist. However, last night...Rory could have used a girlfriend to talk her off the worry ledge that she’d managed to find herself on.

Looking at herself in the mirror as she plaited her hair into one long braid that fell over her left shoulder, she tried to be objective. She looked like a woman, which always surprised her when she caught a glimpse of herself. She still felt like that eighteen-year-old girl she’d been when she went into the coma. It was odd to see that her face had matured into her mom’s features.

Rory glanced at the photo of her parents that she’d stuck on the corner of her vanity. She had so few real memories of them because she’d only been six when they died. Dash had kept them alive for her by telling her stories. But their faces had faded. And when she thought of her parents it was simply in this pose from the picture.

It was odd to see her mother’s face staring back at her from the mirror. She wished she’d somehow absorbed her mother’s strength and confidence from back then, too. But she hadn’t.

She wanted more with Kit physically than the arousing kisses they’d shared. But she wasn’t sure how to tell him. And frankly, TV, movies and books weren’t helping. It would be really great if there was an article about what to do when you went into a coma as a girl and woke up a woman. With tips on flirting and updates on what guys liked ten years later.

Which was part of the problem. Rory didn’t want to change herself to make herself into something Kit wanted. And she knew, deep down, that he would not want that for her either. She put her head in her hands, smiling as she remembered the way he’d looked on his couch the night before. He’d been all relaxed and scruffy and cuddly but still undeniably sexy. She’d wanted to be snuggled up beside him, making out.

Except she hadn’t really ever made out with a man before. Well, there had been that one time the summer before the accident when she’d kissed one of Con’s college friends on the deck of the yacht while the sun set. So romantic...until he’d told her he thought he’d had too much to drink and turned and vomited over the side of the boat.

Everything she’d done with Kit was way more romantic than that. But she still wasn’t sure of herself as woman.

She went to the group text chat she had with Elle and Indy.

Rory: Help! I need to know more about sex.

Elle: Is Kit pressuring you?

Rory: I wish. I’m just so inexperienced and don’t want to be.

Indy: I’ve got some books, come by the shop.

Her phone started ringing with a video call in the group. She answered and saw Elle sitting in her office at work and a moment later Indy answered from behind the counter in her bookstore.

“Sorry, thought this would be easier,” Elle said. “So what is it you’re unsure about?”

Rory shrugged and took a deep breath and told them both about the kiss she’d had with Kit and how he’d semi-ghosted her after Dash had arrived.

“Sounds like Dash was being overprotective,” Elle said. “I’ll talk to him about that.”

Rory laughed. “No, it was fine. He and I are figuring that part out. Last night Kit called and we talked. He said he’d been busy with work but I have to wonder if he knows I’m not very experienced and is turned off by that.”

Indy shook her head. “You’re never going to know that unless you ask him. But if he called and apologized, I think you can believe him.”

“I do, too,” Elle said. “He could have just never contacted you again.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Even though Kit had bought the condo next door, it seemed he was away on business so frequently that it would be easy for him to ignore her. “So...” She trailed off. She wasn’t sure how to put into words what she really wanted to know. Then she suddenly decided to just ask these two women who were her sisters of the heart. “Should I really tell him I don’t have any experience?”

“I’d just see how it plays out,” Indy suggested. “I had a date push me too far and really struggled with intimacy, and I was obviously not going to tell Con but it sort of just came out after we kissed. It felt natural and just...well, Con got it and he was great.”

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