Page 138 of The Woman By the Lake

Something else hit me.

So I went after it. “The day after we first did it, I asked if you were for real, and you had an odd reaction to that. What did you think I was asking?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you know.”

“Did it?” he teased.

It was a cute tease, and I liked him teasing me.

What I didn’t like was him dodging me.

“Had sex, copulated, fornicated, whatever you want to call it.”

“Princess, that was solid gold fucking.”

Now he was being hot and teasing, which, if I didn’t nip it in the bud, would work.

“Stop deflecting,” I warned.

He blew out a sigh and said, “If memory serves, I didn’t know what you were talking about then, and I asked after it.”

“It was just that?”

“Honey.”

That was all he was going to say.

“Talk to me, Riggs,” I demanded.

“Right, I wake up to a woman, I scoot her on her way. I don’t tell her to put her toothbrush in my bathroom.”

“Okay,” I said cautiously.

“And I reckon you know that. Saying that, I’m not a player. But I get myself some. It’s just the women I got it from know that’s all I’m after.”

“I do know that.”

“So I wasn’t sure how you’d behave knowing I didn’t consider us a one-and-done situation, not even close to it.”

“You thought I’d think it was?”

“I didn’t know. It seemed like a weird question for you to ask.”

“I was just surprised you had any motor skills at your command. Even though I did my best, you did most of the work, and I was still shattered.”

That made him smile.

“Riggs, I’m into you,” I said softly.

“I get that,” he said brusquely.

Okay, this was making him uncomfortable. I had to let it go.

That said.

“For your information, there is no way I’d get involved with my neighbor if I wasn’t seriously interested. Especially after learning he had a son. And that’s not about you having Ledger and me thinking that’s baggage I don’t want to deal with. It’s about another human being in the mix. So the decision I made was considered, and made mostly because, I’ll repeat, I’m into you, and I am because I really like you.”

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