Page 38 of Adoring Delaney

“Maybe not, but it’s the truth.”

“She was just friendly,” I defended.

“No, baby, she was desperate. We sat down, and she came right to your side and took a seat. There were plenty of other places she could’ve waited, but instead she sat close. Then she talked your ear off.”

“Carter, she didn’t talk my ear off. I’m sure it’s hard for you to understand because up until recently you’ve answered questions with the least amount of words possible and avoided anything that resembled conversation, but she was simply being nice.”

The waiter coming to take our drink orders cut off Carter’s retort. And by the way his eyes had narrowed I knew he was going to be bossy which led me to asking a lot of questions about the menu and the nightly specials. I did this long enough for the waiter to get fidgety and Carter to stare at me.

Whatever.

He could be as irritated as he wanted to be. It wasn’t like I was trying to impress him nor was I trying to jockey for another date. As far as I was concerned Carter Lenox could suck it. I hadn’t lied when I said this place had the best steaks in Georgia.

I was going to order the biggest one they had, and enjoy every bite. And if Carter sat across from me miserable it served him right. He wanted this, not me.

13

Delaney had worked herself into a snit and by the determined look on her face she was going to nurse it for the rest of the night.

Being as she was angry for reasons only known to her, I might as well get some shit straight.

“Right, so, that’s the last time you get to throw that in my face,” I started.

“Throw what in your face?”

Yeah, she was angry all right, and lucky for me she was cute as hell when she was miffed. She always had been, even as a teenager full of sass and attitude, instead of being annoying it was fun to poke at her.

“That shit about me not talking. We’ve covered that, and we’re not gonna keep going over it until you convince yourself that we’ve never had a conversation. Because you know that’s not right. There were some topics I didn’t discuss but we’ve spent many nights lying in our bed, with me holding you, and us talking until you drifted off.”

And that was the damned truth. More times than I could count I’d hold her and she’d tell me about what she was teaching, about her students, about school politics. And before that when she was in college, she’d tell me about her classes, her teachers, her friends, and everything in between.

“Don’t you mean my bed?” she huffed.

Christ.

“No, Laney baby. I meant ours. Any bed you’ve ever been in where I’ve joined you has always been ours.”

“That’s a stretch—”

“Stop. I get you’re fighting for your corner, and I know you have a right to be wary, I didn’t do right by you. I’ve admitted it. Repeatedly. But stop twisting what we have.”

“We don’t—”

“Stop.”

“Did you just growl at me?” she asked incredulously.

I wasn’t sure if I had or not. I’d been too busy trying not to haul her over the table and kiss the attitude out of her. Which made my thoughts stray even further to the last time I’d kissed her. It had been days since I last tasted her and by her declaration last night about not kissing on the first date, which I had to say pissed me right the fuck off, she’d been on a date with a man other than me. I wouldn’t be getting my shot for a few more days. That wasn’t going to work for me.

I had to admit, one of the many great things about moving home was not having to go months between having her, and we weren’t starting this off in a way where she was throwing up walls around every turn, keeping me from her.

“Probably,” I answered honestly.

“You can’t growl at me,” she protested.

“I can’t? Funny, seems I did.”

“I think we should call it a night and you should take me home. This isn’t working for me.”

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