Page 65 of Her Christmas Wish
Glancing up again he said, “Yeah, well, my pheromones have been invisibly bombarding you since the first day in your office,” he told her. Knowing why the fault was his. “I’ve been turned on pretty much since that first second by the elevator and shooting out the silent chemicals ever since. Mind you, they were firing without my blessing, but...” His neck was hurting, staring up at her. “You mind sitting down?” he asked. And then added, “It’s not like we’re in danger of crossing any lines here...”
Nope, that damage had already been done.
But the consequences seemed a tad less fatal when she lowered herself beside him. Not close enough to touch. But not piranha distance, either.
“So that was kind of random, huh?” she asked, knees drawn up with her dress pulled down over them to her ankles. With the dress’s slim line, not an easy feat.
That together with the fact that she was hugging those knees with both arms wrapped around them told him enough. She’d closed herself off to him.
There was relief in that.
And a certain amount of disgust for the relief.
“As you inferred, it was probably inevitable.” With no good way out. How did you proceed with a friends-only plan when you’d failed to keep to protocol at the first viable opportunity not to do so?
“It doesn’t change anything,” she said then. “Not going forward.”
The words lightened his load a ton. Until he glanced over at her and got turned on all over again. She was Sage. The one woman who did it for him above all others, apparently.
And a woman who needed far different things than he was equipped to provide. He got cold sweats even thinking about being the family man that would complete her picture.
“You think it’s possible...to go forward as planned?” he asked her. Realism was the one thing he could trust.
And they could most count on.
“Because I can’t guarantee that if we have a repeat somewhere down the road, of a night like tonight, it won’t happen again.”
If she could be the guarantee then, fine.
He was watching her, but she didn’t look back. “I don’t see how we have any other choice.”
Weak. A lawyerism—avoiding a fact due to having no good answer but refusing to commit to that information. She used to tease her brother about using them.
“So we just let the emptied pot fill up again, and cook, until it reaches boiling point and then see what happens?” The pot calling the kettle black. And they were the pot. Right there. Them together.
Sage finally turned to look at him, and while he couldn’t see the expression in her eyes due to the night’s shadows, he definitely recognized the firm set of her chin. “We’re too far in to disappear from each other’s lives.” She pointed out another truism. “And I’m not sure I have the strength to try, in any case.”
Whoosh.The chills that passed through him were decidedly the pleasant kind.
“So the only solution is to be on guard and make certain that we don’t ever let ourselves end up in the position we were in tonight. I’d planned to drive myself and I should have done.”
And he had some good news there. “I planned to drive separately as well,” he told her. “Scott was the one who asked...” He stopped, realizing he was hanging his friend out to dry. And finished with, “He was worried because he was going to be gone, and we’d be coming home late...” Hoping he was digging the twin out at least a little bit.
Sage’s facial muscles moved some. And while the night kept most of her expression from him, he had no trouble picturing her rolling her eyes.
“From now on, we know our parameters,” she said.
He wanted to grin. To take a swim. Or just run circles on the beach. “Agreed,” he said. Putting his whole system into the one word.
She’d found their way out of the muck.
Thank God.
As soon as they’d agreed upon a new plan to manage their gaffe, Sage jumped up, excused herself and left Gray sitting on the beach.
He’d offered to walk her up.
Hernohad been a bit harsh, but understandable, given the situation. They’d settled instead for her flashing her kitchen light—which could be seen from the beach—twice when she was inside and locked up safe.
