Read Online Stay With Me by Sharla Lovelace - Free Book Online Page A

“That’s gonna take longer than we have here.”

    His eyes landed back on mine and the silence was heavy, the air thick. My emotions swirled inside me, pulling me forward. I stepped back one, instead. What was he doing? Arrogance, I could handle. This was something else.

    “I owe you an explanation—”

    “Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, bitter laughter dousing the heat. “If that’s what’s eating you, don’t let it.”

    I stepped forward again and gestured to him to move away from my car door. He didn’t flinch or blink as I crossed personal space, just followed my eyes with his.

    “Savi.”

    “I’m serious, Ian,” I said, steeling myself and looking flatly up into his eyes. “You owe me nothing.”

    Up close the pull was stronger, but I refused to let it show. I lifted my chin before I could get weak.

    “I may be here a while,” he said finally, his voice softer.

    “So I heard.”

    “We have to coexist,” he said. “I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

    I laughed out loud at that, making him look at me with amusement.

    “And showing up here like this—you don’t find this uncomfortable?”

    “No,” he said, a smile coming back into his eyes. “I find this normal.”

    “Of course you do,” I said, forcing a smile on my face. “Look, we’re grown-ups here, right?”

    A tug pulled at one corner of his lips, drawing my eyes there. Damn it. “That’s the rumor.”

    “We can coexist just fine,” I said. “Now, I have a life to get to, if you don’t mind getting off my car.”

    He looked behind him with a smirk. “Still backing in for a quicker getaway, I see.”

    I felt the twitch in my shoulders. “From my own house?” I said. “Not really.”

    “Old habits,” he whispered, leaning forward a few inches.

    Goose bumps sprinkled over my skin, and my mouth went dry. I licked my lips and watched his eyes drop to catch it.

    “It’s a busy street,” I managed to say. “Just easier than backing out.”

    Ian nodded, not blinking. Then he pushed off the car, forcing me to take a step backward.

    “For what it’s worth,” he said as he walked to a bike that made my heart speed up, not stopping, not looking back. “He’s a lucky guy.”

    I watched him straddle that thing in the dusky dark, turn over the throaty engine, and drive away before I slumped against my door.

     

    • • •

     

    It took me a bit to find the place, since it was off the beaten path a little. Or a lot. I’d spent some time out in those woods when I was young—on the back of a used ten-year-old Harley-Davidson Sportster—but there weren’t many houses inhabiting it back then. Mostly just teenagers looking for a place to get high.

    Now, looking at the income bracket that had to live in these houses, it was kind of out of my league, and I was beginning to think I should have gone to veterinary school.

    I arrived a few minutes late, which I didn’t mind so much. Normally I was freakishly anal about that, and I hoped he wasn’t, but to be honest I really needed to shake Ian off my skin. Even the air around me felt like him. I couldn’t keep doing this—going on dates with Duncan with visions of Ian dancing around. It wasn’t fair to him, and my God, he was giving me a second chance already. I had to bring all of me to this date. He deserved that.

    Duncan’s house was not what I expected. He always struck me as the normal average white picket fence kind of guy. Certainly not a two-story, gabled, double-wooden front doors kind of guy.

    I felt fidgety ringing his doorbell, like I was some door-to-door salesman or holding a bucket out for money. Standing there in my ripped jeans with plastic grocery bags of ice cream, I felt a little out of my element.

    “Okay, Savi, shake it off,” I whispered, not moving my lips as I glanced around for a camera. Old habits. Yep, there it was. Two of them. One up close and one I’d missed walking up.

    When one of the doors opened,