Read Online The Driven Snowe by Cathy Yardley - Free Book Online Page A

her perfume. He’d been smelling it on the pillow she’d used since she left. He blamed the amazingly vivid dreams he’d been having on that fact and refused to do anything about it. “I…it’s just the fact that I haven’t done— that —before,” she said slowly. He wondered if she was trying to convince him, or herself. “So it’s natural that it will take time to get used to all this.”
    â€œâ€˜All this’ being what?”
    She swallowed hard. “Wanting you,” she said. His body tensed at the words.
    â€œYou could maybe get used to it gradually…” he suggested, but she interrupted him.
    â€œThe thing is, I know it’s just my body doing all the thinking, and if I don’t get a grip on it now…who knows what it’s going to convince me to do.”
    He didn’t think that sounded like that terrible ademise. Abruptly, he realized the whole reason he was on this quest to convince Angela was a result of his body—at least at first. Now, he didn’t want to think about exactly why he was doing what he was doing. “I actually can understand that,” he said. “Still, I think you’re making a little mistake here.”
    Her eyes widened, obviously insulted. “Okay. Maybe not mistake, ” he corrected. “Just…a little flawed reasoning. You’re afraid that if you and I enjoyed some more time together, that we would get involved.”
    â€œThat about sums it up.”
    â€œAre we involved now?”
    She looked at him, warily. “I don’t think so.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be much different, Angela. In fact, I think that spending more time with me would make it easier to get used to what your body is putting you through. It’s like…” He racked his brain for an analogy that would convince her. “It’s like dieting.”
    She smirked at him. “Is it?”
    â€œIf you deprive yourself, you’re going to just lose it and binge,” he said. “Better to let yourself have what you’re craving—have exactly what you’re craving,” he said, and smiled to himself as he saw her eye his body, then quickly look away. “Otherwise, you’ll wind up indulging in other areas, and be unhappy and unsatisfied.”
    He could see that her body desperately wanted to go along with his reasoning, but her deep brown eyes were still clinging to the logic she’d started with. “I can understand your point,” she said seriously, “but I don’t think you can separate what we’ve done from the possibility of having a relationship.”
    He always had in the past…but now wouldn’t be agood time to make that point. He tried changing tacks instead. “Why don’t you want to be in a relationship?”
    â€œI have a lot of things I want to do, and see, and experience. I don’t want to get that all clouded up because I’m involved with somebody. From what I’ve seen, and from what all my women friends have told me, men are simply too…distracting. Actually, the term they use is ‘high maintenance.’ If you’re in a relationship, that usually takes precedence over everything else, and I have too much to do to get bogged down that way.” She glanced at him curiously. “I’d suspect men feel the same way. Isn’t that why you haven’t really had relationships?”
    â€œI would rather say I just haven’t found somebody I can be happy with.”
    She squinted at him, then shrugged. “Well, that’s my reasoning.”
    He wasn’t getting anywhere with this logical debate. His body was starting to “distract” him even as she made her argument in her clear, schoolteacher tone. He didn’t want to reason with her. He wanted to…
    Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing wrong. His body wholeheartedly agreed with him.
    â€œI