She sat up straighter, reached behind her, and cupped the organs Brandon had named, her touch both gentle and teasing. “But I like your balls. He can’t take them.”
Brandon’s pager buzzed again. “Then you’d better let me check that.”
“Fine.” She reached up, untied the silk cords that held him fast to the brass bars of her headboard. “I hate it when you have to go.”
“We could get a place together.” The words were out before he could stop them.
Shit.
She climbed off him to the floor, grabbed her bathrobe. “Please don’t ruin this.”
He sat up, flexed his fingers and reached down to untie his ankles. “How does that ruin anything? If we moved in together, we’d be together whenever I was home.”
She turned to face him, slipped her arms into her robe. “Then we’d have to talk about mundane things like who cooks and who cleans and who takes out the garbage. You’d start leaving socks on the floor, expecting me to do your laundry, and asking me what’s for dinner as if meals were my job. It wouldn’t be fun anymore.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not that kind of guy.” He got out of bed, grabbed his pants, drew his pager out of the pocket.
Another red flag warning with winds expected later in the day.
“That’s what they all say.” She turned and disappeared out of her bedroom.
Okay, nowhewas pissed.
He dressed, jammed the pager back into his pants, and followed her. “I don’t know what kind of men you met before me. They must have been assholes.”
“Did you see the new study that showed that womenstilldo most of the housework and childcare—even when they work outside the home and earn more than their husbands? Does that seem fair to you?”
“Hell, no, it doesn’t seem fair, but I’mnotthose men.” He drew a breath, tried to rein in his temper. “I don’t get you, Libby. You want me, but only in bed. I’m not a sex toy, you know. I’m not a living vibrator.”
She measured out coffee beans. “Do I treat you like a vibrator?”
“Well, no.” They did things together besides fuck. They ate meals, went for hikes, went to the movies, had long conversations, watched TV.
“Then what’s the problem? We have agoodthing, Brandon. I don’t want to ruin it by putting labels on it and making it more complicated.”
“What’s complicated about living together?”
She turned toward him, the bag of coffee beans still in hand. “A relationship is like a stick of gum. That first bite is amazing and tastes so good. Then a few minutes later, the taste is gone, and you want to spit it out.”
He leaned against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ve been seeing each other for almost two years, and no one is spitting anyone out.”
She closed the grinder, pressed the button, raising her voice to be heard above the machine. “Well, you’reamazingin bed.”
The words ought to have been gratifying, but instead they hurt. “So that’s all you want from me—a hard dick?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” She probably thought she was funny, but Brandon didn’t find it amusing in the least.
Tohellwith this.
He might as well come right out with it. “You know why our sex life is so good? I love you, Libby. That counts. It matters. It changes everything.”
She shook her head, laughed. “How many times have you thought you loved a woman only to break up with her later?”
“Everybody has failed relationships. You can’t—”
“You can’t truly have loved someone if one day youstoppedloving them.”
What could he say to that?