Laid Out

by Sidney Halston

  “I understand that you’re inexperienced, but I promise you, these feelings you’re having—everyone has them. The only difference is that you don’t have a filter and are voicing them.” He looked over at her as they walked and saw that she was scowling at him. “I’m just teasing you.” He nudged her in the ribs. “I don’t know about Jeremy, Violet. The relationship you had with him, that was between you two, and it was something intimate. I can only speak for myself when I say I personally like it when a woman is sure of herself. When she takes the lead. When she voices what she wants. I don’t feel emasculated by that. The truth is, I like being in charge in the bedroom, and for the most part, I am. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a turn-on when a woman takes the lead.”

  “I don’t know if I’d ever feel that empowered,” she said as they rounded a corner hand in hand.

  “That’s okay too. I’m sure whomever you’re with will be fine with it anyway. That’s what the whole love thing is supposed to be about anyway, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  Cain unlocked the front door and led her inside. He was following her when she stopped short in the middle of the small hall that led to the living room, causing him to crash into her.

  “Shit. Sorry,” he said. He couldn’t resist smelling her hair, and he kept his body pressed against hers a little longer than necessary.

  She turned around. “Have you ever been in love?” she whispered.

  He stiffened.

  “Sorry. I don’t know why I asked that. It’s that stupid short-circuit again. You don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business.”

  His hand went up to her hair, and he pulled out the elastic band that held her hair up, causing it to fall around her shoulders. “Your hair smells good,” he said huskily. He ran his palm down her bare arm all the way to her fingers, which he held for a moment as he looked at her. He leaned down and ran his nose down her cheek, slowly and softly. And then he got to her lips and gently used his teeth to make her gasp. “I thought I was in love once,” he whispered.

  “You were?” He thought he heard a note of something in her voice…jealousy?

  He wrapped a curl around his finger, pulled and released. “She didn’t love me back.”

  “Seems like a story I’d like to hear. Why didn’t I know this?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer that. Luckily, he didn’t have to, because his phone chimed. She took a step back. “You should get that. I’m going to…” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I’m gonna go read for a little while. In my room.”

  He nodded and watched her leave before he read the text from his boss at IMC. There was an extremely dangerous mission they wanted him to work. The dangerous part wasn’t the problem. The problem was that it would take him away for months. Maybe a year. He slid a finger across the screen, ignoring the text.

  He was standing in the hall, staring at her closed door. He was only three feet away from fulfilling all his fantasies. He could just satisfy his need and take her right now if he wanted. After all, she’d offered, and he’d agreed. But he also knew that he’d feel like shit the next day or the day after that. The spell would undoubtedly be broken the second Jeremy’s name was uttered. He just didn’t think he could go through with this plan. What he did know was that he needed to move his lessons along so that she was ready to date when they returned home to Tarpon Springs. He couldn’t allow her to get too close to him. Maybe he could still help her with the lessons without adding sex into the mix. She needed to date and get married, and he needed to move on. She was probably sitting on the bed right now, wondering what the hell had happened.

  He closed his eyes, let out a deep breath, and walked into the other bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter 10

  Cain was still pulling a shirt over his head when she walked out of her room early the next morning. She had to make an effort not to look at his chest, and even so, she could feel her cheeks flush instantly. He stepped aside to let her by, but as she passed she accidentally brushed against his arm. His skin was so warm, and…well, she wasn’t blind. Not at all. He was a gorgeous man, and even though she’d known him all her life, being around him did fluster her at times. She’d always felt guilty about the way he made her feel, even when Jeremy was still in the picture.

  “ ’Morning. How’d you sleep?” he asked.

  “Good. You?”

  “Not so good. I don’t sleep much.” He walked to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. He handed it to her, then took one for himself. “Don’t be mad, but I signed you up for a dating website.”

  “You did what? I don’t think I can do that. Why would you do that?” She covered her face with her arm. “When did you do this?”

  “You need to get out and date—a lot. Not stick to the first guy who shows interest.”

  She flinched. That was kind of harsh. “I may not be a beauty queen, but I’ll have you know, men ask me out. All the time, actually.” Slight exaggeration, but…whatever! Perhaps she was a little overweight according to society’s standards, but she felt pretty and didn’t buy into the whole skinny-is-better mentality. She was healthy, she exercised, and she felt good. But in her mind she still sometimes heard the voices of the stupid girls from high school, screwing with her confidence. And her dad’s voice. God, her dad had been brutal when it came to her weight. Self-doubt was a bitch. “I’m not desperate. I don’t need to stick with the first guy—”

  His hair was mussed and he looked tired. “Damn it. I’m sorry. That is not at all what I meant. You don’t need to remind me you’re desirable, Vi. What I meant was, you haven’t dated in a long time, and I want you to see all the options available for you out there. A dating website will be good for you. It’ll be fun. You can’t just have a date with that trainer guy and decide he’s it.”

  “I don’t know….”

  “We’ll screen the men together and maybe your next date will go better.”

  Cain walked to the round wooden table where his laptop was, and he motioned for her to sit. As he typed away, she looked around.

  “I’ve never been to your house in Tarpon Springs,” she mused. “Does it look like this? This is so bare.”

  He looked up from the screen and glanced around as if this was the first time he’d thought about it. But he didn’t say anything and instead went back to typing.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. If we find some photos or something here, I can frame them for you, if you’d like. I’m sure you can find a place for them at your house. All you’d have to do is tell me the color of your walls and furniture and I’ll go to the store and buy you some pretty frames.”

  When he still said nothing, she let out a breath and sat back.

  After what felt like an eternity of silence, Violet stood and walked around. “I’m going to need food for this.”

  Cain looked up from his computer and shrugged.

  She rolled her eyes and went into the kitchen. He’d done grocery shopping yesterday, he’d said. She opened the refrigerator to find skim milk, eggs, yogurt, and lots of bottles of water. On the counter there was a blender and two different huge containers of protein powder. She grabbed a yogurt and went back to where he sat. He looked at her, confused. “You didn’t bring me anything?”

  “You didn’t say you wanted something.”

  “I nodded.”

  “No. You sort of shrugged.” Violet stood and went back to the kitchen. “It’s too early in the morning for your quietness. Water or milk?”

  “Neither. There’s coffee already made.”

  She hadn’t noticed the coffeemaker. She took out two mugs and poured the coffee into them, adding sugar and milk to hers. She went back to the table, and he took the mug and drank without even looking up.

  After another interval of silence, her frustration boiled over. She slammed her palms on the table, a little more forcefully than she intended. “I can’t take it anymore! Why don’t you want
to talk to me?”

  Cain sat back slowly and drank some more of his coffee. “What would you like to talk about?”

  “Everything. Anything. I don’t know. Just talk.”

  “Do you have issues with silence?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “I may need to add that to your dating profile.”

  “Ugh! No. I just…I uh…I don’t know. Why don’t you want to talk to me? I thought we made a deal.”

  “Didn’t have anything to say, babe.”

  Babe? That term sounded so unfamiliar coming from his mouth. She felt a surge of…something. She shook her head and ignored the flutter in her heart. “So you’re saying that it’s not that you don’t want to talk to me. It’s that you just don’t have anything to talk about?”

  He nodded.

  “You were always quiet, but since I’ve been in Tarpon, you’re even quieter. You really don’t talk. Like at all.”

  “If you talk and I talk, who’s going to do all the listening?”

  “Are you saying I don’t listen?”

  “No. I’m just saying you talk. A lot. Sometimes it’s better to stop and listen.”

  She huffed. “You’re so annoying. Ever heard of small talk?”

  He made a weird face at the term. “Why would I make small talk with you? I’ve known you forever. Not necessary. That’s what you do when you’re getting to know someone or need to fill in an uncomfortable silence.”

  Uncomfortable silence? Wasn’t that what had just happened? She thought about it for a second. Was it possible that this man was comfortable just being with her? In silence? Interesting that he didn’t feel the need to fill the void with chatter. Maybe she could learn a thing or two from him after all.

  “You uncomfortable?” he asked, seeming sincerely curious.

  She had to take a moment to think about it. She’d thought she was, but she realized that she wasn’t really uncomfortable—it just felt strange to have silence. “Nope. I’m good.”

  He smiled, gave her a wink, and then went back to working.

  Finally Cain looked up from the laptop, seeming pleased with his work. He turned it around so she could see the screen. “What do you think?”

  A picture of Violet in profile with a big toothy smile took up most of the screen. It wasn’t the most flattering photo. Her mouth was open, her teeth were sticking out, her eyes were partially closed, and she was wearing a WtF T-shirt. “Where’d this photo come from?”

  “Had it.”

  “You had it? When was this?” She leaned into the screen. “Was this during the hurricane?” They’d been forced together at Francesca’s house during a hurricane a few months earlier. She’d been playing board games and drinking like a loon with their friends and didn’t recall anyone taking photos.

  “No big deal.” He clicked a few tabs and then directed her attention back to the screen. Why had he taken her photo? Such a weird man. He tapped the screen, instructing her to read.

  Violet skimmed through her profile and laughed. “Really? Twenty-eight-year-old single nurse, likes to work out and shoot guns?” She snorted out a laugh. “The men will be lining up.”

  “What? It’s honest.”

  “Let’s start off with the part about working out. I hate working out!”

  “But you’re always at the gym.”

  “Doesn’t mean I like it,” she said, and he looked at her curiously. “I do it because I hate it a little less than being overweight and unhealthy.”

  “Working out shouldn’t be something you hate. When we get back we start working out together.”

  “What’s with you? You keep telling me what to do.” She pursed her lips and drew her eyebrows together, arranging her face in a parody of his, and dropped her voice as low and gruff as it would go. “ ‘When we get back, we work out together. Tomorrow I find you boyfriend.’ ”

  “You said I was a jerk. I’m trying to make it up to you. I wanna show you that working out can be fun.” He looked back at the screen. “What else is wrong with your profile?”

  “Shooting guns?”

  “You do. Well, you did. You were really good at it.”

  “It’s a weird trait, don’t you think? I was always with you and Jer and ended up doing boy things. Men don’t like that.”

  Who says men don’t like that? Fuck, maybe he was some sort of weirdo, but the image of Violet holding a gun and shooting into the dead center of a target was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen. He remembered her, all giggly and girly, her peaches and cream skin glistening, as she got off two perfect rounds with her 9mm Glock. Delete, delete, delete. He clicked on the keyboard. If he liked it, he could just imagine what other men would think. Men could be such perverts! “Taking that shit off, men don’t like that,” he lied.

  “Okay, so now I’m just a twenty-eight-year-old single nurse who hates working out?” she asked with a forlorn look on her face. “The men will be beating down the door for sure.” She sat back and pointed at the screen. “And that picture has got to go.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t see most of my face and I look crazy. You can practically hear me cackling. I want a real photo so that the guys will know what to expect. In this they can’t see my body. I don’t want them to think I’m some skinny girl and then they see me and go running. How embarrassing would that be? I want them to see the real me and I want them to know what to expect. I’d want them to do the same.” She was looking through her phone, apparently for an alternative photo, as she talked.

  He took her chin between his fingers so that she’d have to look at him, and he gave her a look that likely made grown men cry. “You need to stop with the weight comments. Swear to God, babe, one more and I’m going to be really pissed.”

  She looked at him for a second. “Ooh, I’m really scared,” she said, pretending to shiver in fear.

  He shook his head and let her go. “You should be.” He began to type again. “I don’t like it, so stop it. You’re not fat. You’re not even overweight. You’re…” Perfect, he almost said. Instead he tried to will her to stop looking at him. He could feel her stare. He wished her father weren’t dead so he could kick the man’s ass for doing a number on his daughter’s self-esteem with all the weight comments. The woman had an ass and tits. Lush ass and tits did not make a woman fat, it made her mouthwatering—at least it did for him. “Okay, so you like to read, I’ll add that.” He typed away. “You used to line dance. I can add that, too. Do you still do that?”

  She guffawed. “Not really. I mean, it’s been years.” He remembered when Jeremy’s mom had made them all take line dancing classes. Violet loved to go, but Jeremy and Cain complained the entire hour. “Oh! I love horseback riding, and I love the beach. Put that,” she said cheerfully.

  They tinkered with the profile for a while longer, enjoying each other’s company and laughing together. He loved her laugh, always had. She laughed for herself. It was unrestrained and infectious. It was the sort of laugh that brought joy to other people.

  At one point she laughed so hard she let out a snort. Immediately she covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide. “Shoot. I shouldn’t laugh so loud.” She cleared her throat. “Dating 101: no snorting.”

  He shook his head and gently put his hand over hers. “No. Don’t change the laugh. The laugh stays.”

  Violet looked down at Cain’s hand covering hers, then up at his face. He seemed momentarily tormented. When he saw her staring at him, his gaze softened.

  For some reason the way he was looking at her made something inside of her shift. She wasn’t sure what had just passed between them, but it felt important. As his clear blue eyes searched her face, she thought maybe she’d been deluding herself in thinking she could just have a sexual relationship with Cain. He lifted her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers but didn’t say anything.

  “Cain?” she asked quietly.

  He cleared his throat, shook his head as if clearing his thoughts, then released her hand and turne
d back to the computer. Violet sat silently as he typed, her mind reeling.

  What if this was a bad idea? She’d put sex on the table, and he hadn’t taken her up on it. Maybe she’d put him on the spot and now he didn’t know how to get out of it. Or maybe he wanted it just as much as she did and this was all part of the stupid lesson plan.

  She watched as he changed her profile photo to one in which she was full-on smiling at the camera. It physically hurt him to share that photo with the online world, but there he was clicking “live” on her profile.

  Violet sat back and stared fretfully at the screen. “So, what now?” she asked.

  “Now we wait. When you get some hits we’ll go over them together. You have a date with that trainer of yours coming up, don’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Excited?”

  “Eh,” she admitted. “He’s cute, but I don’t see it going anywhere. I’m not sure he’s my type. He’s kind of a gym rat.”

  “What else is the matter?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Tell me,” sounding a little annoyed.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s nothing. So, this is safe and I’ll screen all the men? I don’t really like this idea. I want pointers, but I don’t think I’m that desperate that I need to do this online dating. I’m in no rush now that the reunion is over.”

  He wanted to yell: You might not be in a rush, but I am! I don’t know how long I can control myself. I need you settled down so that I can move the hell on! Instead he said, “You said you wanted to move on. Well, if you don’t put yourself out there, it’s never going to happen. Men don’t just knock on random doors looking for dates.” He shifted in his seat. “And second, do you think there’s any possible way that I’d be okay with you doing anything unsafe?”