Brittany groaned as Trey stepped aside so she could precede him into the dark, silent apartment. Though close to eleven in the morning, it was obvious Bryson hadn’t been home. The a/c was off, making it too warm for comfort. Only the small, barely visible nightlights scattered around dimly illuminated the room.
Wishing Trey hadn’t disturbed her sleep, she welcomed the peace and quiet. On that cot in Mitchell’s office, she’d slept better than she had in months. Years really.
“Lie on the sofa while I fix us breakfast.” Trey didn’t stop to turn on a light, heading straight for the kitchen instead.
“I’m not hungry. I just want to go back to sleep,” she grouched, opening the curtain and blinking against the glare of the bright light. “I don’t know how you do it.”
He faced her. “After so many years, my body has adjusted to my routine.” He shrugged. “Work. Go home. Eat. Sleep. Wake up. Shower. Do whatever I need to do. Shower again, sometimes, depending on what I’ve done…”
She narrowed her eyes and his voice trailed off. He lifted a brow, a half-smile tipping the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sure a visit to Sylvia or Elsie or Jennifer would warrant a shower,” she hissed.
“Yes it would. But I do work out and play basketball too, you know? A man works up a sweat exercising.” He folded his arms and leaned against the archway separating the dining area from the living room. “That would also warrant another shower.”
“Whatever.”
He laughed. “Come on. It isn’t as bad as you think. I go without a woman for weeks at a time.”
“Obviously they can’t go without you since they come searching for you.” She shoved her hair back, trying to push away her errant jealousy. “It doesn’t matter. I’m tired anyway, not hungry, so I’m going back to sleep.”
She started for the bedroom and as she passed him their gazes clashed. Something in his eyes made her pause and impulsively she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him. Gratified at how tightly he held her, she pressed her body close to his, feeling every rippling muscle and hard plane.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her insides warming at the ridge of his growing erection. “Thank you for the past couple days.”
She broke away before her feelings for Trey overwhelmed her.
She headed to Trey’s room, feeling safest there. After brushing her teeth and taking a quick shower, she wrapped herself in a towel, too exhausted to dig out sleepwear.
She drew in a deep breath and wished Trey was with her. Although Bryson would have to be hogtied, she wanted Trey.
He was a very sensual, sexual man. The night they’d had together after leaving the club had been all about her and her pleasure, and she’d lost herself to the sensations of her body. Just as she had yesterday. Trey made her forget most of the awful memories and made her remember what she’d once been like.
Of course Trey wanted pleasure too.
She started at a sound in the hallway. Gasping, she tiptoed toward the bed then stopped.
Though she wanted to slip into his bed with nothing on, she couldn’t be that blatant with her come-on.
She hurried to Trey’s closet and replaced the towel around her with one of Trey’s T-shirts. The thing reached below her knees. She frowned. Either she was incredibly short or Trey was incredibly tall. Maybe both.
Once she slept for an hour or two, she’d start dinner and do a better job today than she had yesterday. She’d also dust and vacuum. With her schedule for the afternoon settled, she scrambled to the far side of Trey’s bed and slid in.
A minute later, Trey barreled in, shrugging out of his shirt. He hung it on the closet doorknob then pulled off his white undershirt, revealing his whipcord chest.
God, he was like some African warrior king. Tall. Sculpted. Muscular. Skin like melted dark chocolate. His nipples puckered in the cooling air and he flexed his shoulders, removing his duty belt with the efficiency of long practice. His stomach was iron hard, his abs planed perfection. When his fingers went to the fastener of his trousers, she groaned, her body’s response stoking the flames of her desire.
Trey’s head snapped in her direction. His body motionless, he dropped his gaze to where her fingers clutched the covers.
His nostrils flared, his eyes seeming capable of devouring her. “What are you doing in here, Brit?”
Good question. “Going to sleep.”
“So you’ve commandeered my bedroom for the duration of your stay, I take it.” He spoke as if he needed her intentions spelled out. “I’ve been relegated to the guestroom. Is that the way of it?”
No not at all, although it should be. After their disastrous kiss yesterday, she should send him away.
She wanted Trey and she wanted her life back, but she didn’t want to begin something and discover she wasn’t ready. “Don’t leave.”
Her heart banged against the wall of her chest. She licked her lips at his torn uncertainty, encouraged when he didn’t deny her request outright.
“Can’t we share the bed today?” she continued in soft tones. She pulled the covers higher, leaving her head and some of her hair visible. “It’s big enough for both of us. I-I can stay on one side and you can stay on the other.” Nervous, she awaited his answer, half hoping he’d decline and half hoping he’d accept.
He rubbed the back of his neck, studied her face and then glanced at the door. “Have you forgotten about Bryson?”
She gazed at him through her lashes, believing her battle won. “Can’t you lock your door?”
He grunted as if he was in pain, his hands falling to his sides in tight fists. “Brittany—”
“I won’t bite,” she murmured, wondering whom this coy girl was who seemed to be doing her very best to seduce a man. Not just any man though. Trey.
His breathing spiked and his gaze touched each corner of her face, roamed over the outline of her body, as if he had x-ray vision to see through the covers and T-shirt to her bareness beneath. He looked at the big chair near the door then slid his fingers over a badge lying on his bureau. With a curse, he spun on his heel and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
She stared at the place where he’d stood, swearing his rejection of her blatant offer didn’t hurt her. She was glad he’d left. Trey had always been sensible and the sensible thing was to forego lovemaking. One day, she’d find a man she trusted enough, one with whom she could have a relationship. Finding the right person would take time but she could do it. Another man would capture her heart.
The door opened without warning and she jumped. A towel around his neck, Trey wore bike shorts, the imprint of his erection wide and thick against the material. She stared at the hard, male part of him, chagrined. She wasn’t sure how she’d get that to fit inside her. He closed the door with a definitive thud and her heart thumped.
“I have a very bad feeling I’m going to regret this,” he grumbled, locking the doorknob. He threw the damp towel on the chair and walked to his side of the bed. Yanking back the covers, he dislodged them from her fingers. His hand paused in mid-air, his fist tightening on the handful of sheet and comforter he held. “What the hell are you wearing?”
She bit down on her lip, gazed at the spasm of his erection before meeting his dark eyes and tight features. “Your T-shirt?”
Scowling fiercely, he jerked her covers back into place then slid beside her. He stared up at the ceiling, his body tense and taut, discouraging her without either a word or a glance.
“Trey?”
“Go to sleep,” he growled, clear warning in his voice, his hands behind his head, his penis visible even though Trey was covered.
Brittany slipped minutely closer, her movements barely there.
“Sleep.”
“You don’t feel like talking?” she asked, a bundle of breathless nerves and frightened excitement.
“Motherfucker,” he whispered, turning his back to her.
“We have a lot to catch up on,” she persisted, goading him. If he wouldn’t look at her, he wouldn’t touch her either.
“Talking is the absolute last thing on my mind right now.”
Talking wasn’t high on her list of to-dos at that moment either. She suppressed a smile, glowing with feminine satisfaction.
Trey half-turned, his movements controlled, his body as far away from her as possible. “What the hell is wrong with your room, anyway?” he asked, his profile sharp and stubborn.
“Nothing.” She shrugged, drinking in the wall of temptation the planes and angles of his shoulder blades and his back presented. “I feel vulnerable in there. Exposed somehow.”
He sighed, not answering, only staring at her, the stark intensity of his look reminding her of the passion that flared between them yesterday. Gently, he pulled her into his arms, settling her head in the crook, then lifting himself on his elbow. “You’re a cheeky little wench, you know, Brit,” he said in a strained voice, caressing her cheek and sliding his fingers through her hair.
She warmed under his soft touch and husky words. When his head lowered, the slight brush of his lips against hers disappointed her.
“Sleep, baby girl. Just sleep.”
He settled back, his arm tight around her. She snuggled closer to Trey’s warm body, praying she felt safe enough to find the courage to convince him to make love to her.
✽ ✽ ✽
Trey wasn’t a saint by any means, but he sure as hell felt like one, holding Brittany, her hair against his bare shoulder like a blanket of dark silk. The faint smell of her apple-scented shampoo clung to the heavy mass and she lay in his arms with complete and utter trust, just as she had for the past twenty minutes. He knew an invitation when he saw one and Brittany’s signals to him were loud and clear.
No matter how much he wanted to turn over and make raw, hot love to her, he’d be a complete and utter bastard if he did. She trusted him enough to fall asleep in his arms and he simply couldn’t traumatize her all over again by ravishing her. It didn’t matter that his balls felt tight and swollen, as if they would explode at any moment. She needed his friendship right now. But his finesse nearly failed him when he thought about the state of his cock. Hard. Engorged. Painful. If he moved, he’d either come or make her his.
Mitchell might’ve had the right of it. Maybe Trey needed to open his heart to love and allow himself to commit to a woman. No one lived forever. Death was a part of life. But his father’s abrupt passing had damaged Trey’s psyche to an extreme.
Having Brittany’s delicate body in his arms made him reconsider what he’d been missing. She mightn’t have ever gone on a date but he’d never once been in a committed relationship. His entire adult life, he’d gone from one woman to the next, keeping himself just out of reach. Hell, he kept the condom business booming with as many as he bought every month.
Brittany made him want something more. And if he could come to terms with the fact that, though he and his mother had been devastated they had many wonderful memories of his father, then he could move on and accept he had been wrong to worry about what disaster might come to pass instead of enjoying life for what it was.
He’d have to knock the shit out of Bryson. The raging fool needed an ass-beating anyway; Bryson was acting as if he’d lost his damn mind. Trey understood his friend’s concern but the hostility and the distaste almost made it seem as if Bryson would never accept Trey as the man in Brittany’s life. He sighed, thinking back on Karl’s words. Maybe starting something with Brittany would be a betrayal of trust.
A gentle slide of soft fingertips across his stomach sent goose bumps along his spine.
“Trey?”
Staring at the ceiling, he prayed for strength and fortitude. He swore he was moments away from drawing his last breath, he wanted Brittany so badly.
“Would you look at me?”
Hell to the no! He’d prefer to rip off his own fingernails than look at her right then. He’d be lost and before he knew it, he’d be soothing away her fears, seducing her, sliding into her.
“What’s the matter?”
He didn’t need to hear the sound of her sweet little voice, coaxing him to respond. With each word she spoke, a little less blood reached his brain, instead filling his cock a degree more and dropping his common sense by several notches. More than anything, he needed to jerk off.
“Trey?” she repeated, her finger twirling about his nipple.
Her touch rocketing to his groin, he trembled. He should’ve listened to all the alarms going off in his head when he saw her in his bed. He shouldn’t have asked a goddamn thing, just retreated and regrouped. While Mitchell’s suggestion of taking some time off had included a recommendation that Trey make love to her, he hadn’t even had a chance to talk to her in depth about what he could and couldn’t do.
The hand teasing his nipple roamed across his chest and glided down his stomach, exploring, rubbing, touching.
Little witch.
Gritting his teeth, Trey vowed to remain silent. If he didn’t respond, she’d leave him alone. Her fingers brushed him, a butterfly caress. His cock jumped with each light touch. Her hand sneaked into the waistband of his shorts and drew ever closer to his hard length. Curse his soul but he’d shown her how to grip him yesterday.
Dumb ass!
“I know you’re awake,” she whispered, her nipples taut against his side, her hand hovering just above his pubic hair.
His body anticipated her touch where he craved it most.
“You’re too tense to be asleep,” she added.
Trey expelled his breath in a whoosh. “Go back to sleep,” he said sharply, praying for death or anything to halt his response to her intentions.
“I haven’t been asleep.”
He caught her hand before she closed her fingers around him and destroyed his resolve. Clasping her fingers, he gazed down at her flushed cheeks. She blinked, her pretty eyes an amazing orange-brown.
“Brit, you’ve got to stop.”
“I don’t want to.”
She pressed her lips to his chest and his pulse soared.
He didn’t want her to stop either, but neither did he want to subject her to anything that made her awful memories return. Couldn’t she understand? Why the hell was she torturing him? For God’s sake, he was only human. “You need to sleep. So do I.”
She pulled her fingers from his, swirled them lower on his stomach. “I don’t need sleep.”
“You need to heal from all you’ve been through.”
“The only thing I need is you.”
Her voice was soft, unsure and sweet, more seductive than any woman’s he’d ever heard. His heart turned over at the courage it had taken her to utter those words. Only desire trumped the fear in her voice and in her eyes.
“Brittany—” he began, his voice as taut and tense as his body, ignoring the pressure in his dick.
Her damnable little fingers skated across his torso and his muscles quivered. A bead of moisture seeped from his cock slit and he swallowed, closing his eyes against the temptation she presented.
He grabbed her hand again. “Listen to me,” he growled, snatching her hand away from his body. “You have to stop.”
Her eyes widened at his fierce grip and savage tone. “You don’t want me?”
She was going to kill him. The uncertainty in her lovely eyes and the confusion wrinkling her brow tortured him. He drew in another breath and laid his forehead against hers.
“More than I’ve ever wanted anyone,” he admitted, kissing her nose, her eyes and her cheeks.
“Th-then I think I’m ready,” she told him, moving in his arms, her hair tickling his biceps. “I’m not…between my legs…that spot doesn’t feel like it did yesterday or when we were in the dorm but it isn’t…I’m not…I’m not dry. You’ll be able to fit, I think.”
Her words surprised him so much he didn’t stop her sudden rush of action. She settled against the pillows, naked, her legs parted and her eyes squeezed shut.
“Okay. I’m ready. You can enter me.”
The most damnable urge to kill or to cry almost overtook Trey. Unsure, he focused on her lovely body, trembling with fear and nerves and maybe even a little embarrassment.
He’d turned on the a/c and put the thermostat down to a freezing degree. Now the cool air tightened her brown nipples, puckering them into tempting peaks. Her breasts were small, high and firm. The lines of her torso curved into a tiny waist and rounded at her hips. Since seeing her body seven months ago, he’d dreamed about the nest of curls between her thighs.
She opened her eyes. “What’s the matter?”
Everything. Every-fucking-thing that could be wrong was wrong.
She was clueless as to why he wasn’t turned on by her offering herself to him like a sacrificial lamb. Hell, she probably didn’t know any better. Her first sexual encounter had been vicious. The next one had been spontaneous and unplanned and ended without completion. He’d been gentle with her, kissing her and touching her and licking her but the urgency had still been there. And the last came to an abrupt halt because he’d wanted a blowjob.
She’d had no one to worship her body the way it should’ve been. No one to romance her and seduce her and love her.
He’d never felt like more of a bastard.
He’d been staring at her for so long without making a move she was squirming, her trembling lower lip urging him to action.
“I’m going to kiss you.” He’d test the limits of his determination to restrain himself and show her how it felt to have a man cherish her, and her mouth was perfect for the lesson.
Bending his head, Trey took gentle possession of her lips, her soft sigh whispering through him, tempting him toward more erotic activities. He tightened his arms around her, leaning farther into the kiss, his chest coming into contact with her slim upper body, the hard peeks of her nipples pressing into him. He coaxed her lips apart and dipped his tongue into her mouth, her minty taste exploding in his brain and in his blood, shooting straight to his heart. Deepening the kiss and possessing her mouth a bit more was within reason. He loved her mouth, her taste, her scent. Her eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, like the wings of a butterfly, while Trey savored each hesitant brush of her tongue against his, each whispery caress of her hands along his back.
He slid his fingers into her hair. Her entire body stiffened, even her lips, but Trey continued to stroke her and worship her mouth, determined to show her what a joy the simple act of kissing could be.
She angled her body toward him, her fingers inching inside the waistband of his shorts again, combing through his pubic hair and finally wrapping around the base of his cock.
Trey groaned against her mouth. He needed to stop the torture before his resolve crumbled and he made love to her. He tore his lips from hers, intending to end their encounter. Her gaze burned into his, her adoration calling to some deep primal urge. Her hand tightened around his cock and she squeezed, stroked, pulled. Trey closed his eyes and grunted in satisfaction, pushing farther into her hand.
Blindly, he sought her mouth again, swearing he’d end this soon. He restrained himself from massaging her clit or delving his fingers into her depths.
His breath caught and rushed out again when she ground her soft heat against his thigh, her finger circling the moistened tip of his cock. He nearly came in her hand.
Determined to stop, he pulled back his head, but the sight of her passion-glazed eyes, flushed cheeks and swollen mouth nearly drove him over the edge.
“Brit—” he began, stilling her movements by wrapping his hand around hers. And his intentions were very, very noble.
She licked her lips, opened her legs then raised her head to lick his nipple. He shivered.
“Can I try to suck you?” she asked in a hot rush, her warm breath fanning his chest.
Those very noble intentions began to falter.
“Brittany—”
“You like that, don’t you?” she interrupted again with another lick of his nipple. “I w-want to try that.”
“I don’t think—”
“Pl-please, Trey?”
Was he really noble enough to continue to resist?
Yes damn it, he was!
“You l-like your cock sucked.”
No damn it, he wasn’t!
She raised up on her elbow, like a siren luring hapless sailors to their deaths. “Lie on your back.”
Speech escaped him, rational thought grew blurred. His heart was pounding and he was rock hard but he couldn’t have her do something she found distasteful.
“You don’t have to take my cock in your mouth.” He managed to get the words out…barely…by calling on the last measure of decency he had in him. “I know you don’t find it pleasant. It brings back too many bad memories.”
“You aren’t forcing me,” she whispered in a husky voice, her nose brushing his, her lips inches from his mouth. “I want to suck you…your…it…your cock. Please.” She nipped his lip. “Lie back and let me take you in my mouth.”
Calling himself a thousand fools, he laid on his back, vowing not to touch her, not even one silky strand of hair on her head, while she explored him and tested her limits and reactions. Better for him to be the guinea pig in her experiment than some asshole he’d have to kill for touching her.
Afraid to move a muscle, Trey watched as she scooted closer, her body a contrast, a complement, to his dark skin. Her mat of curls brushed his inner thigh as she rose to her knees and leaned over him. He closed his eyes, trying to think of anything but the pussy fur he’d just glimpsed. An even more erotic image flashed in his mind, however—her legs opened, her clit wet and glistening, his tongue tasting her folds.
Shit. This wouldn’t do. He had to stop her. Just as the thought crossed his mind, he felt her lips brushing the sensitive area of his navel. Soft. So soft.
A fault line shuddered through his good and noble intentions and when she began to pull his shorts down, those intentions cracked wide open, splintering beneath her questing lips. Her dark hair slid against his skin, driving a deep, dark need into him—a need only she had the power to quench.
Lifting his hips and dislodging her, Trey shoved his shorts down his hips. With her help, he soon had them off. He laid back, watching the widening of her eyes, another brief flash of fear. He pulled in air, willing control into his body, attempting to blot their nakedness from his head.
He could stop this before something set her off and she became hysterical again. They shouldn’t be doing this. Not now anyway.
Her lips closed around the tip of his cock and Trey jerked and bucked. A strangled groan escaped him. Her tongue rimmed his bulbous head and he moaned like an animal in pain. She raised her gaze to his, tucked her hair behind her ears, her lips still wrapped around the crown of his cock. Her tongue touched the slit, tasted the moisture there. She pulled back, licking her lips. She frowned and Trey watched her through bleary eyes, unable to pull his thoughts together to form any coherent words. Thank God for small miracles. She didn’t like—
Her head bent again and this time, she took him into her mouth deeper.
“Brittany,” he managed, his body shaking, sweat coating his skin.
Her hot mouth slid back up to his dick head, her fingers wrapping around the base, her tongue flicking around the slit.
He buried his hands in her hair and surged forward into her mouth. She tensed beneath his hold and her mouth stilled, her hands falling away. Trey drew back, the thought of how her attacker had used her hair to control her quelling his desire like nothing else could.
Sitting back, panting hard, her lips swollen, she stared at him.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Trey croaked. “I’m so sorry. You just have a beautiful head of hair. Some men like to bury their fingers in hair when their cocks are being sucked. I’m one of them.”
At the moment, his cock was throbbing, aching for release, and Trey needed to rush to the bathroom and finish himself off. He didn’t think Brittany would appreciate seeing him pumping his dick into his hand with the urgency he intended.
“C-can you touch me between my legs?”
No. Hell no. Fuck no.
She crawled atop him, the haunted, wounded look flickering in and out of her features. Her body flush against his, she kissed the pulse point at his throat, licking, nipping. As they lay skin-to-skin, a conflagration of heat singed Trey, the flames burning away a little bit more of his sanity.
He brought his hand to the rounded curve of her buttocks and her legs parted, her mouth covering his. He slipped a finger inside her and found her hot and wet and ready. He almost gave in to the inevitable then and there, nearly drove into her. She ground against his finger and he pulled her up until her nipples were within reach of his lips, drawing one dark tip into his mouth. He inserted another finger inside her wet heat, stretching her, testing her, and she moaned, a shiver traveling through her body and vibrating against his probing fingers.
“Trey,” she breathed.
“I’m here.”
He flipped her onto her back and she positioned herself beneath him, opening her legs. He inhaled a deep breath, his nostrils flaring at the intoxication of her feminine desire. His willpower buckled and caved into the inescapable. Settling his body between her thighs, Trey paused and rested his cheek against the top of her head. Cum already leaked from his slit, resting at the entrance of her body.
“Are you sure, Brit?” He gritted his teeth against the heat pulling him to her, urging him to bury himself inside her. “If you want me to stop, tell me now.”
“I’m sure,” she whispered. “I want you.”
He wanted her too, terribly, desperately and selfishly, obliterating his noble intentions, his concern for her, everything but being inside her. Inch by inch, he pressed into her, burying himself deep. Her pussy gripped him, drove him mad, and he shuddered, too close to coming. He laid still, her slick heat stretched around him, every intense pleasure he’d ever felt, every new emotion he’d never known, culminating in the ecstasy of making love to her.
“Trey.” His name on her lips was a powerful aphrodisiac.
“Brittany,” he responded, harsh, desperate and dazed, pulling almost completely out of her before driving into her again.
She pulled her muscles tight around him, squeezing his cock, and he growled, throwing his head back, the tendons in his neck straining as he ground against her flesh. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she bit his shoulder, gripped him in the tight vise of her body, ringing a guttural cry from him.
Opening her legs wide, he raised himself to a kneeling position, lost to everything but the driving need of his body, the heavy pulse of his cock. He heaved in and out of her in a pounding rhythm, grasping her hips, graphic words of his pleasure falling from his mouth.
She arched her back, her beautiful body slick with sweat, her breathy cries the stuff of dreams. The points of her nipples were too much for Trey to resist. Releasing her hips, he bent over and latched on to one of the hard tips, suckling her. She held his head there, gasping his name.
His mouth found hers again, and he slipped his hand between their bodies, seeking the center of her pleasure, stroking her until she began to writhe and tremble beneath him, her nails raking his back. She arched against him, her soft moans rising to senseless cries he caught within his mouth as he brought her to release.
He carried the dance of their bodies to a wicked, brutal tempo, his movements inside her hard and fast, a wild synchronicity between them. The feel of being inside her was like a brush with heaven. When he began talking to her again, heated and dark, she seemed to expand around him, enjoying his explicit language. As a reward, she wrapped her legs around his back and Trey sank deeper into her. His entire body shook, his head ringing, filled with Brittany.
The intensity of his feelings too much to bear, he buried his face in the crook of her neck. She licked the rim of his ear, caressed the length of his back, arching into one of his deep surges. He couldn’t take it anymore and reared into her one more time, his body stiffening, trembling, the release of pressure in his testicles as he emptied himself inside her bone deep and satisfying, wrenched from years of yearning for her. He grunted, his lips curling, his dick jerking one last time, releasing a final spurt of seed inside her before he stilled, his breaths coming in harsh pants.
He lay within her, his cheek resting atop the crown of her damp head, their hearts hammering in a fast rhythm, mirroring each other’s. He felt weak, as if he’d surrendered a piece of his soul and the two of them had become one and would remain so from this day forward. Collapsing at her side, his body feeling empty of his seed, he lay quietly until his breathing and his heart rate returned to normal.
“A-are you all right?”
He raised his head at her shy question then smiled and rubbed her cheek. “I should be asking you that, baby girl.”
“I’m fine.”
She looked so very vulnerable, her eyes wide and luminescent, searching his, her skin damp and flushed from their lovemaking.
“Brittany,” he began.
She turned away from him, curling herself into a ball. He reached out to touch her but she pulled away. Trey’s contentment disintegrated. He would give his right arm to know her thoughts but he left her alone. He’d done enough damage.
She wasn’t mentally ready and he wasn’t emotionally ready.
Taking another woman to bed would’ve been fine, which was what he should’ve done. But even if Brittany hadn’t been raped, she deserved more than the odd afternoon of pleasure.
She deserved love and commitment and he just wasn’t sure he could ever open himself up to offer her either.