Chapter Four
He gave her a look that said you’ve got to be kidding me. He couldn’t believe she thought that was what he meant.
“Obviously,” he said, undeterred. “And I like dogs a hell of a lot. But I like you even more, and I loved touching you, so I can’t figure out, for the life of me, why you’d leave like that.”
He didn’t break his gaze. He kept his eyes fixed on her, and even though he meant every bit of his compliment, he still wanted to know why she took off.
“Really? You really can’t figure it out?” she said sharply.
He shook his head. “No. Tell me.”
“Travis, I heard that bet about getting me to kiss you,” she said, as she threw the ball for Violet and both dogs chased after it. “Dogs often learn fastest from other dogs, so Violet can help train Henry,” she said, returning briefly to her teacherly tone.
He nodded but stayed firmly on topic. “I figured out that you overheard, thanks to that that nice walk-off line. Which, by the way, was pretty impressive as far as walk-off lines go, so I have to give you props for that.”
She scoffed. “I’m not looking for props for delivering zingers.”
He laughed briefly. “That’s not what I’m getting at. What I don’t understand is why you would leave when we were having a good time.”
“If you wanted to know so badly, why didn’t you call me?”
He nodded and held out his hand, acknowledging she had a valid point. Still, he had his reasons. “Because you made it pretty clear you weren’t going home with me, and I wanted to respect your wishes. I wanted to give you the space you asked for. See? I’m not such a bad guy.”
“Travis,” she said, her tone softening. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy. That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Too many things,” she said with a heavy sigh, as Violet returned with the object of her affections—a slobbered-on green ball. As she bent down to pluck it from the ground, a dog biscuit spilled from her pocket. Henry pounced on it, like a hawk, gobbling it up.
She shook her finger at him. “No,” she said in a firm voice, and he whimpered and backed away.
“He’s a bit of a biscuit bandit,” Travis said.
“Most of them are, especially when the biscuits have peanut butter in them. Virtually no dog ever, throughout history, has been able to resist peanut butter,” she said, and then returned to the matter at hand. “Anyway, to answer your question. First, it’s about the fact that just because you got me off in the hallway doesn’t mean I want to spend the night with you when I’m the object of a bet. I mean, did you honestly think that would make me want to stay?” she asked as she raised her arm to throw.
He swallowed, and then scratched his chin. Honestly, he had thought that. Why on earth would he think anything else, given how she responded, writhing in his arms, clutching his shoulders, thrusting her hips into his hands? “Cara, the bet wasn’t a bad thing,” he said, because to him bets were good things. After paying his way through college by playing professional poker, he’d turned himself into a poker expert, teaching Silicon Valley venture capitalists and San Francisco’s high rollers how to play better and win bigger by being smarter. It was far more lucrative to make a living that way than it was to gamble away your savings. Even so, he couldn’t resist the siren call of a bet, especially since it had been about her. “Look, Smith made it because he knows I still think you’re the hottest woman I’ve ever known. Ever since you came back last year, I can’t get you out of my head. Sometimes a man needs his friends to give him a kick in the ass and get him moving,” he said, choosing deliberate honesty with Cara. If she was pissed about a bet that made him seem less than forthright, the least he could do now was to serve up the full truth.
Her mouth fell open as he spoke, and her arm was frozen in place. He took that as a sign to continue. “I meant everything I said to you last night. I have wanted you for so long, and I resist you every day when you come by Becker’s bar, or when I see you walking around town, or here at the park, and all Smith did was call me on it. And he called me on it in a way that he knew I would respond to. Besides, I thought you had a good time last night,” he said softly, as she relinquished her hold on the ball, both pooches careening after it.
“You know I had a great time,” she said, and her voice was gentler now. The irritation seemed stripped from her tone. “But you guys set me up, so I wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine. To let you know not to toy with me. Maybe it was all fun and games, and boys being boys, and that’s fine on some level. But I’m not a woman who likes being toyed with. Especially because I am ridiculously attracted to you,” she said, meeting his gaze straight on.
A wicked grin spread across his face. Pride suffused him. Some part of him knew that he was better off leaving her alone, given all the reasons why the two of them would never work out. But when a man hears those words from the woman he longs for, they have a way of slamming the door on the frontal lobe of his brain and giving the libido free rein. He stepped closer to her and lowered his voice. “Then let’s finish what we started.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, as if the conversation pained her. When she opened them, she let out a long and frustrated breath then wrapped her fingers around his arm. Damn, the feel of her hand on his muscles turned him on. Every little touch from her was like kindling a fire.
“Because it’s not that simple for me. On the one hand, I’m incredibly attracted to you, and I want to bang you six ways to Sunday,” she began and his eyes nearly popped out of his head as his dick rose to full attention. “But on the other hand, I know that nothing more than sex will ever happen between the two of us. There’s no point in pretending it would ever be anything more, because we both want different things in life. If I let you in again, it won’t be good for me.”
She tossed the ball once more to the pair of dogs, and they jetted after it.
“I could make it good for you,” he said, closing the space between them so he could smell her, all fresh and showery clean. She didn’t have on an ounce of makeup, and her hair was swept up in a loose ponytail. But she was as alluring to him now under the midday sun, as she was in the laser lights of the nightclub. “I can make sure absolutely everything is good for you.”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “I want that. I want that so much. But the sooner I stop thinking about you, and daydreaming about the sex we’ve had, and imagining all the things you’d do to me, the better off I’ll be,” she said. His skin sizzled at first, then cooled off, doused by the cold water of “the better off I’ll be.” “And honestly, Travis, that’s the real reason I walked away last night. Sure, there was a part of me that was irritated, but I’m a big girl. I understand where the bet came from. But if I let myself just fall into bed with you again, it will be so much harder for me to ever have what I want in life. I want what my sisters have. Maybe that makes me sound like a ‘typical girl,’ but I’m okay with that, because they’re both incredibly happy with their families, and so are my parents. That’s all I’ve known, and all I want, and I promised myself I’d be in a position to truly have that by the time I’m thirty.” She glanced at her watch and tapped it, then shot him a small smile. “Clock’s ticking. So I think we really should just stick to the plan to work together with Henry once a week starting on Monday. If you’re uncomfortable with training a dog with me, I can arrange for one of the other trainers I work with to fill in for me. Would you like that?”
He shook his head vehemently. The idea of that rankled him. “I only want you.”
“Then I will see you in a few days, and we’ll work with your dog,” she said, brushing one palm against the other as she sealed up their conversation and shoved last night into a drawer she seemed to have no interest in reopening. She called Violet over, and Henry trotted alongside her. She petted Henry on the head, then said good-bye to both of them. As she walked away, her dark hair bouncing in that ponytail, her stride purposeful, he ran through a hundred compliments he could give her, one thousand ways he could touch her to try to convince her.
But deep down he knew that wasn’t what she wanted.
She wanted more than he could ever give, and he had to admit he admired the hell out of her for sticking to her guns. She had a roadmap, and she was dedicated to following it. He was the same way. After his father died in the line of duty when he was only ten, he watched his mother unravel for years, battling depression, struggling with loneliness, and spending all her days missing a ghost. Finally, she healed and met the man she remarried, but those lost years had left their mark on Travis. They were indelibly etched on his heart as a warning. They’d shown him the stark damage that love could do, and the devastation that commitment can wreak on a person when it’s stolen from under you.
He never wanted to get close enough to someone to give her the power to crush his heart.