“I’m sorry,” he said. And he was feeling pretty sorry for most everything that had happened since Sadie had come to town. He’d screwed up with her. Way more times than he wanted to count. And now she was standing here calling him on it. All of it.

She huffed out a growl. “You’re just saying it now.”

“So?”

“So it doesn’t mean anything now.”

“I give up, Sadie,” he said, turning away from her and walking back in the direction of the crosswalk.

“Wait,” she said.

He stopped. “What?”

“Don’t leave. I’m mad at you. And I feel like we haven’t resolved anything.”

“Do we need to?”

“I’d like to.”

He turned to face her again. “Okay, what is it you want resolved?”

“I was wondering something.”

“What?”

“Do you want to keep having sex?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SADIE COULD HAVE immediately bitten her own tongue off. Where the heck had that come from? Oh, okay, she knew where it had come from.

Sleepless nights, endless erotic dreams about his strong body, his hands, his lips, his...well, his everything. She couldn’t forget him. Couldn’t forget how amazing it was to be with him. How much she wanted him.

She was so annoyed with herself, too.

She didn’t do the physical obsession thing. She just didn’t. And here she was basically burning up her sheets alone, waking up all sweaty and tangled up in the bedding like a dolphin in a tuna net.

On the verge of orgasm and with no desire to finish the job herself. And now this. This had come out of her mouth. On a public street, during a lovely sunny day. With children most likely playing at a nearby park.

Eli had been walking away, she’d looked at his butt, a butt that was so perfect and masculine and muscular and begging for her to touch it, and the words had just fallen out of her mouth.

He was just standing there, his expression stone, his lips pressed into a firm line.

Now she was filled with regret. Swollen with it. And she was still holding a staple gun.

It was a weird moment. There was no denying it.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“Oh, you know what I said. Why do people do that? Ask you to repeat something they heard but was totally crazy. Do you think I actually want to repeat that?”

“I have to be sure you said it,” he said. “Because honestly? My mind could be playing tricks on me. It’s entirely possible.”

“Yeah, I said it.”

“Then I have to be sure you meant it.”

He was frozen, every line in his body hard and firm, on high alert. Was he interested? All of his talk about how crazy it was—and it was—and the way he’d stormed out after... But maybe it was just because it was all making him feel as insane as she did.

Maybe it was because he wanted it but didn’t want to want it.

Well, he could join the club.

He just kept staring at her, waiting for her answer. And dammit, she didn’t know the answer. She wanted it, yes, but was she willing to engage in a purely sexual, no-strings fling with a man who made her want to pull her hair out?

“Yes.” Apparently she was. “I meant it.”

She could see his hard swallow, his teeth grinding as his jaw shifted. And she hoped, a good portion of her really hoped, that he would say no. That he would make her angry. Walk away again and say something insulting on his way down the street that would be so vile all the lust she felt for him would be knocked out of her system.

“Okay,” he said. “But I need rules.”

“I...” She couldn’t believe he’d agreed. She’d been counting on him to be the voice of reason. That was what he did, who he was, except for that time against the wall. And she’d been counting on him to make the smart choices here, since she was very obviously not going to do it. “What kind of rules?” she asked.

If he couldn’t be the voice of reason, maybe, just maybe, there was still time for him to piss her off so she’d change her mind.

He looked to each side and then walked toward her, apparently satisfied that there were no prying eyes. “Just sex,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“And no one knows about it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously. I’m not going to print it in the paper. Or march over to your brother’s place like, ‘Hey! Been banging Eli. Here’s your rent.’”

“I’m serious. I don’t like complications. This is more complicated than I like it already, so it needs to stay clean.”

“You don’t strike me as a player.”

“I’m not.”

“But these are player rules.”

“They’re the rules of a man who generally doesn’t date women who live within walking distance of his house. Or even the same town. Or really...a man who doesn’t date much at all. But I’m still not a player. I’m just a guy who has too much to do. I don’t want a wife, kids or exes all over where I have to patrol every day, so that means I do the best I can to keep things separate.”

She hadn’t really thought of it like that. Eli moved around town, around the whole area, all the time. Talked to random people, responded to calls. Having exes right in town had the potential to be a mess. She tended to move states away from hers, and she was never all that attached to any of them, so it wouldn’t have much mattered anyway.

“Okay,” she said. “And ultimately it doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other. I like it casual, and no, I don’t normally go in for sex only. In fact, I never do. But my relationships have all been very...nonserious.”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said.