What He Really Feels (He Feels Trilogy) (39 page)

I obliged, but only for a minute. “Let’s go, Gorgeous,” I finally said against her lips. “We’ll have plenty of time for that once we get there.”

“Where is ‘there,’ exactly?”

“You’ll see,” I grinned mischievously. “Are you sure you want to wear that hot dress? We’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us.”

“How far are we talking?”

“Somewhere between three and six hours,” I said, not wanting to give too much away.

“I’ll change. Give me two minutes.”

“Can I watch?” I asked brazenly.

“No.”

I pouted, and she laughed as she pulled out of my embrace.

“Travis, you know you won’t be able to keep your hands off of me, and then we’ll never get out of here,” she said as I watched her ascend the stairs.

In all honesty, she was absolutely right.

I grabbed her overnight bag and hauled it out to the car while I waited for her to change. We had decided to take her Jetta since it got better gas mileage than my truck, and a few minutes later, she came down in shorts and that one sexy sweatshirt that hung off of her shoulder. I wanted to take a bite out of that delicate slice of skin. Had she any idea the effect she had on me?

This thing between us had started out as lust, and the lust was definitely still a huge part of our relationship, but it most certainly went much deeper than that now.

I couldn’t wait to get her to our destination, and then I couldn’t wait to get her naked.

I ushered her into
the car, and she plugged in my iPhone and started playing the songs at random. We stopped at a gas station to fill up and to pop inside for drinks and snacks. I opted for some Gatorade, thinking ahead to the hydration I would surely need during a weekend away with Lindsay, and she opted for Twizzlers and Combos. I found it funny that she chose Twizzlers, my go-to road trip snack.

We got stuck in a little bit of traffic heading out of San Diego, and I lazily held the steering wheel with one hand as we chatted and she handed me Combos. “Where’d we leave off in our ABC game?” I asked, glancing over at the love of my life as she popped a Combo in her mouth.

She chewed for a moment, and then she said, “I think we’re on O, and I think it’s my turn.”

“You up for it?”

“Sure. Let me think of an O.”

I flipped through some songs while I waited and settled on a Maroon 5 song since that was her favorite band.

“Open to new things?” she asked after awhile.

“Are you really asking the guy who just moved from Tempe, Arizona, to San Diego, California, if he’s open to new things?”

“Good point. Okay, how about Obsessive? What do you obsess over?”

“You.”

She turned toward me. “Really?”

I glanced over at her again. My eyes returned to the road, and I realized just how true it was. Since the moment I had first met her, I don’t think I’d stopped thinking about Lindsay for more than five seconds with the exception of when Julianne told me she had gotten engaged. Something about this woman had taken over both my heart and my mind in the short time I had known her, and there was no turning back. My heart was hopelessly entwined with hers, and now that she was in my life, I was certain that she would be forever. We could both work as hard as we wanted to fuck things up, but I knew that no matter what happened between us and no matter what outside forces came together to tear us apart, I would love her with every fiber of my being for the rest of my life.

“Yes, really.”

“Tiger,” she whispered.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel.

“I obsess over you, too,” she said, her voice soft.

I risked another quick glance over at her, and I placed my right hand on her thigh as my left hand rested on the wheel. She drew a pattern on the back of my hand with her nail, soothing me and somehow making me fall even harder for her.

We were both quiet, lost in thought for a moment, and then I broke the comfortable silence. “P is for Pet Peeve.”

“I have about a million.”

“Give me your top three.”

“Know-it-alls. People who always have to one-up you. People who talk with their mouths full of food. Want me to go on?”

I chuckled. “No, that’s good.”

“What’s yours?”

“When people forget that they don’t own the world and have little to no regard for those around them.”

“Like what?”

“Like when someone thinks it’s okay to play with your feelings or to use you. Or when you go to an R-rated movie and people walk in with a stroller.
Just general ignorance.”

“I hate that, too. Add it to my list of pet peeves and also to our list of common interests.”

“Done.”

“Q. How about a question you want to ask me?”

“That could get interesting. And you have to answer honestly?”

She nodded.

“I have to think about that one.”

“I know mine for you.”

“Oh?” I asked curiously.

“How many women… um, have you been with?”

“Any question in the world and that’s the one you’re asking?” I asked dryly.

“Yep.”

I thought about it. I really didn’t keep count. It seemed like a juvenile thing to do to count my conquests. In most recent memory, there was Lindsay, obviously, and Julianne and Brooke. There was a girl I slept with that I picked up at the bar just after I broke up with Brooke named Mindy… I think… and a few before Brooke and I started dating.

“I don’t really keep count.”

She turned to me and her jaw dropped open. “That many?”

“Not
that
many. I just don’t keep track.”

“Can you estimate?”

This was making me uncomfortable. I liked to think of myself as a good guy, and I wanted Lindsay to think of me that way, too, but I’d had my share of fun. Being single and pining after the same woman for half of my life had led me to many meaningless relationships that were based on sex and little else. But things were different with Lindsay, and I needed her to understand that.

“Yes, I can estimate.
Somewhere between fifteen and twenty women. Maybe more, maybe less.”

“That’s not that bad.”

“Good. You?”

“Is that your question?”

“Sure. Now you’ve got me wondering.”

“Four.”

“Four?”

“Yes. Four.”

“Including me?”

“Yes.”

“Lindsay,” I started, squeezing her thigh under my palm, “it doesn’t matter if you were with four or forty. And it doesn’t matter if I was with five or twenty-five. What matters is that I'm with you now. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and I don’t want any other women in my bed. And I don’t want to think about any other man in your bed.”

“Slick answer, buddy.”

“Truth.”

She took my hand from her thigh and pressed tiny kisses to my fingertips, sending a jolt right to my groin.

But this entire conversation led me back to the brooding I had been doing earlier.

It reminded me that she had, in fact, been with other men, and one of those men happened to be my colleague. My colleague who was rubbing his relationship with her in my face because of the way things had ended for them. Or maybe because of the way things had
started for the two of us. Whatever the case, he had openly admitted to me today that the two of them had been intimate, even if they hadn’t slept together, in that time between the first and second time I had met Lindsay, and just the thought of that drove me insane with jealousy.

Just another example of Hurricane Lindsay whirling into my life and causing chaos.
I loved the chaos, but I hated the image of her and Spencer.

I heard one of my all-time favorite songs start playing: “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses. As I listened to the familiar
lyrics, all I could think about was how much I needed a heavy dose of the very thing Axl was singing about. And then he sang, “You and I’ve got what it takes to make it,” and I knew that he was right. He was talking about us.

She sighed in frustration.

“What?” I said.

“You.
Stop brooding.”

“I’m not brooding.” It was a lie.

“Yes, you are. Stop thinking about what Spencer said. We can’t change it, so we move on.”

How was it possible that she already knew me as well as she did?

“We’re on R, and it’s your turn,” she said, changing the subject.

“Reckless. A time you were reckless.”

“I hooked up with this guy I picked up at a bar once when I was visiting a friend in Arizona.”

My jaw dropped. “What? I can’t believe it!”

“Seriously, Tiger. That’s not who I am. That was a first.”

“And a last,” I murmured.

I saw her studying my face in my peripherals, but I didn’t take my eyes off of the road.

“Is that normal for you?” she asked.

I shrugged. “It wasn’t a first.”

“But it was a last,” she echoed my thoughts. Good. I liked it when she was possessive of me.

“What about you? A time you were reckless?”

“In high school, my friends and I thought it would be a good idea to drag race down a side street in our neighborhood.”

“Was it a good idea?”

“It was about the stupidest thing I’d ever done,” I said, barring the thought of my confession of love to Julianne the day after she’d had her heart broken. “There were kids playing on the side of the road who could’ve been seriously injured, but when you’re seventeen and stupid, you don’t think about those things. We got lucky that no one got hurt, but my car got up to eighty-five miles per hour and someone called the cops. They couldn’t pin anything on us because they weren’t there clocking our speed, but I was grounded for a very long time. I was lucky that being grounded was the worst of my consequences.”

“Lucky for the kids playing, too.”

I nodded. “It took awhile before I realized how stupid and dangerous that was.”

“S for scared. What scares you?”

The thought of losing her scared me more than anything. Fucking things up irreparably with her scared me. “Snakes,” I said instead. There’d be plenty of time for my honest answer later.

“Spiders and lightning.”

“Lightning?”

She nodded. “Struck a tree in my front yard when I was a kid and it smashed through my bedroom window when I was asleep.”

“Ah. That would probably make me scared of it, too.” I reached over and grabbed her hand, bringing it to my lips. “Don’t worry, Rhodes. You’ve got me to protect you now.”

“And I will take you up on that.”

“T for TV show?”

“
Bachelor
. You already knew that.”

“Lame.”

“What’s yours, big shot?”

“
Seinfeld
. You already knew that, too.”

“That was a lovely quote on the flowers, by the way.”

“I’m smooth, baby. I’ve got all the moves.”

She giggled.
“U for underwear. What do you have on right now?”

“Commando.”

“Liar.”

I chuckled. “Black boxers, I think.
You?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Tell me,” I begged.

She relented.
“A red thong.”

“Jesus,” I muttered, wishing I wasn’t driving so I could take a look. Or cop a feel.

“Your turn.”

“V?”

“Yep.”

I
tried to think of a good V. “Values?”

“Like what do I value? Or like my morals?”

“What do you value?”

“
It’s cliché, but I value family. Friends. Loved ones.”

“It’s not cliché. I’m the same. I value time with my family, especially now that I live here. I miss them a lot.”

“Go visit them, then.”

“It’s not that simple. My family is inextricably tied to Julianne’s, and I need to prove to you that I’m done with her.”

“Then bring me with.”

I pondered that thought. I’d love to introduce her to my family, but I hadn’t even really spoken to my mom or to Liz about the whole Julianne engagement fiasco. They probably assumed I was off brooding about Jules and just didn’t want to talk about it. They had been leaving me alone, thinking that I just needed some time to process everything. In fact, as I recalled, I had told them both that I would get in touch with them soon, and I hadn’t. They had no idea that I was dating someone new, and the more I thought about that, the more I realized how strange that was. Lindsay had quickly become the most important person in my life – my number one priority – and I’d been spending so much time either with her or thinking about her that I had neglected to inform my family of this new priority of mine.