*   *   *

How in the hell had the discussion gone from him trying to talk Ressa into coffee to his somewhat annoying and needy neighbor?

Trey did not know.

Ressa eyed him coolly, an arch look on her face, as she waited for an answer.

Trapped. He winced and looked away. Nadine was a sweet woman. She helped out with everything. She didn’t have any kids, but she helped out with a local Boy Scout troop. She volunteered with Big Brothers/Big Sisters. She headed up clothing drives and made sandwiches to pass out down at a park where some homeless people tended to gather on weekends.

She was a sweet lady.

They’d tried one date and he’d only said yes because the few times she’d stammered out her obviously nervous invitation to the movies or dinner, she’d left him feeling like he’d broken her heart when he said no.

They’d gone out to dinner and a movie and when they came back, she’d been the one to make a move.

She’d kissed him.

Everything inside him had gone cold.

There had been absolutely no interest—in fact, he couldn’t wait for her to stop kissing him.

Turning away, he rested his hands on his hips and looked up at the clear blue bowl of the sky stretching overhead. “Trapped,” he bit off. Every time he was with Nadine, he had that same sensation. He didn’t know why, but that was how he felt. And it wasn’t because of anything Nadine did.

“I’d feel trapped, too, if somebody kept trying to manipulate me into shit I didn’t want.”

He stilled and shot a look over his shoulder, meeting Ressa’s gaze. “What?”

“I’d feel trapped, too.” She shrugged and moved toward him.

She was so close . . .

Reaching out, he caught her waist and pulled her against him.

She didn’t resist.

Leaning back against the truck, he took the soft weight of her body on his and his cock stirred, blood draining down and pooling in his groin.

Her lashes lowered.

A soft sigh shuddered out of her.

“No more coffee,” he said softly.

Then he trailed his fingers up the inside of her ribs.

She was right, he suspected, and it made him feel stupid that he hadn’t seen it before now.

“She’ll make you feel like you kicked a dozen puppies.” Ressa slid her hands up his chest.

“Too bad. If I’m having coffee, I’d just as soon have it by myself . . . or better yet, with you.”

“We are still talking about coffee here, right?”

“Sure.” Then he bent down and nipped her lower lip. “Unless we’re not. But don’t worry, I’ll tell her.”

Mentally, he braced himself for it. He could already see the look in her eyes, too.

“You’re like an open book sometimes.”

He met her eyes.

“You’re thinking about how much you’re going to hurt her feelings, aren’t you?”

There was a zipper under her arm and he lifted a brow. “Well, this very second, I’m thinking about how easily I could pull this down . . . but . . . yeah.”

“You’re going to do it anyway. No matter what you say or how you do it.”

“I can be nice, you know.” He scowled at her.

For a moment, she stared at him.

Then she laughed.

“You are blind. Trey . . . she’s in love with you. And the sooner you make it clear it’s not going to happen, the sooner she can move on.”

There was only one way to describe how he felt in that moment. He summed it up in two words. “Oh, shit.”

Chapter Fifteen

The coffee shop was just down the corner from work. The new branch where she worked wasn’t as big, or as high tech, as the branch near the waterfront had been, but the children’s area was nice and they had a great program.

That was always a plus.

By an unspoken mutual agreement, they kept their discussion casual—the sort of talk they would have had if this had been their first date.

Well, technically, it was, even if they were doing things out of order.

Usually the date came before the crazy hot sex.

It didn’t negate that first, mild awkwardness that came with any first date, though, and Ressa was even more nervous because on the drive over, she’d had too much time to think through what a stupid decision this was.

Ressa pointed out, nice and casual like, how much the Norfolk library loved it when local authors came to visit. She hadn’t gotten around to that before, and now, at least, she could say she’d sown the seeds.

Now, as they sat on a low-lying brick container wall, the riot of summer flowers blooming behind them, she sipped at an iced coffee while Trey actually managed to drink regular coffee. In this heat. She didn’t know how people did that.

He stared toward the library, sunglasses shielding his gaze from the vivid rays of the sun. “How long you worked there?”

“For this branch? You forgot already?” She wrinkled her nose at him when those dark lenses angled toward her. She wanted to snag them off. If he never again hid behind a pair of sunglasses, it would be too soon. “Oh, guess you meant the library in general. I’ve been with them since college, at one location or another.”

“Always wanted to be a librarian?”

“Yeah.” She suspected he wouldn’t be one of the ones who didn’t get it, so she told him the truth. “You know how books are a casual escape for some? Books weren’t just an escape for me—they rescued me.”

His brow lifted, his expression somehow conveying . . . go on . . . all without him saying a word.

She blew out a breath. She could do this—get this part out. If he learned this much of her and didn’t handle it well? Then that would be answer enough and she’d know before she got in over her head.

“I wasn’t . . . a good kid,” she said finally, just laying it out on the table. “My mom died when I was little. I can relate to Clay there. But my dad . . . well.”

She shrugged. “He got in trouble a lot. In and out of jail. I’d live with his sister when he was locked up. He did a stretch of three years, got out when I was seven and seemed to straighten up—or so people thought. He just got smarter. We moved around a lot. He was dealing drugs . . .” She paused and then blew out a breath before she added, “And he used to have me helping him.”

Now she looked up.

Trey didn’t look shocked or appalled or disgusted.

He just sat there. Listening.

She swiped a finger through the condensation on her cup while her gut twisted into ten thousand knots. “There were a few times when he’d get arrested off and on, but he never got charged, never got held. He was killed when I was fifteen. I ended up going to live with his sister.” She smiled now, unable to stop it. “Mama Ang. She pretty much changed my life. And not just because she introduced me to books. I wasn’t easy for her to live with—at all—didn’t think I needed anybody, kept trying to run away—school was awful . . . but she kept at it, kept at me. Six months after I’d gone to live with her, I got in a fight at school. Somebody was on me again, about my dad, and I lost it. Got suspended. Mama Ang locked me in my room. No TV. I could come out for meals but that was it. The only thing in the room was the schoolwork I had to do and books. Eventually, I got bored enough to pick one up. I didn’t even hear her come in the room—she’d been calling me for dinner and I never heard.”

She flicked a look at him. “It was Tolkien. She asked me if I was enjoying it and I lied—told her it was the most boring piece of shit I’d ever read. Mama Ang just laughed. The next day, she brought me more books and told me a whole world lay inside them.”

Ressa paused, thought of the hours, the days, the weeks that followed. “It took a while. It wasn’t some Reading Rainbow after school special where I changed overnight, but . . . I found myself spending more time inside a book, getting in trouble less . . . doing better in school. Not on purpose, but it happened. And I liked me more. I’d read about these people who were . . . decent. Like Mama Ang. I didn’t understand why they could be like that and I couldn’t. So I told myself I’d just pretend . . . and maybe I’d figure it out on the way.”