“Yes, I was.” He flashed her a wicked grin, showing his perfect white teeth. “When I was ten, I was a serious kinda guy.”
This conversation had taken a turn toward the ridiculous. He had to be pulling her leg. “Riley, that doesn’t count.”
His grin widened. “I asked you to the Sadie Hawkins dance when you were in eleventh grade.”
“You were playing a joke on me.” The year before, Avery Prescott, the mayor’s son, had asked her to the Winter Cotillion. She’d been excited that a boy her grandmother deemed good enough had actually sought her out and asked her to the formal dance. She’d been given permission to accept, but when the night finally arrived she’d been left standing in her baby-pink formal gown on the porch waiting for a date who had never intended to show up.
He shook his head. “I was serious as a heart attack.”
“I guess I was kind of gun-shy. I didn’t believe you.” She still remembered being devastated, and at school the next Monday, she’d discovered herself the victim of a cruel joke that had left all of her classmates laughing at her. From that time on, she’d hidden herself in her books, worked at the diner and taken care of her grandmother, who grew more delicate every year as her heart grew weaker. She decided she simply wasn’t the type of girl men wanted to make time for or go to bed with.
“I also asked you out for dinner about seven months after Chloe and I got divorced and again you turned me down.”
“You have dinner at the diner every night.” Of course she was always working in a restaurant full of other people waiting for their food and didn’t have the kind of time she’d like to spend talking to him. “Why didn’t I have a clue?” she asked that question more for herself than him.
“I’m guessing I wasn’t clear enough.” He leaned against the kitchen counter. “Why are you asking me to teach you about sex?”
She felt the blush start beneath the collar of her uniform and spread upward again. “All the single women in town you’ve been running around with say you’re the best at…you know…doing it.” Not that they’d actually said so directly to her. She’d learned a long time ago that most of the women in Wayloo thought she was invisible and talked freely in front of her when they came to the diner for lunch. But she wisely kept that information to herself. She tended to live vicariously through gossip.
His eyebrows shot up. “They do?”
She nodded, moving closer to him. “I figured you know the tricks. After all, you lived in Chicago for five years. Plus, I don’t have to worry about any of the mushy love junk.”
“Mushy love junk?”
Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have said it exactly that way. It did sound a bit rude and unfeeling. Riley wasn’t acting the way she’d envisioned in her mind. She’d thought he’d be…well…more flattered. “I know you’re not going to fall in love with me and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to fall in love with you.” Almost sure. Deep inside, she’d always had some odd feeling for Riley, but had never really taken it out and examined it. He was just another guy her grandmother had disapproved of, so why waste time on thinking about what-ifs.
“You don’t think you could love me?” he asked.
A woman like her would be a fool even to think about setting her sights on such a man as handsome and as eligible as Riley Martin. Since his divorce, the local gossips whispered that he’d been through almost all the single women in the tri-county area. Sex was in his bag of tricks. “It would be silly, since I’m leaving town as soon as I sell the diner and settle all my business. That’s why you’re so perfect. That and the fact that all the women say you’re very good at…well…you know.” She just couldn’t quite say the word sex. She imagined her grandmother sitting on a cloud looking down at her and being horrified at what Nell wanted.
Pride crossed his face. He reminded her of one of her grandmother’s prize roosters strutting through the backyard. “I’m flattered I rate town gossip.” A frown pulled his face down. “At least, I think I am.”
She set her glass of tea down. “I’m starting to believe that this was a very bad idea. I’ll be going.” She turned to leave, the bitter taste of embarrassment in her mouth. She’d given it a shot and had been shot down.
“Hold on,” Riley said.
Nell stopped, knowing she should keep on going, but curiosity was always a demanding thing. And it always seemed to get the better of her at all the wrong times.
“Nell.” Riley pushed away from the counter. “I didn’t say no.”
Nell’s breath caught in her throat. “No, I guess you didn’t.” He looked so big and solid and his mouth was so soft and inviting. She tried to imagine being kissed by Riley, but all she could remember was Jeremy Hill who’d cornered her in seventh grade and tried to kiss her. His kiss had been wet and totally unromantic.
“No, I didn’t.” He took a step toward her.
Her head said leave one more time, but her feet ignored the command. “Riley, may I ask you a question?”
He hovered over her. “You can ask me anything.” His voice had taken on a tone that sent a shiver through Nell.
She looked him straight in the eye. “Why did you ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance?”
The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Let’s call it the lure of the forbidden.”
She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but she certainly wanted to know, if for no other reason than because she got a warm tingly feeling inside her, as if she was doing something really naughty. “I don’t understand.”
Riley closed the distance between them. “You are the eternal good girl with the hot, sex-kitten body. Why wouldn’t I want to go out with you?”
“I’m chubby.” She interrupted him. Her grandmother had told her so often enough.
His nostrils flared as his gaze traveled over her body. “Never. Voluptuous, stacked, loaded if you want to get crude. Everything is in all the right places and in the right amounts. But then again, girls like you were always off-limits to bad boys like me.”
And he had been a bad boy, riding his old motorcycle around town at all hours of the night with his black leather jacket and that sardonic grin all the girls used to squeal about.
Nell thrilled at his compliment. No one had ever told her such things before. For the first time she felt, well, almost pretty. “My grandmother used to say you’d end up in prison or in a trailer park.”
He grinned. “I was pretty bad, wasn’t I?” A look of pride filled his eyes.
She touched his forearm. His dark skin was corded with the structure of the muscles underneath. Tingles rushed up her fingers. She liked how it felt to connect with him. He was strong, powerful and sturdy, as though he could withstand anything. She hadn’t thought physical contact with a man could be so exciting. The hair on the back of her neck rose as a current of electricity danced through her.
“Was, but not anymore.” The words came out in a breathy tone she didn’t even know she was capable of.
