The Drifter by Kate Hoffmann Page B

this?” he said.
    “A public display of affection usually requires an explanation.”
    “Do you really think we’ll need one?”
    She shrugged. “I know a lot of people in this town. I haven’t been dating. Someone is surely going to be curious. What am I supposed to tell them?”
    “Tell them I’m your boyfriend,” he said.
    “Charlie, I—”
    He turned and grabbed her face in his hands, then kissed her, lingering over her mouth for much longer than he should have, his tongue teasing at her lips provocatively. If she was worried about public displays of affection, she needn’t bother. He’d just given the crowd a public display of naked lust. “I’m your boyfriend, Eve. That’s all there is to it. We have a romantic relationship. I don’t know where the hell it’s going, but that doesn’t matter. Now, just say it.”
    “Say what?” she asked breathlessly.
    “Say, ‘Charlie, you are my boyfriend.’”
    “Charlie, you are my boyfriend.”
    “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
    She shook her head. “I guess not.”
    “So, now we can hold hands. We’re officially going together.”
    “This sounds like high school,” Eve commented wryly.
    “Maybe that’s where we should start.”
    “I think we’ve gotten a little ahead ourselves. What we’ve been doing wasn’t even a possibility in high school. I was a very naive girl. I didn’t even know that tongues were involved in kissing until I was a junior in high school.” She paused. “But then, I suppose you were quite the Casanova.”
    Charlie shook his head. “Actually, no. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was a sophomore in college. I didn’t spend a lot of time with girls in high school. I was too busy climbing rocks and kayaking downrivers. Girls really didn’t like to do that stuff, so until I had my first sexual experience, I didn’t have much use for them.”
    “And then?”
    “And then I realized how much fun they were,” Charlie said.
    “And then you had a lot of sex,” she said.
    “And then, I realized that a lot of sex wasn’t necessarily a good thing. When I came back to Boulder, I realized there’s a lot more to like about a woman than what you experience in the bedroom.”
    “And what do you like about me?” Eve asked, turning to face him.
    He slipped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I like that you want me to eat better. And that you fold up my clothes when I throw them on the floor. I like how you look when you wear my T-shirt, and only my T-shirt, to make us breakfast. And I love the way you smell when you come out of the shower.”
    She seemed taken aback by his rhapsodizing. A pretty blush stained her cheeks and she turned away to stare into a shop window. When she turned back to him, she smiled. “I’m hungry. Are you?”
    Maybe he had been a bit too open about his feelings for her, but Charlie was sick of playing games. He liked Eve, a lot more than he’d ever liked any woman before. Hell, he might even love her, though he wasn’t sure he’d recognize the feeling if he did.There was absolutely nothing wrong with telling her what was on his mind.
    “Eve!”
    A man’s voice brought them both to a stop at the entrance to the farmer’s market. He heard Eve’s voice catch in her throat and she cursed softly.
    “What?” Charlie said.
    “It’s Dave,” she said. “My ex.”
    “Matt,” Charlie corrected.
    “Dave, Matt, it doesn’t make a difference what I call him. He’s coming over here right now. I really don’t want to talk to him.”
    “Then don’t,” Charlie said.
    Charlie had never formally met Matt, though he’d seen him once, five years ago, chatting with Eve in front of her restaurant. The guy looked like an accountant, all buttoned-up and business-like, his hair trimmed short and his shirt pressed perfectly. Charlie didn’t like him for a myriad of reasons, the primary one being that he’d swooped in and married Eve when she’d been most vulnerable.