Hot Pursuit - Denise A. Agnew [21]
“How many have asked you to sleep with them?”
He made a small, exasperated noise. “Several. It started while I was at West Point. There were women throwing themselves at us like we might have some superpower sex or something. One guy called it the Warrior Syndrome. Women who get horny over men they consider heroes or someday heroes. It turns some women on. They smell testosterone and it switches on their ovaries.”
His blunt talk, so different from the seduction, from the hot but gentle persuasion, gave her pause.
Is that what she’d done? Wanting a sexual release but falling into the trap of being turned on by a lie? Did he think she was like those women? “You guys were being used as sex machines.”
“Yep.”
“What did you think of the women?”
“I didn’t pay much attention to it. I was too busy trying to study.”
“And you never had sex with any of them?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Oh.
In some ridiculous way she’d built him up in her mind on short acquaintance, made him less human, less real. Maybe she’d been looking for a hero that didn’t exist.
She pulled the covers up to her chin, suddenly cold. “Am I number six?”
He rolled onto his back and covered his eyes with his forearm. “Yes.”
They sank into quiet for a moment, awkwardness she suspected started when she’d begun questioning him. But why shouldn’t she ask questions and Vic answer? Didn’t she have a right to know if she was making another monumental mistake with a military man?
That tiny suspicion-o-meter went off in her head and started to wear away at her confidence in the situation.
“So how many men have you slept with?” he asked after the silence.
She drew in a breath, knowing she had to confess. “Three. You’re number three. Number one was my boyfriend in college. Two was the military guy who ran around with other women.”
“Not Danny?”
“No. We hadn’t gotten that far yet.”
“Yet you fell into bed with me after we’d known each other again for a short time.”
She looked at him sharply, but there wasn’t any coolness or condemnation in his tone. Just facts.
“Yes.”
Vic sat up, his gaze serious. “I feel a chill in here.”
She shivered. “It is cold, isn’t it?”
He sighed. “Do you want me to go?”
Startled by the question, she considered it. That’s all this was supposed to be, right? A hot pursuit of sex for one blazing night?
When she didn’t answer, doubt riding her hard, he made the decision for her. “I’ll head out.”
“But…”
He got off the bed and headed for the bathroom. When the door closed, her female brain asked the obvious question. What the hell had just happened? Didn’t she want him to stay? Was he insulted she hadn’t answered immediately? Or maybe she hadn’t answered right away because she wasn’t sure about him staying. She flopped back on the bed. Oh, God. Inside an ache started, one filled with confusion. What did she want now that the earth-shaking sex was over? The man was a stud and a half. She snapped on the bedside lamp. Yet he was far more than that. He was—
When the bathroom door opened, she’d already pulled the covers up around her chin again.
He searched the area for his clothes.
Say it, damn it. Before he gets away. “Do you have to leave?”
Jeans back on, he stood bare-chested and hands on hips. A sad smile touched his mouth. “No, I don’t. But here’s the thing…you didn’t answer right away. You’re not sure about what we did. You need some time to think this whole thing over. You need to decide if the fact I’m in the military bothers you. Or if the fact that other women have come onto me bothers you. Maybe there’s a little part of you that believes the sexual harassment charge.”
Her mouth opened, but again nothing came out.
Lucy swallowed, her mind