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“You didn’t have to come with me, I would have been perfectly fine on my own.”
“Don’t be silly, you knew I wanted to spend the afternoon with you,” Derek said in exasperation.
Sophie lips twitched, wiping away the uncertainty that clouded her face when Cat showed up. “So you’re willing to brave this sweltering heat just to spend time with me?”
“Don’t push it, Angel,” Derek warned. Then he sighed. “These are things we men do for love.”
Sophie snorted and then belly-laughed at her snort. “Oh my god that was so unladylike.”
Derek quickly knocked her on her back and loomed on top of her. “That was cute.”
“Pretty slick, throwing the ‘L’ word in there, mister.”
“Well, I figured I haven’t told you I love you since this morning. I plan to wear you down.”
“Tell me something. Is running into your exes going to be a standard occurrence whenever we’re in public?”
Derek groaned and buried his face into her hair, mumbling indistinctly “Probably.”
“What?”
He raised his head. “Probably.”
Sophie pushed up on her elbows, dislodging him from her. “Ballpark, Derek, how many women are we exactly talking about?”
Derek preferred to plead the fifth on that one, but apparently Sophie quickly did the math in her head. “Three women a week, that’s 52 weeks a year—”
“Hey, sometimes they last longer than a week and I might take a break a week or two,” Derek said defensively.
“—multiplied by how many years—”
“That’s not even an accurate accounting —” Derek stated darkly.
“It’s the population of a small town!” Sophie shrieked incredulously. She eyed him curiously, like he was a lab rat. “How has your penis not fallen off? Seriously.”
Her eyes were sparkling mischievously.
“I take it you’re not mad?” he asked warily.
“No. A bit bewildered maybe—Beth and I never did the math. Oh my god, let me text her—”
“Sophie!”
“Just kidding.”
Derek turned serious as a thought occurred to him. “Angel, is my reputation what’s causing you to hold back?”
“I won’t lie. Subconsciously? Maybe,” Sophie answered honestly. “I’m afraid if I fall in love with you and you walk away, I won’t survive it.”
“My life has been a series of meaningless fucks,” he admitted. “I won’t deny that some were better than others, but none, absolutely NONE compares or even comes close to how I feel when I’m inside you. Or just being with you. It’s not just about the sex, which is how I know…guess I’ve always known.”
Sophie’s brows arched quizzically, so Derek continued, “When I saw you during our first business meeting, I knew you affected me in some way, but I was too chickenshit to do anything about my attraction to you.”
“You’ve been interested in me for months?”
“Yes. Since we’ve reached out to your research lab last year.” Derek grinned crookedly. She did not need to know about the numerous background checks he had done on her that went beyond what was professionally required. There had been enough stalkers in her life. “You’ve got this prim librarian look going for you, and I felt like a fucking perv fantasizing about you the few times you bothered to show up at our meetings.”
Sophie blushed. “I wasn’t aware—”
