Joe shook his head with baffled annoyance.

“You’re the Chanel bag,” I said.

His scowl deepened. “Let’s drop the metaphors, Avery. Especially ones where I’m in a damn closet.”

“Yes, but do you get what I —”

“I want a real reason for why you won’t go out with me. Something I can understand. Like you don’t like the way I smell, or you think I’m an asshole.”

Looking down at the fabric of the chair, I traced the geometric pattern with the tip of my fingernail. “I love the way you smell,” I said, “and you’re not at all an asshole. But… you are a player.”

An unaccountably long pause followed before I heard his bewildered reply.

“Me?”

I lifted my head. I hadn’t expected him to look so stunned.

“Where did you get that idea?” he asked.

“I’ve been with you, Joe. I’m a personal witness to your hookup skills. The conversation, the dancing, the way you knew exactly how to play it so I’d feel comfortable with you. And when we were in bed, you had a condom conveniently ready, right there on the nightstand, so there was no pause in the action. Obviously you’d figured out every step beforehand.”

He shot me an affronted glance, color heightening his tan to a shade of rosewood. “You’re mad because I had a condom? You’d rather have done it without one?”

“No! It’s just that the whole thing was so… so practiced. So smooth. A routine you’ve perfected.”

His voice was quiet but biting. “There’s a difference between having experience and being a player. I don’t score women. I don’t have a routine. And setting my wallet on the nightstand doesn’t make me fuckin’ Casanova.”

“You’ve been with a lot of women,” I insisted.

“How are you defining ‘a lot’? Is there a number I’m not supposed to go over?”

Stung by the note of scorn, I asked, “Before last weekend, had you ever slept with a woman the first time you met her?”

“Once. In college. The rules were understood beforehand. Why does that matter?”

“I’m trying to make the point that sex doesn’t mean the same thing to you that it does to me. This was the only one-night stand I’ve ever had, not to mention the first time I’ve slept with someone since Brian. You and I have never even been out on a date. Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a player, but compared to —”

“Brian?” He looked at me alertly.

Regretting my slip of the tongue, I said curtly, “My fiancé. I was engaged, and we broke it off. That’s not important. My point is —”

“When did that happen?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I stiffened as Joe began to approach me.

“When?” he insisted.

“A while ago.” I stood from the chair and took a step back. “Joe, the buffer zone —”

“When was the last time you slept with him? With anyone?” He reached me, taking hold of my arms as I shrank back. I ended up against the bookshelves, crowded by his big frame.

“Let go,” I said faintly. My gaze ricocheted as I tried to look anywhere but directly at him. “Please.”

Joe was ruthless. “One year?” A pause. “Two?” As I kept silent, he stroked my upper arms, his warm hands bringing up gooseflesh. His voice turned gentle. “More than two years?”

I had never felt more vulnerable or mortified. Too much of my past had just been revealed, along with an avalanche of self-doubt and naïveté. As I wilted in the heat of exposure, it occurred to me that I may have judged him differently from how a more emotionally secure woman would have.

I threw a longing glance at the door, desperate to leave. “We have to get back to the party —”

Joe pulled me against him. I writhed in protest, but his arms tightened, restraining me easily. “I understand now,” I heard him say after a moment. Although I wanted to ask what, exactly, he thought he understood, I could only stand there in a trance. A minute passed, and another. I began to say something, but he hushed me and kept holding me. Clasped securely against the rise and fall of his chest, steeped in his body heat, I felt myself relaxing.

I was filled with the bittersweet knowledge that this was the last time he would ever hold me. After this we would cut our losses. We would put the memory of that night behind us for good. But I was going to remember this embrace, because it was the best, safest, warmest feeling I’d ever had in my life.

“We slept together too soon,” he said eventually. “My fault.”

“No, it wasn’t —”

“It was. I could tell you didn’t have much experience, but you were willing, and… hell, it felt too good to stop. I wasn’t trying to play you. I’m —”

“Don’t apologize for having sex with me!”

“Easy.” Joe began to smooth my hair. “I’m not sorry that it happened. Only that it happened too soon for you to feel comfortable with it.” He bent his head and kissed the soft skin around my ear, making me shiver. “It wasn’t casual,” he murmured. “Not for me. But I would never have let it go so far if I’d known it would scare you.”

“It didn’t scare me,” I said, nettled by the implication that I was behaving like some terrified virgin.