“Was waiting for you to finish tucking Mittens in.” Crossing his arms, he rested his shoulder against the wall. He could tell by her body language that talking wasn’t on her top ten list. He could also tell by the way she was darting glances at his bedroom door that she wasn’t planning on coming to his room. “But since you’re sneaking down the hall I guess that was stupid. You are obviously avoiding me.”

“How many times do we have to have this argument? I don’t sneak and if I didn’t want to talk to you, I’d just say so.”

“Really? Because you came in the back door and rather than trample through the house in your dirty boots to piss me off like normal, they’re in your hands.” He stared her down. Spending the past two hours on a lumpy couch hadn’t really helped his patience. It had, however, allowed him to spin himself into a mood, so he took a deep breath and lowered his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was rile an already cagy Frankie. “You’re cautious. I get it. And with our history, I don’t blame you. All I am asking is that you talk to me, because feeling like I’m being played or that this is still some kind of game pisses me off.”

“Still?” she said her eyes filling with something even worse than anger.

Ah, crap. She thought… “No, that’s not what I—”

Frankie held up a hand. “My boots are covered in mud and I know that you mopped the floor yesterday, so I was trying to be nice. My mistake. Won’t happen again,” she said sharply and dropped the boots. Now her arms were crossed, she was throwing up those walls she was so fond of, and she was ready for a fight. “And I’m not playing. But thanks for reminding me where we stand, since last time I played in one of your stupid games, I got fired, kicked out of my family, and lost my grandfather’s respect.”

Nate took a breath and ran a hand down his face. “Look, Frankie, I don’t want to argue. And I’m not asking for some big declaration. I’m okay if you want to take things slow as long as we’re both honest about what’s happening between us.”

“What’s happening, Nate?” She took an aggressive step forward. “We had sex. We went to the lake. We fished. Then had sex again. It was fun. What about that is so confusing to you?”

Because that wasn’t all that happened. They’d shared something, and she knew it—didn’t she? Hard to say when she sounded so damn sure of herself. “I like you. You like me. So why are you making this so hard?”

“Because this is me, Nate.” She sounded tired. “Everything is hard with me. I didn’t mean to make you mad or ruin your night, I just… Look, do I like you? Yes. But I like lots of people. Do I want you? Obviously. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything more going on. Honest enough? Great then, I’m off to take a shower. Night, roomie.”

Frankie brushed past him and went into the guest bath, shutting the door with a resounding thud.

Nate heard the water hit the tub before he pushed away from the wall, his chest doing stupid things, like not working. It didn’t make any sense. She didn’t make any sense. He liked her, she liked him. So why did the sum balance of their entire relationship always equal disaster? With Frankie he always felt like everything was spinning out of control.

He’d mentally weighed the pros and the cons of a relationship with Frankie, took into account that she needed to feel in control, felt more comfortable setting the pace. So he handed over the keys and she spun them right off the fucking cliff.

After slamming his own door, properly and like an adult, he plopped down in the chair. Pulling the footrest up, he leaned back and pressed a hand to his head. His heart was pounding, his hands twitchy, and he felt sick. He hadn’t been this worked up since his parents died. And all over a woman who either A) didn’t like him enough to even try, B) was too scared to admit she liked him, or C) had been telling the truth all along.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just sex and he was the one making this into something it wasn’t. Hell, they were so completely opposite, maybe it was naive to think Frankie could even provide the qualities he needed in a partner—and vice versa.

Nate didn’t allow the death of his parents to make him wary of relationships like his brothers had. He took their deep ability to love as proof that that kind of soul-deep connection and unconditional understanding did exist. And that was what he was looking for. But would he find it in a woman who would give the shirt off her back without question, but one question about feelings and she’d aim for the nuts?

Frankie was smart and sexy and honest and challenged him at every turn. But—Nate grabbed his legal pad and a pen off the end table—she was stubborn to a fault, could argue with an alpaca, and was awkward and unsure with kids.

Nate released a ragged breath and closed his eyes. He loved kids. The more time he spent around his nieces, the harder it was to leave without feeling the unsettling knowledge that there was a gaping hole in his life that needed to be filled—not tomorrow but soon.

Drawing a line down the middle of the page, Nate wrote REASONS TO WANT FRANKIE across the header, titled each column, and then numbered one to twenty down the margin. After he sorted and cleared out every emotion and thought, filled in every line, adding more numbers and even spilling onto the next page, he looked at the bottom entry in each column and swore.

Pro: I love Frankie.

Con: I love Frankie.

* * *

It was a quarter past four in the morning and Nate was still staring at the ceiling. He sat alone in his chair, head aching from frustration, body tense with worry. He was exhausted, the bone-deep kind that made thinking logically about anything impossible, which is why all the illogical crap was making it impossible to fall asleep.

Realizing he was in love with a woman who couldn’t even say the word relationship without going into anaphylactic shock could do that to a guy. Admitting that he’d pushed too hard and may have blown it only added to the stress.

He’d taken a hot shower and reorganized his REASONS TO WANT FRANKIE list, but even that hadn’t helped. He wanted to walk across the hall, tap on Frankie’s door—and what?

Having sex with her would be a colossal mistake and yet she’d made it clear that it was the only thing on the table. Although he was pretty sure he’d screwed that up too when he’d stupidly implied that she was a game. God, how had their relationship become so complicated?

He quietly chuckled. Regardless of what Frankie was claiming, they did have a relationship. It might be more than she was willing to admit and less than Nate was willing to settle for. But three lists, two studies on how friends-to-lovers were seventy percent more likely to last, and a mental accounting of every encounter they’d had over the past three months and Nate was confident that they were both in deep. Which was why she’d gotten scared at the lake.

He got to her. Enough for her to pull back. She got to him unlike anyone he’d ever known. And beyond all reasonable explanation, they fit.

Now he just had to figure out how to take what they had, dysfunctional as it was, and make it into something amazing, something that fulfilled what they both needed. And right now Frankie needed his understanding, his patience and her own space. She had a lot riding on this weekend, and the last thing she needed was more pressure.

With a groan, Nate pushed the footrest down and threw on a pair of jeans. Sleep was not his friend tonight so he’d have to settle for caffeine. He opened the bedroom door and stopped.

Dressed in a tank top, panties, and nothing else, Frankie sat against the wall, her legs pulled to her chest, her cheek resting on her bent knees. At the sound of his door opening, she lifted her head and it was like a sucker punch to the gut. Her hair was a rumpled mess, her eyes were red—from lack of sleep or crying, he wasn’t sure—and the way she wrapped her arms around her body as though they were the only thing holding her together broke his heart.

“What are you doing up?” he asked quietly.

“Waiting for you,” she said, her lavender-tipped toes wiggling nervously. “I didn’t want to wake you but I also didn’t want to miss you before I had the chance to say, to tell you that—Did I wake you?”

She was staring up at him, looking beautiful and confused and so damn lost he had to take a steadying breath.

“No. I was already awake and wanted some coffee.” What he wanted was to take her in his arms and tell her that everything would be all right. But he knew that if he did, they’d wind up naked, and there went him giving her space. “Why don’t we go in the kitchen?”

He offered his hand to help her up, and she let him, which turned out to be a mistake because now she was pressed against his body, looking attractive in a pair of cream panties that were barely there and quite—sheer. All he had to do was lower his head an inch and they’d be kissing, which would lead to touching, and groping, and eventually—

“Bed-sex.”

Nate blinked. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Bed-sex?”

“Yes. And to tell you that I wasn’t trying to sneak past you tonight and I didn’t think I was avoiding you, but I thought about what you said earlier and well… I think I might have been using Mittens as an excuse not to come inside. And I’m”—she took a deep breath and looked him in the eye—“sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Frankie.” Nate intertwined their fingers and brought her hand to his mouth, delivering a gentle kiss to each of her knuckles. “You have a lot going on right now and I get that—”