Free Locked and Loaded (Bullet, #6) by Jade C. Jamison

another bite.”
    “No?”
    “Nope.  I’m full.”
    “But we have ice cream next.”
    She giggled and shook her head.  “I’m sorry, Zane.  I just don’t have any room.”
    “Well, you might later,” he said, setting the fork on his now-empty plate.  He wasn’t quite sure how he’d eaten all that food, but he wasn’t going to question it.  “Maybe we need to work some dinner off first and then get ice cream when we’re hungry again.”
    “Work some of it—?”  Her cheeks turned pink then, and he couldn’t tell thanks to the dim lighting in the place.  No, he knew because he knew Jennifer.
    She’d gotten the message.
    “Yeah, like old times.”  He could feel his right eyebrow cocked and he probably had a knowing smirk on his face.  That was okay.  She used to like that.  “After the car chase, if you want.”
    She didn’t laugh this time.  He saw her swallow before she pursed her lips and grabbed the glass of water in front of her.  “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
    He needed to push forward.  “Why wouldn’t it be, Jen?  We know each other like the back of our hands and I’m still as attracted to you as ever.”
    She looked down at the table.  “We’ve both changed so much.”
    Maybe a little—but she made it sound like they’d both done one-eighties.  She was lying to him and herself if she really believed that.  “Change is inevitable, babe, but I think you’re exaggerating.”
    She opened her mouth, acting like she was going to say something, and then she finally brought the glass up to her lips and sipped, and it seemed like an eternity as she took down one small swallow after another.  He started finding it distracting, because watching her throat move brought him straight back to his original suggestion.
    When she set the glass back on the table, she said, “I can’t speak to your situation, Zane, but I can tell you about mine ...and I have changed a lot.”
    Zane blinked and shook his head.  This—yes, what he was about to say—would likely drive them to a full-blown argument, just like the good old days, but he couldn’t not say anything.  “Really?”  She raised her eyebrows in challenge.  “Seriously, Jen?  You think that?  First off, just looking at your outward appearance, you still have that gorgeous long blonde hair.  You’re not old and wrinkly.  You haven’t gotten fat or hairy and you don’t have a bunch of moles growing out of your face.”  Instead of smiling at his joke, Jennifer’s brow knotted further and her frown deepened...but he wasn’t done, not by a long shot.  “You’re still amazingly beautiful and hot and sexy—and I still want you.  But let’s talk instead about where most real change happens, and that’s inside.  Are you really so different?  Do you have different values?  Have you flipped your ideas and beliefs about the world?  I’m calling bullshit right now.  You still enjoy and love the same things you used to.  You’re still bullheaded but sweet.  I bet you still love kitten pictures and the sound of thunderstorms.  I know you still have a great sense of humor and strong work ethic.  Tell me what’s changed so damn much about you, Jennifer, that you feel like we shouldn’t spend more time together.”
    She was looking at him with eyes wide open, and he couldn’t quite read her.  She looked a little pissed, yeah, nothing new—and, frankly, something that turned him on and would until the fighting became incessant.  But there was also something else there, something he couldn’t pinpoint.  “I don’t know that I’m ready to tell you any of that, Zane.  Maybe that’s part of what’s changed about me too—I’m not as open as I used to be.”
    “I think that’s normal, Jen.  We tend to pull more into ourselves as we grow.”  Well, it was that way with him.  When he thought back over how open and honest the two of them used to be with each other compared to all the