My smile fades; his eyes are intense as he looks at my whole face as if memorizing it all over again.
“We made sense,” he says.
“Made?” I’m feeling a little light-headed, so I’m impressed that I catch on to this so fast.
“Make,” he coolly corrects.
“I ended up giving my V card to Ted Cross,” I blurt.
“Rowdy Ted?” He seems surprised and instantly vexed.
“Yep.”
Christos says nothing. I have more wine to try to quell the heat his possessive stare is generating. But it’s no use.
His body is so close to mine, all my cells are buzzing.
“I was nervous about the whole process. Look! Don’t look at me like that. If I’d wanted someone thorough and good with his hands, I’d have given it to someone like…well, you.”
I take a quick breath of utter astonishment when I realize what I’d said.
I’m fully buzzed.
Fully stupid drunk.
Fuck, I need to stop drinking, but instead I take another sip.
All while Christos’s gold-green laser-like gaze is locked on me like a missile target. “He was no good for you.”
I look down at my lap. “I know. But I didn’t want it to mean something. I didn’t want to make a fuss of it. I didn’t want you to think I was awkward at it. So I gave it to him.”
He stares at me, the muscle in his jaw working as he looks at the bar as if trying to get a grip of some unnamable emotion.
“He was no good for you,” he repeats. Softer this time. As his eyes slide back to mine.
Intimacy—it’s all over. In how close his eyes are looking into mine, how close his leg is to mine, his shoulder, his elbow, to mine.
“See? This is what you get for asking so many questions. TMI. And now awkward silence. And a drunk client-slash-business-partner or whatever.”
He stops me from drinking more with a hand motion, then signals for the check.
I bite my lip on the inside. “I wasn’t ready for you then,” I admit.
He winks at me. “Nobody ever is. Come here. Lean on me.” He raises me from the chair and I slip my arm around his waist as we head outside, where his car waits.
“I’m only two blocks away,” I say as he leads me to his car.
“Then I’ll walk you there.”
“I’m going to regret all this tomorrow, won’t I?”
An irresistible grin appears on his face and it makes my knees wobble even worse. “Nah. I don’t think you’ve stepped far enough beyond your comfort zone to regret a thing.”
“My comfort zone is very close to me; I’m already stepping dangerously outside,” I contradict.
I lean into him as we head down the block.
I’m acutely aware of the buzzing energy of his body walking next to mine, his arm holding me up by the waist. I want to die a little. He’s a powerful, attractive man and I’m only human, and maybe a bit too alchoholized for my liking.
“Say something.” My voice is soft. Worried. As I look up at his profile.
“Your smell does shit to me,” he gruffs out.
His presence is intense and overwhelming as he stares down at me and then, frowning and thoughtful, at the street ahead.
I laugh, and so does he.
But we’re not laughing in the next instant when we reach my building and face each other.
“Say you won’t take any of this seriously,” I beg.
He nods.
“I mean I hardly know what I’m saying,” I explain.
He silences me with his thumb. “Then stop talking,” he says gently.
I swallow, then lean on him again.
Christos is quiet. I am too.
He puts his arm around my shoulders, and I press my cheek to his chest as he leads me up my elevator, into my apartment, my room, and then into bed, where I kick my shoes off before he tucks me in. “I’d like a do-over of tonight,” I say.
“I can make that happen.”
“Thank you.” I slip into my bed, then realize I need to set my alarms. “Oh shit.”
I rummage through the nightstand drawer.
“Tell me where your socks are and I’ll bring them over,” he says as he closes my curtains.
“No, it’s just that…” I take out my five small alarm clocks, each a different size and shape. “My parents slept through the hotel fire.” I set the first one for 1 a.m.
He watches me from the foot of the bed, his brows practically joined over his nose as he tries to make sense of what I’m doing.
“They were on their anniversary trip. Twenty years. They were the only ones that didn’t hear the alarm,” I explain.
“I got it,” he says, crossing over and taking one of the alarm clocks from me.
“So what do you do when they ring?” he asks, flipping them on, one by one.
“Nothing.” I sigh, exasperated with myself as I drop my head back on my pillow. “I just make sure everything is calm and quiet. Then I fall instantly asleep.”
Watching him turn on the last alarm clock, I rest my head on the pillow again and look at him. His face etched to perfection, creased with puzzlement as he finishes his task.
He smells really good. Like incredibly good.
“Are you mad I didn’t tell you? When you asked before?” I’m worried. I can’t help it.
He raises his eyes to meet mine.
Is there tenderness there? I feel mushy under his gaze.
“No,” he says. “I could tell you were evading. I knew there was more. You going to be okay?” he asks, his voice husky with tenderness as he tips my face up by the chin.
“Hmm. Stay.”
I don’t know if he will. He heads outside. I hear him make a call. He comes back in, tilts my chin back up.
I like it so much I want to push the rest of my face into his hand. “I can’t stay,” he says.
“You can’t? Or you don’t want to?”
“I can’t. It’s not just your scent. You do shit to me. You understand?” His eyes blaze in the shadows—the heat and intensity roiling in their gold depths making my stomach constrict. “The only thing that can keep me away from you tonight is distance.”
I nod, ever so slowly.
“It’s not convenient for you, is it?” I ask, breathless.
“No, bit, it’s not convenient.” His smile is devastating as he pulls up my covers. “I thought I finally had my shit together and then you come along to fuck it up. You tend to do that to me—you really are quite the Wicked Miss Kelly.”
I grin.
He brushes his thumb over my lips. One second.
The best second of my adult life.
“Good night, bit.”
“’Night.”
We stare at each other for longer than necessary, then he walks away.
When my alarm sounds at 1 a.m. all I know is all is okay, but it’s not, not really, and I don’t know why it doesn’t feel like it is.
Christos
12 1/2 years ago…
I ask Cole where she’ll be Saturday—he tells me at Kelly’s, so I stop by the department store and find her behind a register, giving instructions to a new employee. She spots me and her honeyed eyes widen in surprise. “I’m taking a small break, but call me if you have any questions.” A pop of pink appears on her cheeks as she hurries out from behind the counter and toward the west side of the ground floor.
I follow her down the hall and toward a small office with her mother’s name, Katherine Kelly, embossed on it.
She walks inside, grabs a drink from the fridge, and offers me one.
I shake my head and just smile—taking a good look at her. Enjoying how frazzled she seems by my presence.
She takes a huge sip, leaning back on her mother’s desk, then she sets the drink aside. “What?” She touches her mouth, as if she thinks she’s got something on it.
“What what?” I counter.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“How am I looking at you, bit?”
She struggles for a reply, her cheeks very flushed, very fucking adorable. “You look like a boy who thinks he’ll get to kiss me.”