We continue walking. Talking.
“I’m not the kind of guy that trusts people easily. I keep my circle tight and to only a few.”
“And Cole?”
“I suppose Cole is more open to socializing. He wasn’t the one who took care of our mother as closely. When she passed, in a way my being the eldest made me feel responsible for not only myself, but for him too.”
“His father figure, so to speak.”
“Yeah, well. Without a dad for your whole life, someone needs to step into the role.”
I eye him. “Do you miss her? Your mom?”
“I do. But I’d seen her suffer long enough that I know she’s in a better place now.”
We fall silent for a while.
“I was obsessed with death in my college days,” I tell him.
“Why?” He seems shocked.
“Because of my parents…when they left on their trip, I never expected I’d be saying goodbye for the last time. Then I get a call from my Aunt Cecile, and she was crying so hard, she could hardly speak.” I trail off and Christos’s eyes shadow.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I’m sorry too.” I swallow. “Did I ever thank you for the flowers?”
“Thank me later,” he says wickedly.
“Come on, you’re so not getting laid because of flowers.”
His eyes darken. He shoots me a look.
“You’re getting laid for other reasons,” I add, tongue-in-cheek.
He slips his hand into my waistband and caresses the skin on the back of my spine.
“I was pretty fucked up for the next few months,” I admit. “I kept thinking my time was coming too. I kept waiting for it to happen. It was only when I turned 21 that I finally felt like I should do something with my life and stop waiting. Because it might be a long time coming.” I laugh, but sober up to add, “My Aunt Cecile died shortly after. It was hard not to fall back into my grief.”
He studies me with a small smile. “So are you a hypochondriac or what?”
“No! I mean. No. It just hits you hard.” I lean back and sigh. “I read this book, Remembrance, by Jude Deveraux, about reincarnation and how we come back over and over and find our loved ones again, so I felt better about that. Like when I met you in high school. I would bet anything that I knew you before in another life.”
“Who was I?”
I smile shyly, feeling his amused gaze on my profile and somehow in my heart. “Someone crucial.”
“What? Like your brother?”
“No! You know what.” I snicker.
He smiles seductively, stares straight ahead, then at me. “I think knowing all this ends makes it even better, makes every moment count more. Right now this second,” he snaps his finger, “just gone.”
“Way to kill my enjoyment right now, Christos!”
He drapes his arm around me and we walk, laughing.
It seems natural that I press into his embrace, my whole body craving his body heat.
“Tell me something about you,” I say.
“What do you want to know?”
“How you came to New York.”
“I don’t know. I suppose it made sense. I was making millions, and I wanted to exponentially grow. I played with stocks, and real estate was big for me. There’s no more expensive real estate in the country than Manhattan. Might as well do something before I die,” he teases me.
I frown and slap his arm playfully. “You’re not nice.”
“I’ve never been nice. Isn’t that why you never went for me, bit?”
Flushing the color of sundried tomatoes, I look away and change the subject. “I was afraid you were…well, someone crucial,” I say, and his eyes are laughing as he stares down at me.
“I don’t regret that I waited,” I blurt out.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do. Otherwise all this…I’d be missing out on all this. Tonight.”
“You’re enjoying tonight?”
“You have no idea,” I admit, sliding my hand up his wrist and then back down, into his.
“I’m sorry about your mom. I can tell you still miss her. It makes me want to…hug you.”
“Huh?” he asks, puzzled about what I mean.
Impulsively, I reach out, and Christos lets me press his face to my chest and envelop him in a hug. He turns his head, between my breasts, and leaves it there, shaking. Oh God, is he crying? I peer down. He’s laughing.
The bastard is laughing.
“I can get used to this,” he mumbles, sliding his hands around my waist.
“You pervert. I’m trying to give you the hug I wanted to give you every time I thought of your mom sick and dying and you taking care of her, juggling school and a job, all at once.”
We’re smiling when we straighten.
“It’s okay. I mean, it hurts, but it’s okay.” He stops smiling and his eyes are a little shadowed and tender as he looks down at me. “You’re sweet. Smart, funny. Unique. I think the one who needs a hug is you.”
“Why?”
“You’re like a four-year-old, why? Because I say so?” he smirks.
He grabs me by the back of the neck and pulls me into his arms. Seriously, being enveloped by these thick arms feels too good.
I love how playful he is being with me right now. How easy it is to talk to him. To tell him things.
We head to his apartment with his hand still on the back of my neck, pressing me to his side. I’m warm all over by the time we head inside and grab wine and snacks.
“So when did you get the idea for House of Sass?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. I settle down on one of the couches while he drops a few inches away on the same couch and pours wine for us. “I guess a few years after my parents died, after my Aunt Cecile died, and I dropped out of college. I’m drawn to things you can physically touch. I didn’t consider getting into the tech side of the business until you asked me to make it bigger.”
He hands me a glass of wine. “Tech has been big for years, and I see it continuing to be.”
“I really like the fact that we’ll have both—a physical store but a virtual advisor. I suppose I was anti-tech for a time simply because I read a study which predicted that, in our future, many of our experiences would be virtual, and what’s the fun in that? I mean, a virtual kiss is not like a real one, you’re kissing air.”
“That’d be a business I’d go for, a virtual experience where you can smell the person you love, touch them, or at least trick your brain into thinking you’re with them.”
“But you aren’t and you will always know that you aren’t,” I contradict.
He sets down his wine glass. I can tell by the mischievous gleam and the challenging lift of his eyebrow he sends my way that he’s up to something. He lifts the lid of a small ivory-encrusted box on the coffee table, and extracts something silver. “Let’s try it out. Close your eyes.”
“What?”
He waits—obviously expecting me to hop to do his bidding. I’m tempted to ignore him, except there’s that glint in his eye of pure mischief and I want to know what is causing it. So I close my eyes, smiling, and feel the barest brush over my cheeks. “Am I touching you or not?” he rasps.
“What?” The flutters in my heart caused by the touch on my cheek is proving too distracting.
“Is this my touch, or is it the tip of this pen?” he asks again.
I inhale, keeping my eyes shut as I concentrate on the feeling. His scent is too close; I can’t concentrate really. He smells like my high school years, like my most secret wishes, and like a dream. Inhaling one good whiff, I exhale it reluctantly. “It’s your finger,” I finally say.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because!” I cry in exasperation. “You’re the selfish, possessive type, you wouldn’t give a pen the pleasure of doing something you want to do.”
Amusement laces his voice as I try to open my eyes, and he runs the tips of two fingers over my eyelids to urge them back shut. Close to my ear, he says, “Newsflash, little bit. The pen has no feelings or pleasure, whereas I do, I’ll give you that. Which finger?”