“My apologies.” He kept as much space between them as was possible without looking forced, given the confined spot.
Silence settled over them, and he bit his tongue to keep from saying anything. He promised not to ask again, but he was worried, if he changed the subject, she might not open up. It was clear she needed to get something off her mind.
“It’s really nothing. I meant that.” She fiddled with a thin spot on her jeans, dragging her nail over the loose threads. “I’ll tell you, and you’ll agree.”
He had a feeling it went deeper than that. “Okay.”
“My roommate’s brother is staying with us. He does that sometimes, when money is tight and he can’t find a contract. I’ve known them both forever. She’s my best friend. Apparently he wants... He got a little aggressive this morning is all. Nothing more than that.” Her insistence ran together. “But she’s taking his side, and home feels a little alienating right now. Anyway.” Emily looked up, smile so thin it stretched over her teeth. “It’ll pass in a few days, once I’ve had some time to mope.”
As she told the story, Antonio’s anger heated from simmering to boiling. His imagination filled in the details she glossed over. “That doesn’t sound like nothing.” He forced himself to not speak through clenched teeth.
“It really isn’t a deal. It’s so far from being one that it’s not on the same planet.” She sank back against the cushions and scrubbed her face. “That’s what I’ve been telling myself all morning. It’s not like he touched me or tried to force himself on me. Problem is I’m not having any of my own crap.”
The assurance was enough to help him put a lid on his response. Showing her his fury wouldn’t help, but it was clear she was talking herself down when she was justified in being upset. “Stop trying to convince yourself you were in the wrong. No one deserves to be treated like that.”Especially you.The surge of protectiveness caught him off guard. He wanted to pull her into his lap, wrap her up, and keep her safe. The feeling was foreign and impossible to shake.
She also didn’t need him being grabby.
“Thank you for that.” She seemed to relax a little.
“For the truth? Always. What can I do to help?”
“Distract me. We can talk about anything but this morning.”
“Did you have another topic in mind?” If he were the one to choose, he’d want to know what happened when she was done with her contract. Would she move on and never see them again? Was there the potential for something more, without the confines of work bearing down on them? Now wasn’t the time to press for details like that, though.
She looked around the room. “I don’t know. Um... Why a dragon tattoo?”
“It matches Justin’s phoenix.” Easy answer but hardly a conversation starter.
“Really?” She scrunched up her face. “He told me— Never mind.”
“That it was Dark Phoenix? Like in the XMen comics? It’s true. The original was.” Maybe there was a story here after all. He never talked about things in this way, because it meant delving into how he felt about Justin, and he didn’t want that showing in front of the wrong people. With Emily, he wasn’t concerned. “A year or two after we met, I was ready to head back home. Obligation and the family business waited, and I thought I was done seeing the world.
“My dad’s company hires a lot of foreign contractors. Not as in overseas work, but people who do exactly what I had. Twenty-somethings backpacking around the world. He hires people from everywhere and never expects them to say more than six months to a year. It gives the company new vision and direction, and keeps things from getting stale. I didn’t want to leave Justin behind, so I landed him a job, to convince him to come back to Italy with me, and crossed my fingers he’d be one of the few who stayed.”
“Instead, somewhere along the way, he sold you on this idea and convinced you to come back to the States with him?” She shifted her position so one foot was tucked under the other knee, and she faced him, leg pressing against his thigh.
“Pretty much. Not that he had to work hard, to sell me. It’s a good idea—one I still believe in—and I would have followed him even if he wanted to sell snake oil.” It felt odd to admit that aloud, but it was a relief. He trailed his finger over the back of her knuckles, only half-aware of the gesture.
She turned her palm up, sighing when he brushed along the lines of her hand. “That doesn’t explain the tattoo.”
“When we got to Italy, we were handed a big project. Most of the junior developers didn’t get things like that, but I was the boss’s son, and I wanted a challenge. We nailed it. There was a synchronicity there that I didn’t expect. Like yin and yang. In fact, that was the comment I made to him. He had a habit of commemorating milestones with ink, and said we should pick the same thing because neither of us could have done it alone. He’d been wanting to touch up the phoenix for a while, so that was what we decided on.” Telling the story dragged up feelings Antonio hadn’t touched in years. That original spark he felt for Justin—an intensity that had changed with time but was as strong as back then.
Maybe Susan was right; he was a fool to give up on Justin. He looked at Emily, and bright green eyes stared back. Then again, Andrew had seen the pining from the outside for a decade, and cynic or not, he had a good point too. Antonio might be missing out on a lot by nursing a crush that would never go anywhere.
He moved his hand to Emily’s cheek, keeping his touch so light he felt heat more than skin. “It’s probably the wrong time to ask this,” he said.
“If it’s not about my morning, it’s the perfect time.”
He drew his fingers along her ear, and she fluttered her lashes. When he cupped her face, she leaned into his palm.Christ.He wanted to kiss her without pretense. To find out if there was more potential here than a little kinky fucking around. “What happens when your contract is up?”
“I should be more careful next time I say,anything else is fine.” She gave a choked laugh.
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
“Exactly the opposite.” She gazed at him. “I want to toss it out in the open, hash the entire thing out, and get answers. But I don’t know what to say.”
“How about we start with this?” He dipped his head and brushed his lips over hers. She whimpered and leaned into the kiss. His pulse kick-started so loud, it hammered in his ears. How was such a simple gesture turning him on?