- Alex -
he kept insisting it wasn’t a date, but she was certainly dressed for one, and I couldn’t stop noticing.
Even the way she looked standing in the parking garage, her feminine shape exaggerated by the way she cocked her hip, stoked my appetite like nothing had in ages.
She eyed me skeptically when I offered her my arm, but relented, linking hers with mine before we started down the stairs.
“I don’t bite, you know,” I said, lowering my voice as I leaned towards her. “Not hard enough to leave a mark, anyway.”
Her eyes flicked up towards the buzzing fluorescent lights. “The only thing you’ll be biting tonight is your main course.” She kicked one smooth ankle out in front of the other as we exited onto the sidewalk, her flesh-colored heels making her porcelain legs look enticingly long.
“It’s just here,” I said, pointing towards the unassuming maroon awning.
“And not a moment too soon,” she said. “I’m starving.”
I stepped aside so she could enter the revolving door first.
She jumped when I touched her lower back and stepped in behind her.
“Gemma.” I kicked a heel against the glass behind me, trapping us inside the small space.
When she realized she was pushing in vain, she looked over her shoulder, her eyes big as they found mine.
“Is everything okay?”
“What do you mean?” She looked around nervously, trapped between the muffled sounds of the street on one side and those of the busy restaurant on the other.
“I mean, are you okay?”
“You mean apart from being trapped in a revolving door?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course,” she said, her brows coming together. “Why?”
“Because even though you’re dressed to kill, you seem disappointed that I’ve noticed.”
She turned to face me, her lashes down against her cheeks.
“And you nearly jumped out of your skin when I touched you just now.”
She sighed and lifted her gaze, her chest rising and falling with her breath.
“If you don’t want to be here, please tell me.” I searched her eyes. “The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.”
She nibbled her lip. “It’s not you,” she said. “It’s m—”
“Don’t feed me clichés. Tell me why the hell you’re acting like a bunny when I know you’re a tiger.”
She swallowed.
I heard a tapping on the glass behind me and turned to see a middle-aged couple with their palms in a what-gives position. “Use the other door,” I said, pointing to the side entrance before turning back to face her. “Some people.”
A smile pricked her cheeks.
“So what is it?” I asked. “You don’t want to be here? You don’t appreciate my excessive charm?”
“It’s not that,” she said, leaning back against the glass. “Though your charm has been a little excessive.”
My shoulders dropped with a sigh. “I apologize. It took all my self-control to not hit on you at work all week, and I guess I just thought—”
She squinted at me. “What?”
“I don’t know.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I guess I took one look at you and confused that dress with a green light.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” I said. “Save it for the women who are going to lose the attention of their husbands when you waltz in here.”
“There you go again.”
“You are going to waltz in, right? Or have I totally misjudged the situation?”
“You’re the one who’s locked us in here,” she said. “I had every intention of going in the restaurant when—”
“What are you so afraid of?”
“Not being alone,” she blurted.
“What?” I asked, positive I must’ve heard her wrong.
A delicate tap registered over my shoulder.
“Go around!” we said in unison, pointing at the other door.
“You were saying.”
“I’m afraid of not being alone,” she repeated.
“Being trapped in here with me must be a nightmare for you then.”
A half-smile lifted her cheek. “It’s not so bad.”
I felt my chest loosen.
“What I mean is—” Her eyes rolled up before resting back on mine. “Alone I can do. Alone works for me.”
I narrowed my gaze.
“Alone is what I need right now.”
What the hell was she going on about?
“That and some dinner.”
“Where does that leave me?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m not ready for this kind of attention.”
“I like you, Gemma.”
“Could you pretend to like me a little less?”
“What am I? Your piece-of-shit ex?”
Her face dropped.
“You don’t have to be wary of me. I didn’t ask you to dinner so I could mistreat you.”
“God, I feel so pathetic.”
“You’re a goddess,” I said, tilting her chin up. “Pathetic is acting like you don’t deserve nice compliments from dangerously handsome men.”
She laughed and swatted my hand away.
“Let’s make a deal.”
She exhaled.
“Hear me out.”
She folded her arms. “Go on.”
“When we go in here, I want you to pretend I’m your biggest super fan and that I just won a raffle where taking you out was the grand prize, a prize I’ve been looking forward to like a kid looks forward to Christmas morning.”
“And what are you going to do?” she asked, cocking her head. “If I agree?”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t spend the whole week thinking about you bent over exercise equipment in compromising positions.”
“You’re not supposed to say stuff like that to me. It’s unprofessional.”
I leaned towards her ear and sank my face into her soft hair. “What’s unprofessional is how much you like the idea.”
“I’m not ready for this,” she said, resting a hand on my chest and pushing me back.
I put my hands on her waist and spun her around. “Ready or not,” I said, letting the door move again. “Here I come.”
She stopped and I bumped into her, nearly smushing her against the glass.
“What?”
“I just want to be friends, Alex,” she said, still facing forward.
“Say that to my face.”
But she didn’t.
Instead, she baby-stepped forward until the door opened up to the restaurant and then moved towards the hostess’s podium.
I glanced at her again and raised my brows in question.
“You’re impossible,” she said under her breath as the hostess approached.
Impossibly attracted to you, I wanted to say. But I could sense she’d had enough.
I, on the other hand, was only getting started.