“Aren’t you happy today?” I asked.
A thread of fear snaked through me when I realized just how far I’d gotten sucked into this game. I was worrying about Desmond.
He took a step closer, and I had to look up to meet his gaze, surprised at his abrupt closeness.
He took his thumb and ran it gently over my lips, which had a fresh coat of lipstick, applied minutes ago. I closed my eyes, feeling a nervous flutter in my belly that had everything to do with this tall man’s presence, inches away from me, and his seductive touch. I could picture him being this gentle with the rest of me too. His forefinger held my chin while his thumb traced my lower lip, and when I opened my eyes, his face had a strange, soft expression. As though he were both reliving an older memory and wanting to make a new one.
“You don’t need any makeup,” he said just as I rested myhand on his arm in a gesture that was supposed to set his hand back down.
He didn’t budge. His finger didn’t stop making tantalizing circles around my lips. I was going to melt into a puddle in a minute if he kept this up.
“You are just perfect,” he breathed out while I turned away, breaking the contact his fingers had on my skin. He didn’t stop. “You are beautiful,” he said, the words just a whisper on his lips. His gaze never strayed from my face.
My heart stopped for just a moment.Don’t do this, Desmond.
I cleared my throat. Why was I flirting with the idea of this being more than just a fling?
For a moment, standing out on the curb, waiting for Desmond’s car to arrive, we were alone. Desmond pulled me closer. He brought his forehead down to mine, and his breath was hot on my cheek.
“Kiss me, Desmond,” I whispered. “I don’t think I can wait until we go home.”
It seemed like I was destined to keep dreaming about that kiss because just then, a noise on the street distracted us. Desmond froze. A woman in business attire stood on the sidewalk, speaking into a microphone while a cameraman filmed her.
“What the—” he growled, turning around just as his hand instinctively reached for mine. He took a quick look, and his features hardened. “I know this woman, Ava. She’s Bianca Rutherford, a gossip columnist, and if she spots us here, well, it’ll be the exact fodder she’s looking for.”
In the split second that followed, Desmond locked eyes with me, and I knew the question he was asking me.
I didn’t need much convincing. I nodded.
His grip tightened over my hand, and as I held tight on to my handbag, we sprinted down the dark, tree-lined road.
23
AVA
We barely made it down the block, running like our lives depended on it. I felt the rush of adrenaline in my veins as I sprinted with him, hand in hand. We came to a stop in a minute just as we reached an intersection, and someone shouted several feet behind us. Desmond took off to his right, taking me with him. We were running down a street with art galleries and finance offices that were closed for the day.
When we turned the corner, he stopped at the side of a now-closed café, which overlooked a small but empty parking lot. We paused under the shadows cast by a large tree that grew next to the sidewalk, our backs to the wall of the dark café. To our left was the rising exit ramp to the highway, and the traffic was almost nonexistent.
He put his finger on my lips. “Shh,” he said, pulling me to him.
My eyes grew wide.
“We need to move,” I whispered as I heard footsteps make their way down the street.
Desmond shook his head and kept calm.
“They’ll go by, trust me,” he said, looking like he did this most nights. Like he made a habit of popping behind trees while on the run from merciless journalists.
“Are you kidding me?” I demanded, my eyes wide as the footsteps stopped on the sidewalk, a few feet from us.
I heard murmurs as the footsteps came closer.
I bit my tongue just as Desmond leaned in and hugged me, my chest grazing his torso. My skin came alive at the touch, sensitized and needy.
“Oh,” I muttered just as the echoes of footsteps faded.
I craned my neck to look around. In the distance, the reporter and cameraman waited at a crossing, their figures growing smaller as they walked away. A car roared down the street, and a single leaf fluttered down to the ground next to us, silent as the world around us.
