Thank goodness they left.
Desmond lifted his head, the muscles in his wide shoulders shifting perceptibly. I swallowed. Then, I was breathing rapidly, and my heart raced as I tried not to focus on the hulk of muscles in front of me.
When his eyes met mine, my breath hitched.He is going to kiss me here.
Why had we broken up long ago? I couldn’t for the life of me remember.
A pair of warm, heavy, thick fingers clasped mine, and my heart started to race like a horse on a racecourse. When I looked up, he had a wry smile on his face.
“I hate it when you wear blue. It makes it hard for me to focus on anything else but you,” he said.
I tried to pull my hand away, but he held on to it. He edged closer to me, and our shoulders were touching. Even the length of our arms was touching.
He was leaning closer, his torso angling toward mine.
My pulse quickened as I realized he had a wicked grin on his face.
“Well, you certainly orchestrated an evil plan,” I said as I heard footsteps in the distance.
“Yep,” he said with a devilish glint in his eye. “I’ve got to keep you walking until you get to the end of the footpath, and when you pause by the old pine tree to smell the wonderful pine, a black Bentley will swoop up and steal you away.”
“I really ought to protest against being stolen away,” I said, “but I think some excitement would be welcome after the boring-ass job my CEO had me work through this morning.”
“Ouch. For that, you’re smelling the pine cones for five minutes more.”
“I love pine cones,” I breathed out, moving closer to him. “You need to get better at punishments.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
He drew nearer. His lips were inches from mine. My eyelids flickered as I stared at his broad forehead and high cheekbones, and he kept leaning in closer. He then turned just at the last minute and put his lips near my ear.
“I think I hear the reporter again,” I said, tensing as I heard the sound of footsteps a few feet away.
Desmond looked around and then turned back to me with a smile. “It’s not the reporter. They’ve gone,” he said in a low voice. “It’s just someone walking their dog. They’re on the other side of the road.”
“I love dogs,” I muttered as I waited for the footsteps to recede.
“Am I seriously going to have to fight with a pup for your attention?” he asked in disbelief.
I ran my tongue over my lower lip.
“I’ve already given you one scandal, Des. You don’t need another,” I responded, not breaking eye contact.
His hand was grazing up my thigh, and I knew where he was going with this. I always knew where he was going with any harebrained ideas.
His eyes lit up. “Tell me you haven’t been taking barre classes, Ava,” he said.
Save for the yoga class Carolyn had convinced me to go to, I hadn’t been to any classes in close to a year. “That might have been from spending my evenings cleaning up the local soup kitchen actually,” I clarified.
A glimmer of something lit up his eyes. “Taking care of others, Ava? When was the last time someone took care of you?”
A dull ache sounded louder in my chest, and I sucked in a sharp breath. Ihadbeen ignoring myself. I had done everything and anything to keep busy and my hands occupied. How touching that Desmond had noticed this before I did.
The heel of my shoe slipped over a loose piece of gravel in the parking lot, and I lost my balance. In a second, he put his hand around my back, holding me to him, while I gripped his arms in fear.
“I’ve got you,” he said, his eyes roving over my face, his lips curving into a charming smile. “I’ve always got you, sweetheart.”
Charm. That was the one thing I hadn’t counted on when I told myself I could work with Desmond. I hadn’t counted on being disarmed so effortlessly, on being made to feel a mix of heady, contradictory emotions that consumed me to the point where I was incapable of logical thought.
