“Own, and I still wouldn’t mark up the walls.” He dropped his hand and turned out the window. “I don’t evenpaint.”
“They’re justwhite?”
“You say that like it’s more unusual than measuring your full-grown dog on another person’swindowsill.”
I shrugged with a smile. “I don’t plan to move, but if I do, I can paint over it. Life is too short not to be where you are, even if it’s arental.”
“That’s something my mom would’ve said. We always had the cleanest house on the block, but somehow it was still lived in. I miss that. Home.” The way he saidhomemade me wonder what else he’d lost when his mom had passed. Knowing the truth about his past, and how he’d gotten here, made me feel closer to him than ever. If not because I understood him now, then because I doubted he often shared the way her death had affectedhim.
A breeze from the window blew hair over my face. He reached out and tucked it behind my ear. “I think I might feel attached to you now, Georgina,” he said and thumbed the corner of my mouth. “Which would make it hard to killyou.”
“So I guess you’d better kiss meinstead.”
He glanced at Bruno, who still had his head out the window, then slid his hand around the back of my neck. He pulled my mouth to his, stopping when we were an inch apart. “Stay very still,” Sebastian whispered. “Or you’ll wake thebeast.”
“Don’t worry, he can spend hours looking for squirrels, even in thedark.”
“Notthatbeast,” he said, a hint of gravel in his voice. Slowly, he pressed his lips to mine and inhaled. The night air cooled my skin as his kiss warmed me to my core. He stayed there—testing our chemistry? Savoring the moment? Awaiting my permission? I stilled, not breathing. It was something I’d fantasized about but had never thought would really happen—Sebastian’s hands moving into my hair, my heart speeding with anticipation, our mouths opening to eachother.
Chills spread over me, the kind that came with a skipping heart, like witnessing a perfect pitch down the center and the crack of a bat that sent a baseball over the fence. He rounded first base as our tongues met, one hand in my hair as the other grazed my upperthigh.
He hesitated, his palm hot on my skin—and unmoving. If he didn’t steal second soon, Iwould.
He released me. “Fuck,Georgina.”
“What’swrong?”
“What’s wrong? Nothing.” He looked almost pained as he got up and brushed off his pants. “Everything. If this were a normal date, right now’s about when I’d be asking to see yourbedroom.”
I stood and pulled my denim jacket more tightly around myself. “If this were anormaldate?” I asked. “What do youmean?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t’ve come up. I don’t want to revert to the man in theexposé.”
While Sebastian’s chivalry was appreciated, it wasn’t necessary. From my perspective, it felt as if we’d been on one long date since the moment we’d met. He hadn’t given me a goodnight kiss just now—it’d been anun-goodnight kiss. The kind that started a night, not ended one. “That’s not what this is,” I said. “I want this, and I have for a while. Arguing is our foreplay, and I’m ready forrelease.”
“Yeah?” he said and finally smiled, dimples and all. “I want to hear more aboutthat.”
“As much as you frustrated me, I’ve been fantasizing about you from the moment you opened yourmouth.”
“Then you made it minutes longer thanme.”
“So if you think about it . . . we’ve actually waited a very long time forthis.”
He flexed his hands as if trying to stay them. “You make a goodpoint.”
I took off my jacket and tossed it on the couch. When the strap of my dress fell over my shoulder, I resisted fixing it. “So, if thiswasa normal date, what would comenext?”
“It’s no secret what would happen, Georgina. Use yourimagination.”
“I don’t want to.” I pretended to scratch under my jaw, grazing my fingertips down my neck. “Tell me what you’d do next. After all,” I teased, “how would it look for the article if you forfeited in the finalinning?”
“I thought backing off was the right thing to do. I’d assume your advice would be not to sleep with a girl on the firstdate.”
“My advice is to ask. Don’t assume what pace she wants togo.”
He tracked my hand at my throat, then blinked his gaze to my left shoulder. “What if she just told me her ex treated her like a pushover? What if she felt I was doing thesame?”
“Ask her,” I said, noticing the hoarseness of my voice. “Ask.”
