“I’d like there to be.” I moved closer. “If you’re interested.”
“I’m interested.” She said it quietly, not looking up. “But I’m not…I don’t have a lot of experience with this. Dating, I mean.”
“You don’t date?”
“Not really.” She finished the order and set her phone down. “I’ve always been the girl guys think of as a ‘buddy.’ You know—tech stuff, shared interests, but never…romantic.” She finally met my eyes. “Maybe I should have a spreadsheet like yours. Try to optimize my approach.”
“No.” The word came out sharper than I intended. “God, no. You don’t need that.”
“Why not? Worked great for you.”
“It didn’t work at all for me. That’s the point.” I stepped closer, close enough to see the flecks of gold in her blue eyes. “You don’t need to optimize or change or become someone else. You need a man who’s smart enough to see what’s already there. A man who’ll try to win you over, not the other way around.”
She bit her lip. “I haven’t dated much. At all, really. And I’ve never…” She trailed off, color flooding her cheeks. “I’ve never been attracted to anyone the way I’m attracted to you.”
My heart stopped. Started. Raced.
“Say that again,” I said.
“Which part?”
“The attracted to me part.”
“You heard me.” But she was smiling now, nervous but real. “Don’t make me repeat it.”
“I might need you to repeat it. For data collection purposes.” I reached out, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Need to verify accuracy.”
I kissed her then. Not because I didn’t want to hear the rest of her sentence—though I really didn’t need to hear her talk herself out of this. But because the idea that any man wouldn’t be interested in her was so fundamentally, categorically wrong that I needed to prove it.
She made a small sound of surprise, then melted against me. Her hands came up to my chest, fisting in my shirt, and I wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. She tasted like nutmeg.
When we broke apart, both breathing hard, I pressed my forehead to hers. “Any man who doesn’t want to be with you is an idiot. And I’m a lot of things, Danika, but I’m not an idiot.”
“You’re sure? Because I don’t know what I’m doing, and you’re probably used to women who?—”
“I don’t care about other women. I care about you.” I cupped her face in my hands. “And for the record, inexperience isn’t a negative. It just means I get to be the one who shows you how good this can be.”
Her phone buzzed loudly on the counter, making us both jump. She grabbed it, checking the screen.
“Food’s here.”
“Of course it is.” I laughed, stepping back reluctantly. “Terrible timing.”
“The worst.” But she was grinning, cheeks flushed, lips swollen from our kiss. “I’ll just…go grab it?”
“I’ll come with you.”
“It’s literally in the lobby.”
“I know. But I’m not ready to let you out of my sight yet.” I caught her hand, lacing our fingers together. “Call it data collection.”
She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t let go. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You like it.”
“Unfortunately,” she said, pulling me toward the door, “I really do.”
4
