“Is it working?”
I chuckled, and my heart swelled at the expression on his face. We were pulling into the garage beneath my apartment building then, and I knew Gavin had said all those things just to make me laugh and forget about what we’d just been talking about.
It worked.
He reached over and gently squeezed my knee as he pulled the Jeep into a parking place.
“There’s my girl,” he said before bringing my hand to his lips.
It was a few seconds before his eyes left mine, and his thumb caressed my knuckles the entire time, making my whole body squirm with need.
“I’ll walk you up,” he said softly.
I should have said no. I should have said I could handle getting in the elevator and walking to my door alone.
But I didn’t.
Every second in that elevator made my hands clammy. I could feel how tense he was beside me, too, and I wondered if his insides were as restless as mine. I didn’t know why. He was a friend—onlya friend.
My hands stretched with jittery nerves. We glanced at each other once, apprehension in his eyes, as though he was taking me home after our first date, and we were both wondering if there would be a kiss at the door.
I considered asking him to come inside to watch a movie, order late-night food, and stay up talking about whatever came to mind. Only that was too dangerous for my lonely heart, and I knew better than to think my willpower would be significant enough to deny him again after what happened in the storage unit.
Gavin followed me out of the elevator and down the hall to my door, where we both paused as I fumbled for the key. And when I found it, I put it into the lock and looked back at him.
My back pressed into the door, my hand still on the knob, but I couldn’t twist it, not with how he stared at me there.
“Thank you for today,” I managed. “I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun speed dating. You probably shouldn’t have people walking around restrained, however. Especially with drinks involved.”
Gavin huffed amusedly. “Was that your suggestion? To get rid of the handcuffs?”
“I didn’t say get rid of them completely. Maybe just put them on one wrist so people still have mobility, and you’re not getting sued for someone tripping on their heels and falling into a table.”
His smile widened. “This is why I wanted you to play.”
“Are you sure that’s the only reason?” I asked, leaning into the doorframe.
I loathed myself for the flirtatious tone on my tongue, and the young-in-love smile I knew had spread across my stupid face for most of the day. Fucking hell. I hadn’t smiled like that in years. What the hell was wrong with me. How did he make me feel—no, how dare hemakeme feel this way.
Gavin gave my chin a flick, the endearing gesture spiraling my heart almost out of control. His crooked smirk met me, and he didn’t say anything else as he turned on his heel and headed toward the elevator.
I forced my legs to move and my hand back on the key in the lock. I needed a cold shower and a large glass of wine. Or a bubble bath in the hottest water I could stand, anything to try and drown out the butterflies now making their way from my stomach to my fingers and toes to between my thighs.
“It’s how you look at someone when you can’t stop thinking about them.”
Fuck.
My heart skipped.
I paused, my hand still on the door as I glanced in Gavin’s direction. He had let the elevator doors open and close, now slowly enclosing the gap between us again as he spoke.
“What?” I managed, my voice shaking.
“The way I look at you,” he said.
The butterflies in my stomach swarmed into a lump that settled in the pit of my chest. His tongue darted over his lips, and he continued speaking even as I opened my mouth to tell him we should call it a night.
“It’s the way you look at someone who makes you feel truly alive, like the rest of your life has been nothing more than a string of dreams tied together with twisted twine that you just can’t seem to get right—not without that last piece of thread to braid it all together," he said. "It’s when you only see them in the middle of a crowded room. It’s how you look at the person you want to hold while you fall asleep, the person you want to feel around you when you wake up, who brings you joy, and who it agonizes you to be apart from.”
