“I’m good down there,” he insisted. “Everything works great.” He made the okay symbol and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I’m good to go.”
Widening my eyes and looking completely shocked, I asked, “Is that a proposition?”
“Oh, my god, no!” He dropped his head into his hands. “There’s something about you I have never liked. This might be it.”
I smiled as I took another drink of the cocktail that I found delicious. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The waiter returned and dropped off the limoncellos. I settled them around the table and then drained my negroni.
Vann eyed his small fluted glass and nearly neon-yellow liqueur with great suspicion. “What is this?”
“It’s lemon liqueur,” I told him. “It’s delicious. You’ll love it.”
“It doesn’t look like anything I’d love. I’m more of a beer guy.”
“Oh? I’m sure they have something on tap.”
He shook his head again and it felt like a final decision had been made. “I already looked. They don’t have anything I like.”
“That high maintenance, huh?”
He let out an impatient sigh and then explained his stance on beer—which was extensive. He was into the small breweries that were popping up around Durham and inside Charlotte. He loved IPAs the best. New England style which apparently looked like orange juice. And he was majorly disappointed at the beer selection in all the places we’d been to tonight. Except for Craft. That was the only stop tonight that had won his approval.
He shrugged. “I’m not high maintenance, I just know what I like.”
“I know what I like too and I’m going to be honest, this time you’re wrong.”
“About booze?”
I gave him a look and said, “Yes, about booze.”
“Nope. Sorry. I’m right.” He eyed the dainty glass of limoncello. “That looks sour, bitter, and persnickety.”
My lips lifted in an amused smile. “Sounds like you’re scared to date her.” I nudged the glass toward him. “Good thing it’s just a drink. Much less commitment this way.”
He shook his head. “You’re set on making me drink this.”
I bounced up, tucking one knee beneath me and turning Vann’s first encounter with limoncello into a spectator sport. “Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with persnickety.” I batted my lashes innocently for dramatic effect.
His gaze drifted over me, starting at my face, drinking in every detail, line and contour. Then it dipped lower, scanning over my bare shoulders, pausing at the dip of exposed cleavage that my favorite subtly scandalous lacy black tunic showed off, dropping lower and lower until even my ankles felt sexy. My stomach fluttered with surprised butterflies.
I found myself transfixed as his focus moved back to the liqueur. I held my breath as his long fingers wrapped around the delicate stem and in one fell swoop he tossed it back like a shot.
My lips parted in shock. “You’re supposed to sip it!” I cried too late.
His face scrunched and twisted, his lips puckering in disgust. “Goddamn,” he gasped on the other side of the glass.
I couldn’t help it, I nearly collapsed on him from laughing too hard. I’d wanted to introduce him to a fun, new drink. Of course, it was going to taste awful if he glugged it in one big gulp.
“This was a prank?” he asked, eyeing me as I draped myself over him and tried to breathe through the laughter. “Are you pranking me?”
“I didn’t know you’d drink it like that!” I insisted. “I meant for you to sip it.” I sat up, my head buzzing from the booze and from the nearness of this man. I’d propped my elbow on his shoulder and felt the deliciously warm heat of his skin beneath the smooth material of his crisp button-up. “You did it wrong.”
From this vantage, I was sitting just slightly taller than him, with my feet tucked beneath my butt, my heels discarded on the floor. He looked up at me, his gray eyes a brewing thunderstorm of unspoken thoughts. “You should have warned me.”
I leaned closer, desperate for more of his heat, more of the way he was making me feel. “You didn’t give me the chance!”
He watched me for a few moments. My skin tingled as his intense eyes simply took me in, studied me, tried to figure me out. “I was right.”
