“Existing is unusual enough right now.”
Her lips twitch, but she looks away, brushing a curl over her shoulder to buy herself a second. The movement exposes the soft line of her neck, and I feel iteverywhere. She toes the edge of the rug with her feet, and that’s when I notice her toenails painted in a pale blush pink.
“You planning to go like that?” I ask, voice low.
“Why?” Her eyes flick up, playful and unsure. “You got something against bare feet?”
“Not even a little. Just makes it harder to focus.”
“You really shouldn’t say things like that.” She laughs breathily, disbelief laced with something softer.
“Then stop making them true.”
That wipes the humor from her face. What’s left is raw and real. Something neither of us can look at for too long. The silence hums between us. My body reacts before my brain does, and I take a step closer… then another, stopping just short of her. I can feel her breath catch when she realizes how little space is between us. My hand curls at my side, aching to close the distance.
“Careful,” I whisper. “You keep looking at me like that, we’re not going anywhere.”
Her eyes lift to mine, pupils wide, chest rising and falling like she’s trying to steady herself. For a heartbeat, I think she might step forward. The air feels charged, fragile. One wrong move and it’ll break. But then she blinks, pulling herself back.
“Dinner,” she breathes, her voice thinner than before. “We should go.”
It feels like surfacing too fast, so I drag in a breath and try to smile. “Right. Dinner.”
“What time is it?”
I check my phone because I need to look anywherebut at her. “You’ve got exactly forty-five seconds to get out that door and down to your car before we’re officially late.”
Her mouth curves, slow and dangerous. “And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll stop pretending I’m a gentleman.”
The grin that flickers across her face wrecks me. “Guess I’d better hurry, then.”
She grabs her purse from the counter and brushes past, her hair grazing my arm. It’s just a whisper of contact, but it leaves every nerve awake and burning. She pauses at the door, glancing back with a small, knowing smile.
“Are you coming?”
I swallow the hundred things I could say. “Yeah, right behind you.”
I am, for every step, because I already know what this is.
And I’ll wait as long as it takes for her to see it, too.
Chapter Seven
Alycia
“Are you coming?” I ask, my voice lighter than I feel.
He looks at me for a heartbeat too long before answering. “Yeah, right behind you.”
The words roll through me like a touch, and I turn before he can see my face, heading down the hallway to the elevator, trying to pretend I don’t feel his eyes on me. I took the stairs earlier because it felt safer—more room, more air, fewer opportunities to do something reckless with him too close—but we’re already running late, and my pride won’t let me admit that’s the real reason.
“Thought you didn’t like elevators,” he says, catching up beside me.
“I don’t.”
“So why the change of heart?”
