“Your shirt.” He nodded at it.
Ohhhhh.
“Yes. My shirt. It’s my favorite. I like funny shirts. William got it for me. I don’t remember if it was Christmas last year. Or maybe my birthday.” First, I couldn’t talk, and now I word-vomited. Andrew’s eyebrow arched even higher, and his mouth stretched into a grin. “I was coming to check on you. To see if you… needed any help to… figure out clues and such.”
“That’s nice of you. Would you like some of my coffee? Or I can go downstairs and get another for you?”
I dropped my arms by my side, then crossed them over my chest. I had no idea what to do with myself. I shook my head. “If I have any coffee, I’ll be up until sunrise. So, unless you’re ready to be up with me all night…” My body went still and hot. Where was I going with that?
Andrew’s eyes made a slow slide up and down my body, and when they met mine, a thousand questions swirled in them. A shred of panic rushed through me. Was this my cue to saunter over to him, put my hands on his chest, and finish what we’d started?
“Well, then…” He stepped to his door and pushed the key into the lock. Metal clicked a few times, and the door opened. “Come in.”
ChapterTwenty-One
The room was the same size as ours, its ceiling sloped on one side, a fan lazily rotating above a double bed next to a surprisingly large desk. Andrew’s journals, old books, and letters were scattered on the floor.
I gestured at the paper mess, carefully stepping around it. “You have a desk, but you seem determined not to use it.” My voice came out too strained.
“Yes, I like to spread out my work. It helps me to think better.”
Andrew kicked off his shoes and lowered himself onto the floor, crossing his legs. I sat close to him and picked up a pencil drawing of an outer design of swirls on the bracelet I wore. He pulled a sheet of paper from the stack of his notes and handed it to me.
“Is this the map from the second bracelet?”
“Yes.” He sipped his coffee.
“You’re great at sketching.” I stole a glance at him, then my focus returned to the drawing. “Why do you draw these, anyway?”
“When something interests me and I can’t take it back to a hotel or home, I make a copy and study it later. For example, this bracelet.” He brushed his fingers over the metal on my wrist, and heat traveled over my skin. “It’s on you, so you would always have to be next to me. When I thought of something and needed to check it, I would pick up your hand…” Andrew sat his coffee on the floor and did exactly what he’d just said. A slow pull turned his lips up. My pulse picked up at our contact. “I would look at it, then turn it over.” He turned my hand, my wrist up. “And I’d study it for some time.” His thumb drew gentle, slow circles in the center of my palm. I watched the movement, and possessive lust curled in me as if he wasn’t just pressing there. I wanted him to put pressure in the place I needed him the most. I involuntarily shuddered and glanced up at him. And he gave me a smile that made my insides ripple with pure lust.
“You could take a photo with your phone,” I said in a whisper.
“I do that, too, but I see certain details in my drawings. Something about paper and pencil reveals more to me than a picture.”
Did I mention he was still holding my hand?
“I don’t think it’s the reason you like pencil drawings more than pictures.”
“No?” he said in a low voice. “Then what is it?”
“I think,” my fingers closed over this thumb, “you’re old-fashioned… or don’t know how to use technology.” I didn’t know what I was saying. I was blathering. Andrew bit his bottom lip, smiling. My nose twitched, and I jerked my hand out of his and covered it. Shoot. It was a big tic, and I was sure he’d noticed it.
Andrew reached for my hand and gently pulled it off my face. “It’s cute.”
“What is?”
“Your nervous tic.”
“How do you know it’s a nervous tic? Maybe you smell funny.”
“I pay close attention to everything or anybody that interests me.”
The lust and longing swelled where I was pulsing, wet and needy. “You’re interested in me?”
“Very much.” His smile dimmed. “You’re like the loveliness of a summer sunrise, and the gentle elegance of a crescent moon,” he said, serious but also endearingly nervous. His intense and hungry gaze moved to my lips and locked on my mouth. “I have traveled to almost every part of this world, and I thought I had seen every beauty it offered, but when I saw you I knew I’d been wrong.” He looked into my eyes. “You’re the most stunning allure this world can offer.”
His words stopped my heart. If he had asked me to marry him right then, I would have agreed. I had known him only for a few days, but those words were so beautiful, my heart drowned in love. Many men had told me I was beautiful. Sometimes in a funny way, sometimes a perverted way, other times in a clumsy way, and sometimes in an honest,from-the-bottom-of-their-heartway, but no one had ever said it to me this way. It took all my willpower not to jump on Andrew’s lap and smash my mouth against his.
