“Probably. But I know a person who would help me, so why bother?” I blinked innocently at her and got the reaction I wanted. She laughed and rolled her eyes.
“Awful lot of assuming going on in that big head of yours.” She took a bite of her steak. “I must admit, I can’t stop staring at your mouth now that I know how good it works.”
“Babe, you have no idea what else I can do with it.” I said that without thinking and her eyes widened in shock. “But it might be too soon. Forget I said anything. It slipped out.”
“How long has it been since you’ve had sex?”
I dropped my silverware, not having expected that question. Her original shock was gone and a heated look of curiosity replaced it. “Uh, why?”
“Call me incredibly curious. As long as it wasn’t the past week, your answer would be acceptable.”
“It feels like a trick question, but I’ll answer it.” I took a sip of my beer and met her eyes. “Before I met you.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “No, really. When?”
“Before. I. Met. You.” My words heated over, the stakes raising around us at my admittance.
“Oh, well, fuck.” She paled and blinked a couple of times. “That was not the answer I expected.”
“You’ve already been a first for me, Callie. You made me question why I didn’t date. You changed the game.”
“Jesus. It’s already intense.” She put her head in her hands and sighed. “You say these things and I feel…overwhelmed. Our flirty friendship was fun and easy. This… I don’t know.”
“I’m an intense guy and give my all to everything. We’ll take it slowly, but now that I’ve had a taste of you, I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Seventeen
Callie
After hours of kissing and flirting, I walked Zade to the front door. If I’d had to rate the night on a scale of one to ten…it was at least a twenty. He held my hand and kissed it before releasing it. He gave me a sheepish smile and asked the same thing I was thinking. “Is it weird I’m already excited about running tomorrow?”
“Nah, I’m there, too.” I grinned to myself, giddy as hell. “Thanks for tonight.”
“Literally, any time. Any day.” He walked out of the door and pulled me in for another heart-pounding, knee-weakening kiss. “Your mouth made my top ten favorite things.”
“What’s the rest of the list?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Have a good night.”
I closed the door to the apartment and slid to the floor.Am I starring in a damn romantic comedy?I giggled and flirted. These were actions I tried to avoid with guys, but fuck it. Zade broke down any rule I’d ever had.
Too restless to try and lie down, I picked up my guitar and played some classic tunes for an hour to relax before Greta burst through the door.
“Holy. Shit. You broke him,” she squealed and ran into the living room.
“Broke who? What?” She tended to exaggerate and dramatize normal occurrences and I couldn’t be sure what or who she was speaking about. And she would only get to the point of the story when she wanted to.
“Please, like you don’t know. I need to pee and you need to tell me everything.Everything.I will cut you if you don’t.” She sprinted into her room and I sat there, still unsure what she had referred to. Not a minute later, she came back and practically sat on me. “I can tell by your wild eyes and stupid smile that you had as good a night as Zade had.”
I narrowed my eyes in question and she kept talking, hopefully getting to the point of her odd outburst. “So, you know how I went golfing with my old roommate from last year and the guys, right? Well, we ended back at their place about an hour ago.” She paused, waiting for some reaction from me. I nodded for her to go on. “We were all sitting around talking smack and Zade strolls in, whistling like he’d won a million bucks. The guys gave him so much shit, Cal, I swear. It was brutal and he took it. He took it and stood with his hands in his pockets and the same stupid grin you have on your face right now. You broke him.”
The butterflies were back in full force and I shrugged. “At least it was mutual.”
“But, but, but, you don’t know theoldZade. He would threaten people when they made fun of him or talked shit. He wouldneverlet a girl get into his head. He sat on the couch and joined us for about an hour and he literally stared right at me and asked if it would be too needy to text you already.”
“Oh, hell.” New crushes were exciting and the thrill enough to light a fire. “What did you say?”
“I told him to calm his ass down if he didn’t want to scare you away.” She punched my arm. “This isawesome.”
