And the primal part of me wants nothing more than to protect her. “I need to go out there before they barge in,” I tell her, wanting to do anything but. “I’ll make sure the coast is clear for you to sneak out. Wait at least thirty seconds after you stop hearing us before you leave the room. Go to the diner across the street and wait for me.”
Winter stands taller. “I’m not—”
“Emaly isn’t going to be able to drive you home because she’s on her way to the airport,” I explain. “Unless you want to call someone else, let me get this over with and then come to you.”
I can tell she wants to argue. To tell me no.
But her curiosity wins her over. “Fine. But only because I have questions.”
I smirk. “I have no doubt, sweetheart.”
Her jaw grinds. “It’s Winter.”
My grin widens, and I shake my head. “I know what you look like when you come. You’re not just Winter to me.”
*
I don’t expecther to be there when I show up an hour and a half later. I figured she would have gone right home or maybe waited for twenty minutes before leaving a note with the waitstaff that said “fuck off” on it.
But there she is.
Sitting by herself in a corner booth, staring out the window with a faraway expression on her face. She looks contemplative and lost, her brows pinched together and her thumbnail in her mouth.
“You’ll ruin the polish,” I say, sliding into the booth across from her. It looks like she’s already chipped at the purple on the nail she’s withdrawing from her mouth as she takes me in. Her eyes slowly go from me down to her hand, as if she hadn’t realized what she was doing.
When they lift back up, they take in my green T-shirt with the shelter’s logo on the breast pocket, then rise to the backward baseball cap covering my short hair, and the sunglasses I have yet to slide off.
“Does that getup usually work for you?” she questions with a frown. “Wearing sunglasses inside doesn’t make you look inconspicuous. It just makes you look douchey.”
I snort at her bluntness, glad that her orgasm hasn’t melted her brain the way it did mine. I take off the glasses and toss them onto the table with an amused smile. “Better?”
Her throat bobs as she glances at me, but averts her gaze quickly to the glass of water she’s hardly touched.
She can’t look me in the eye.
“Why purple?” I ask, gesturing toward her nails. It’s a pastel shade that reminds me of Easter. “You like bright colors.”
Her eyes go down to her fingernails. “My world needs a little color in it,” she replies, her brows furrowing again in thought before she loosens a sigh and turns back to the window.
She doesn’t explain any further, but I don’t need her to. My world may as well play out in black and white. Watching it in Technicolor is a privilege that not everybody has. No amount of money in the world could afford me to forget about my past and the things I’ve done to get where I am.
So, I get it.
“Maybe I need a better favorite color,” I say with a limp shrug. “But black is all too fitting.”
I can tell she wants to ask me why when her eyes peer up through her lashes at me, but she refrains from speaking hercuriosity. I go easy on her and say what she needs to hear instead.
“What we did isn’t the end of the world,” I tell her nonchalantly. “I didn’t even see you naked. I didn’t even get to touch a tit.”
Her whole face blossoms with heat. “Keep your voice down,” she hisses, glaring at me. “It may not be a big deal to you, but it is for me. I was hired to help you have a better online presence after your affairs came to light. What we did crossed a huge line. I’m supposed to make sure your name isn’t being associated with all of that negative press, not—”
“Let me pin you against a wall and make you come?” I finish for her.
Her eyes dart somewhere behind me, probably checking to make sure none of the employees are listening. “Stop saying it so loudly. I cannot believe I let you do…that.”
I tilt my head to study her. “Give you an orgasm? Most women would thank me for that experience.”
Her nostrils flare in pure frustration. “I am not most women. You’re married, for crying out loud!”
