But they don’t look as particularly great as he does.
Mahogany hair pushed off his face, waves cresting around his ears, fresh stubble coming in and cutting across the sharp planes of his jaw that could give all the bones and rocks and sediment in the room a run for their money.
One hand shoved, haphazard and casual, into the pocket of tailored suit pants, clinging to the muscles in his thighs I can see from here. The other, tattooed with that M, stark and on display as he reaches out and shakes the hands of fossil enthusiasts—or maybe baseball, Miller Colson-Burke enthusiasts—from all over the city.
But navy eyes find mine in the sea of people milling around the exhibit, his mouth tugs to the side, and the column of hisneck moves with a swallow when he finishes shaking hands. He claps someone on the back and tips his chin towards me before jogging over.
The me from earlier this summer—she’d have said the most beautiful thing in the room was the almost complete juvenile saurolophus that still has a large patch of skin preserved on one of its forelimbs.
But this me? I think I’m the biggest Miller Colson-Burke enthusiast here.
Anywhere, really.
Hard not to be, when he moves through a room of people towards you looking like he stepped out of a magazine, shoulders stretching underneath the jacket of a tailored black tux, satin lapels, and a matching bow tie, and he’s smiling at you like you’re the only thing worth looking at.
I lift my hand in a small wave. “Hi.”
“Hey.” He stops in front of me, grinning down, eyes landing on my bottom lip before they sweep across my exposed shoulders, over the silk gathered across my chest, and the drape of the dress across my waist and hips, all the way to the floor. Exhaling, he palms his jaw. “You look—uh, wow. You look beautiful.”
Plucking at the loose silk around my waist, I lean forward and whisper, “It’s Imani’s.”
His hand flexes at his side, and his fingers hover over my hip. “Think you can keep it?”
My cheeks burn. “I do think she is particularly fond of this one, unfortunately.”
“Too bad.” He swallows, gaze entirely dark when he looks down at me. “But, uh, let her know—if something were to happen to it, like it accidentally gets ripped when I’m pulling down the zipper, or I make a mess of it, I’ll reimburse her.”
“You want to undress me after another gala?”
His thumb drags across my hip. “After every gala and fundraiser and other event forever, yeah.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Maybe I’ll let you look this time.”
“Can I—” He angles his head.
“I think adults are allowed to kiss on dates,” I say.
“Even, uh, practice ones?” The corner of his mouth lifts.
“Even those.” I nod, fingers fiddling with the silk lapels on his jacket. “Especially those.”
His palm splays across my waist, warm, and his lips move down to mine. Just this gentle, practiced thing, like we’ve done it a million times. And even though his mouth was all over mine for the better part of three days, it feels different.
And maybe it’s me that’s different. This person who can be alone—she did teach herself how, maybe a bit too late, but she learned all the same.
She just doesn’t want to be anymore.
“Missed you,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“I missed you, too.” I pull back, blinking up at him.
A jaw that could carve you apart, if you let it, but a man who would never, ever take from me like that.
Imani throws me an obvious thumbs-up from behind a giant fossilized fern, mounted on a wooden table display in the centre of the room, before her attention snaps back to whatever it is Graham’s talking about with one of the donors.
But those donors all sneak furtive glances over shoulders to get a look at the league’s star shortstop.
“Donors love you.” I roll my eyes, before throwing a hand wide. “No one cares about the collections manager who worked tirelessly on these fossils for weeks to prepare them for their debut.”
