“Great,” he said softly. “I hope I passed your test on how to treat a ‘nice’ woman in front of her family.”
Right. So he knew I was kinda testing him tonight. “Um… you did okay.”
He’d been a total gentleman tonight, and he knew it.
I wondered if it was calculated or real.
The butterflies freaking out inside me felt real. His hand was still touching me, his thumb caressing my cheek. It was hypnotic, as his eyes traced the curves of my face.
“Am I fucking this up already,” he asked me in a low, soft voice, “by trying to make it into something it’s not instead of letting you just do your job?”
Jesus. Right now, hearing him say that…Trying to make it into something…on the heels of that kiss? I didn’t know what to say. My heart was thudding and my panties were on fire. But I was afraid of making it into something it wasn’t, too.
Maybe he felt my thudding heart and read my fear. Because when I said nothing, his hand dropped away. “What happens now, Angel?” he asked, his eyes holding mine. “This is your lesson.”
I tried to ignore the way his low, husky voice made my heart trip when he called me Angel. “L-lesson?”
“You’re teaching me how to be nice.”
“Oh. Right.” I floundered, caught between wanting him to be nice and wanting him to be a raging asshole and drag me into the bushes to bend me over, right the fuck now. “Well… what would you do now, at the end of a real dinner date?”
His gaze dropped to my lips again. “Assuming I liked her?”
“Uh… would you go on a date with someone you didn’t like?”
“No.”
“So, then…”
“So, then I’d take her inside.”
My breath caught as our eyes locked for an uncomfortably long heartbeat, then two, three. Oh, God. Was he taking me inside?
“Lucky for you, we’re not on a date,” he said gently.
“Yeah.” I laughed nervously. “Lucky me.”
“Good night, Angeline,” he said, then he started to turn away.
And the fact that he was trying to be a gentleman right now? For my sake? Because I advised him to be nice tonight? It just turned me on even more. Because I knew, a gentleman he was not.
Then he paused. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am my own worst enemy.” His eyes drifted briefly down my body.
Then he turned and disappeared into his house.
ChapterTwenty-One
Johnny
Icouldn’t go to sleep. There was no fucking way.
From my phone, I turned on the ambient lights in my bedroom, so they were already on when I walked in; the ones that glowed behind the headboard of the bed and along the floor where it stepped down into the sitting area. I flicked on the fake fireplace too, the slab of glass on the wall that shimmered like the Northern Lights; instead of green and purple hues, the light that danced across the slab was scarlet and gold.
The whole room was warm and luxurious.
It felt empty tonight.
I paced the length of the room, fighting down the urge to go next door and talk to Angeline.
