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His gaze turns calculating. “You’d do that?”
I set my empty bottle down slowly. “Yes. I would.” Are you asking me out? I don’t ask because I don’t want to scare him. “What would you do on the perfect date?”
“Anything you want,” he says in a low voice. Suddenly, he seems dangerously close. Close enough to drown in. His heat, his strength, his delicious smell. I want to wrap it around me.
“Anything?” I tease.
“Literally anything. You forget, Thompson. I can do whatever I want. Not something I take advantage of frequently.” His dark eyes drill into me.
But you would, for me. You offered to kill someone, for me.
I stand on unsteady legs, shaken from his words and the drinks. “Walk me home?”
His hands land on my waist. The warmth of his palms seeps into me as he watches me from under heavy lids. His cheekbones are slightly flushed from the drinks, and his pulse thuds in the hollow of his throat. I imagine licking up the base of his throat, all the way under his jaw. He’d probably taste amazing. I shiver at the thought, and his hands tighten on my waist.
“Steady there. And yes, I’ll walk you home. Unless you want me to call Lou?”
“I want to walk. I like walking at night.”
“And in the morning,” he grumbles, but follows me into the night. “Any time it’s not safe, you’ll find Callie Thompson out stalking strange men.”
“Better to be the stalker than the stalkee,” I say cheerfully, and he barks a surprised laugh.
“I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”
“I love New York.” I tip my head back to admire the tops of the buildings and the street lamps. “It’s the greatest city in the world. And nighttime is special.”
“What’s your favorite place to walk?”
“My neighborhood. And the High Line. It’s closed at night, or I’d say we should walk home on it. I bet the lights are really pretty at night. You walk between the buildings at one point. That’s my favorite part.”
“Show me,” he says in hoarse voice. “This is your night. Show me.” His words remind me of earlier. Show me how to be like you. And suddenly the roughness of his tone seems more like vulnerability than his usual grumpiness.
“Okay. We can walk up to the stairs, but we can’t climb them. It’s on the way, anyways.”
Jonah taps at his phone briefly, before shoving it into his pocket. When we near the High Line, he ducks into a bodega and buys us two beers. The incongruousness of him fumbling for a fifty in his bespoke overcoat while the bodega cat watches him with wary eyes is enough to make me laugh. He tucks the black bag under his arm and holds the door open for me.
“Something funny, Thompson?” He raises one black brow, and I want to kiss him. His prickliness is like catnip to me. Partly because it means that when he shows me the soft parts of him, they’re all for me.
“Just enjoying watching the billionaire go to the bodega.”
“I grew up here too, you know.”
I gasp. “You did not. New Jersey is not New York, and you know it.”
“Don’t start,” he threatens, but his mouth is tipped up in a smile. “You New York City types are all the same.”
“Oh, convenient to claim it when you want to, isn’t it? But not when you want to rag on us.”
He bumps me with his shoulder. “Screw you.”
“I see the New Jersey is coming out.” Warmth is bubbling in my chest at his antics, the way he’s loosening up. I don’t want this night to end.
“You’re right. Fuck you,” he amends, and I snort a laugh.
We approach the entrance to the High Line, where a man waits by the gate. “Mr. Crown?” His uniform identifies him as a park ranger and employee of the city of New York.
Jonah shakes his hand, looking unsurprised to see him there. “That’s me.”
