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“My turn for a question, I think.”
His brow arched.
“Where did you go?”
Instead of an answer, I got a tight clench of his jaw, and his gaze fixed on an unremarkable spot on the ground. “What did you say to Scott?” he asked.
I exhaled a quiet laugh. “Stubborn man,” I murmured, my eyes tracing his face.
Ian pushed off the truck, my pulse skyrocketing with that one simple movement.
“What did you say to Scott?” he asked again.
The dinner meeting was a moot point the moment I couldn’t drag myself bodily from the car. I damn well knew that the man waiting at the table wanted it to be more, and I couldn’t do it. Because this man in front of me had me so twisted up, so heartsick from wanting him that I couldn’t suffer through a single meal without coming back here to talk to him.
“I don’t want to talk about him.” My chin rose, courage gathering in a tight coil as I took a step closer to Ian. His eyes flared. “But I do want to ask you another question.”
“We gonna do this all fucking night? Ask each other shit because we can’t say the things we need to say?”
Frantically, I realized that none of this was going how I thought it would.
“What is it?” he asked. He pointed in the general direction of my forehead. “You’re getting that face thing that happens when you’re frustrated.”
“I had a speech,” I blurted out. “I practiced in the car and knew exactly how this would go.” My fingers twisted together in front of me. “Did you think about what you’d say to me when I got home?”
“No, because I thought I’d have plenty of time, but someone ditched her dinner meeting.” I exhaled a quiet laugh, and he took a step closer. His hand came up, his thumb touching my chin lightly. “Tell me your speech, sparky. I want to hear it.”
My pulse was racing, my fingers trembling, because with that one touch, the control of this scene flipped firmly into Ian’s hands.
“I had all these questions,” I told him, lifting my chin in a dare for him to argue. He did nothing but watch me with a slight smile on his face.
“Any examples you want to share?”
My tongue darted out, wetting my bottom lip, and his eyes tracked the movement hungrily. “I was going to start small. Why did you kiss me? Why did you apologize? Because I know you weren’t sorry.”
“I wasn’t,” he said roughly.
My heart stuttered over that one moment of naked honesty, hope rushing immediately in its wake. A herd of naked football players could’ve stampeded through that front yard, and I wouldn’t have been able to tear my gaze from Ian’s. “Okay, so that would’ve derailed me because I didn’t think you’d answer, so I had this very emotional and dramatic plan. Lots of searing eye contact,” I said. “You’d say something like, those aren’t simple questions.”
At the deep pitch of my voice, his brows lowered. “That’s not how I sound.”
I ignored him, my heart swelling at his nearness. “And when you got all broody and frustrated, I’d walk up to you and lay my hand right here,” I said quietly, erasing the last few steps between us to place my palm over his chest. And it was just like I imagined—the thrashing of his heart under all that warm skin and muscle.
“Does your brain conjure scenarios like this often? I’m not sure I was prepared.”
My lips curved into a smile. “And then I’d ask you why you can’t answer my simple little questions when you look at me like you do.”
Ian’s hand ghosted over the line of my arm until he wrapped his big hand around my wrist. “And how do I look at you, Harlow?” he asked, his voice pitching deep and low in his chest as he pressed his body closer to mine, his nose dropping into the crown of my hair. The desperate way he pulled air into his lungs had my knees going weak. “Tell me.”
Helplessly, hopelessly, my fingers curled into a fist in the material of his shirt, and with a shaky inhale, I forgot what I was going to say.
Ian brushed his nose along the shell of my ear, and I melted further into him.
“Tell me, Harlow.” The whispered demand had my blood turning in a slow boil.
Dazedly, I pulled back so I could see him. “You look at me like I’m your whole world,” I admitted quietly. “Like it almost hurts to feel something this big for someone and not know if it’s just you.” I sucked in a fortifying breath, my pulse spreading in a giant throbbing beat over my skin. “It’s probably the same way I look at you.”
Ian’s mouth was on mine before a single heartbeat passed, and wrapped tight in his arms, I let the absolute certainty behind that kiss melt away any fears or doubts or inhibitions. Everything we’d experienced—the days and weeks and years that led to this moment—was the crucible that our friendship needed to burn away everything except this.
