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“No,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat. “I don’t. How are you even here?”
“I assume we’re new neighbors. I moved into the neighborhood this weekend. At least for a while, until I finish a work project.”
“A security project?”
“Surveillance for now, but yes, and don’t ask who.”
I’m curious. I want to ask more. I settle on, “Okay. How long will you be here?”
“Long enough for me to buy you that coffee.” He gives my hand a tug, and suddenly my leg is pressed to his. “Dance with me,” he says.
My throat is cotton. My body is fire. “Our song ended.”
“We’ll find another,” he promises.
“I liked that one.”
“Why?”
“It meant something.”
He pulls back, searching my face, and then, “What did it mean?”
I pull my hand from his and reach for my drink, and meet his eyes, sipping from the straw before I say, “I haven’t decided yet.”
His lips quirk, and he has very nice lips. “In other words,” he says. “it’s me you haven’t decided on.” He reaches for my straw and sips, his lips now where my lips just were, the very act suggestive—provocative. He’s provocative and I seem to like it. He rests an elbow on the table, his forearm flat on the wood, the ink of his right arm abstract, gray and black tree limbs with red blossoms, I think. I want to know what is on his shoulder. I want to ask what the ink means.
Suddenly, I realize I’m staring, and my gaze jerks to his. “Does the ink bother you?” he asks.
“The opposite,” I say, and it’s true. The men in my life are all suits and ties kind of guys, who wouldn’t dare a full sleeve of ink. And the world I’m in is ever-so-suffocating right now. “I like it,” I dare.
He leans in a little closer. “Do I make you uncomfortable, Pri?”
“No,” I say. “The fact that my co-workers are here makes me uncomfortable. And I make me uncomfortable right now. And I should make you uncomfortable. I didn’t send my mother to Europe for no reason. That case I mentioned is high-profile and dangerous.”
“And you think I’m dangerous?”
“No,” I say. “I think I’m dangerous.”
“Because of the case?”
“Yes. I expose you to that case just by having this conversation. I can’t do this, whatever this is, right now.”
“I understand,” he says simply.
“You do?”
“I do, though I am curious about why you’re doing something that obviously terrifies you. Is it simply your job? Is it because you have to do it?”
“It’s like standing at the bottom of a mountain and deciding to climb it. Halfway up, you look down and you know you’re going to fall, but you can’t turn back.”
“But you want to turn back?”
“No,” I say without hesitation. “You want what you always wanted, to get to the top. Now, you just have to get to the top before you die.”
His eyes go wide. “Die?”
“Sorry,” I sip my drink. “I’m being dramatic.”
He studies me, his eyes seeing too much, and I have this sense he might see more than anyone before him, perhaps more than I see myself. I want to look away. I don’t want to look away. I’m conflicted, but when he reaches for me, I don’t even think about pulling away. His finger brushes my cheek, a feather-light touch, and somehow I feel that touch all over my body. “I don’t think you are,” he says softly.
“Which is why I should leave. That and this is a work gathering. I can’t do this. I’ll see you at the coffee shop.” I rotate to the other side of the table and hurry toward the bathroom, which I know is down a hallway by the bar.
Once I’m inside the one-stall bathroom, I press my hands to the counter and stare into the mirror. What am I doing? I don’t know Rafael. I don’t know if I can trust him. He could be a reporter who could tell the world I’m rattled by the case. I’m stupid. So very stupid. He’s just—something, I don’t know what—different, I decide. Different from anyone I know, or have known. And really hot. He’s so incredibly hot and I’ve been alone for a long time. Since—I stop myself. I’m not going down that rabbit hole.
I use the bathroom, wash up, and decide that I’ll walk home. I need to stop letting Waters be the devil that scared me into incompetence. It’s three blocks and I have a gun that I know how to use. I exit the bathroom and halt to find Rafael standing in the doorway, his hands on either side of the doorframe. “What are you doing?”
“This,” he says, and suddenly, his hands are on my waist, and he’s walked me back into the bathroom.
Before I know what’s happening, he’s kicked the door shut, and his fingers are diving into my hair. “Kissing you, because I can’t fucking help myself. And because you might not ever let me do it again. That is unless you object?”
