Just like that, she was gone again, leaving the two of us in her wake. Zadie, doe-eyed and burrowing under my skin, and me, trying to breathe through the lust hitting too fast and too fucking hard.
I’d spent the whole night contemplating what I wanted. What I was looking for. Only, I’d been asking the wrong damn question.
It was never what. It was who.
And Zadie was the answer.
A short, curly-haired, freckle-faced mess of a woman who was watching me so intently I felt exposed. Was she expecting me to speak? Deciding if I was worth trusting? Or maybe she was just waiting to see if I’d stay or bail.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
“So…” The corner of my mouth twitched as a current snapped through me and I was finally plugged in. “Come here often?”
Chapter Two
Caleb
Zadie stared, her expression giving absolutely nothing away. No hint if she found me amusing or annoying. No clue if she would go along with Chantel’s plan.
I held my ground. If this was a test, I wasn’t going to be the first to blink.
Then her lips parted, spreading into a wide smile, and she burst out laughing.
It wasn’t a polite laugh. Not a fake courtesy laugh, either. This was loud and unguarded and completely real. It rushed over me, or maybe through me, prickling my skin and settling somewhere around the base of my spine.
Ah fuck, who was I kidding. It went straight to my dick. I’d been hard from the second I stepped into her orbit.
Her dark-rimmed eyes sparkled with intoxicated delight. The wall she’d been hiding behind was gone, cracked open by the most cliché line I could have possibly delivered.
Nothing else could hold my interest now.
“That’s really what you’re going with?” Her hand flew to her chest as she laughed some more, drawing my attention down, down. “Come here often.”
I smirked, my gaze snapping back to her face. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“It did not work.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I’m laughing at you. There’s a difference.” But her smile stayed, and it was gorgeous. “God, you’re just like your cousin. Does the audacity run in the family, or did you learn it from her?”
“Chantel’s not audacious. She’s bossy. There’s a difference.”
She laughed again, quieter this time, but it drew me closer all the same.
“She’s an emergency room physician,” she said, as if I didn’t already know. “If she wasn’t bossy, people would die. Trust me, if you ever end up in the hospital, you want someone like her around.”
Her words hit closer to home than she realized. But I shoved them down and focused on the way her sad eyes roved over me with interest, and how incredibly sober she sounded for someone supposedly shit-faced.
“So, Chantel didn’t tell me much. Except that you’re here on your own and I’m supposed to help you get home.” I kept my voice easy, despite the possessive urge to haul her out over my shoulder.
“She loves taking care of me. It’s all right, Cal. I’m fine.”
“It’s Caleb, actually. I don’t think anyone’s ever called me Cal.”
“I like Cal. It’s very masculine, very sexy sounding.” The sparkle in her eyes sharpened. “Suits you perfectly. You should go with it.”
Maybe she was a little shit-faced after all.
