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I'd watched the whole thing unfold before my eyes and still had trouble believing it. But Brooke was absolutely perfect for Caleb. They were so in love, and it was pure poetry seeing them together. If anyone should be getting engaged it was the two of them.
But why on earth would James say I think you should marry me just now?
Made no sense.
And really, it was kind of hurtful to tease when he so obviously meant it as a joke. And why was he coming in so late? It certainly looked like a booty call to me. He had to get it from somewhere, because since the whole Leah mess, I'd never known James to date anyone. He'd been single since the day he was to have married that bitch. Based on his past history with weddings and marriage, I really didn't understand where he could possibly be coming from with the sort of comment he made to me tonight.
He acted like I was a little sister one minute, but then in the next he didn't treat me like a sister at all. And lately, there had been something more in his attentions than what I'd consider brotherly. How he looked at me. The things he said often had me considering a double meaning. When he came to pick me up for dinner with Caleb and Brooke a few weeks ago, he checked me out from top to bottom, even requested I spin for him before declaring I looked good enough to eat. Then he brought my hands to his lips and kissed them both. He did it in a way that looke
d a little bit wicked and a lot hungry. Which had left me totally at his mercy as a jolt of sexy landed right between my legs—aaaaand forbidden images of him using his mouth on me flickered through my head.
Not good.
Very bad, in fact.
Brothers didn't say such things to girls they considered a little sister.
Sisters didn't imagine having filthy sex with the guy who had been like a brother to her, either.
No, they did not. I have three brothers and a lifetime of experience in the covert ways they operated. I didn't want or need any more "brothers" added to my collection. But I did love James, so I'd take him any way I could have him. If it were a platonic dinner between two friends, then I wouldn't turn him down. But the thing that confused me so much was how it didn't feel anything close to platonic anymore.
Honestly, things hadn't felt very platonic for weeks, ever since that night he ran into Sam and me in the elevator as we were heading to my apartment after dinner. He blew me off when I tried to introduce Sam, and barely acknowledged us when we got off at the eleventh floor. I turned back and met James eye to eye for a second before the elevator doors closed between us. He looked, for lack of a better term, jealous of seeing me with another man.
He had no reason to be jealous though, because Sam was only my advisor at the South Boston Youth Center where I was doing my clinical for my master's. I also considered Sam a friend. He was definitely not a booty call, but James didn't bother to find that part out. He just assumed Sam was going "back to my place" for some after-date sexy-time.
Not even close.
I wasn't sure of Sam's sexual orientation for one thing. And I wasn't about to ask him for clarification on that point for another. Our dinner was one hundred percent business oriented. Sam had wanted to bring a discussion about my options after I finished school to the table for the youth center. I did need to start thinking about what I wanted to do with a graduate degree in social work, one of which would have my name on it when the semester ended in another month. I was graduating mid-year because of the time I'd taken off when my dad was sick. I wouldn't go through commencement ceremonies until the spring, but classes would be over for me in a matter of weeks.
James was well aware of all of this. We saw each other often enough for him to know since I'd moved into the building. After Dad died, I'd asked Caleb if I could take one of the apartments in his building because I'd desperately needed a fresh start. Caleb lived at the top in the three-level penthouse, complete with a rooftop garden and a spectacular view of the Charles River Valley. He'd been happy to help me out, and now I enjoyed my independence living alone in an eleventh-floor apartment with a view almost as nice as my brother's.
We all knew what was going on in each other's lives for the most part. When Caleb met Brooke, the rest of us found out right away. It was impossible to keep secret the fact she stayed over with him constantly. So, when I witnessed a hostile James over my non-date with a colleague from work, I couldn't help pondering what he was thinking.
Why would James be jealous…does he feel more than I thought?
Dr. Drummond was winding down his lecture on ethics in governmental policy, when I saw a man pass by through the small window in the door on the far right of the classroom. He looked remarkably familiar when he came into view a moment later through the window in the door on the far left.
Why in the hell was James in the hallway outside of my ethics class at eight thirty on a Wednesday night?
"Let's be back here by eight fifty-five, please." Dr. Drummond announced it was break time and took off out the back exit while digging into his pocket for his cigarettes.
I stayed in my seat and texted James. Why are you outside of my classroom right now?
His reply was immediate. Why don't you come out here and find out?
When I made my way into the hallway, James was leaning against the wall looking far too sexy for his own good. Or mine for that matter. Gone was the impeccably tailored suit he wore so well for work, and in its place dark jeans paired with a white T-shirt and a leather jacket. James did casual just as well as the suits. Like that was a surprise. He always looked good.
"What are you doing here?" I asked as I came up to him.
He brought his arm up and dangled a white carry-out bag. "I brought you something more substantial than a granola bar for dinner." He pushed off from the wall and grinned one of his teasingly sexy signature James-smirks just a few inches from my face, before quickly dropping a kiss onto my cheek.
"You brought me dinner…to my night class on campus?" I mumbled the question, trying to process what he'd just said but clearly not doing such a great job.
"Uh-huh." He steered me forward with a palm burning into the skin of my lower back where my shirt had ridden up a little. It was only a few of his fingers touching me, but I felt every millimeter of contact in perfect clarity. "And we better quit standing here in the hallway and start eating before your professor smokes his last cigarette and comes back."
"Everything okay, Winter?" Ryan called from behind me. Seriously? Ryan was nice enough, but I wasn't interested in anything beyond a peer study group relationship, and I didn't think he'd understood that message yet. Was he checking on me because a few of us usually headed for the vending machines at break, and I was changing up the routine? Ryan depicted the man I was used to but hated as well with a seething passion—guys whose interest in me was first and foremost because of my trust fund. Sometimes it sucked being a rich girl, but I knew better than to ever voice that complaint out loud. It was something I had to accept and deal with silently, because it wasn't going away.
I sighed and turned to answer. "Everything's fine, Ryan. I'm with a friend."
