She’d gone from “starving” to ordering a salad, coincidentally the cheapest thing on the menu. I’d been mildly offended that she thought I wouldn’t pay for her meal.
“You were hungry,” I said, and picked up my fork, but had no intention of eating until Shay.
Shay sat back, arms folded. “Didn’t we agree it was too early to be ordering me around?”
I had to make a concerted effort not to dip my eyes to her chest. When she folded her arms, her breasts nearly spilled out.
Fucking perfect.
I wanted to bruise and bite them.
“We did,” I agreed, clearing my throat. “But you’ve finished your appetizer.”
Her cheeks flushed at the reminder. Taking a breath, she picked up her fork. She went straight for the pot roast. I waited, gaze frozen on her. Would I get another cross-eyed moan?
She paused, the fork a breath from her mouth, brow arched. “Are you going to eat?”
I blinked, looking at my own fork, nonplussed.
Oh yeah.Food.
I ate but couldn’t for the life of me say what it was or tasted like. I watched her. The way her mouth curved around her food. The way she looked like she wasn’t just enjoying it, but in heaven.
She’d been on edge from the moment she noticed me outside. But now pieces of the woman I’d seen weeks ago in the restaurant filtered through. I wanted the version that dripped egg yolk all over her hands.
A greedy thing to want.
I didn’t fucking care.
A comfortable silence settled as we ate. Occasionally Shay glanced up at me, catching me watching her unapologetically. Her answer was another curious tilt of her head.
“You’re a cosmologist?” I asked. When she nodded, I continued. “I assume by your second photo, your area of study is origins of the universe or dark matter?”
Maybe I’d already looked her up and found some of her papers, but that didn’t mean the question wasn’t earnest. I was doing my damnedest to translate the jargon, and failing. Her brain, holy shit, it might be the hottest thing about her.
She smiled softly, eyes on her plate. “Dark matter.”
My eyes dropped to her lips.
Fuck.How could one smile cause such a chain reaction in my body? I shifted in my seat, adjusting the napkin on my cock.
I cleared my throat. “How’d you get into that?”
“It’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but after—” She broke off again, as if stopping herself from saying too much.
After?
Afterwhat? I leaned forward. Greedy.
“Uh…” she continued. “Eventually it became more than a passing interest. It was a necessity. I had to understand the dark, misunderstoodwhyof the universe.” Some kind of pain flickered in her brown eyes, but she quickly smothered it. “I love the mystery behind it,” she continued. “Thepoetry. That there is something dark and unseen holding up all the light in the universe.”
I could usually figure people out quickly, but Shay was a constant contradiction. Nervous and confident. Honest and mysterious. Bright and withholding. Soft but somehow with a metal in her eyes reserved for warriors.
“It’s the longest unsolved mystery in all of science,” she said.
I had never experienced anyone like Shay. When she spoke, she spoke with her whole body, hands gesturing as she told me about something called nonbaryonic matter and the difference in theories onwhatdark matter could be. Enthusiasm seeped out of her like steam, filling up the space, until I felt it in my lungs.
I could listen to her talk about wet cement, and as long as she was likethis, it would be the most interesting thing in the fucking universe. When was the last time I’d been around someone who had suchjoyfor life?
