Chapter 52
“Hang on, the doorman is buzzing me!” I set the phone down on the kitchen counter and ran to the intercom.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Slater, I have a Mr. Michaelson here for you.”
A split second of confusion was followed by a warmth which tingled through my veins better than the first sip of a barrel aged scotch. I was glad that Lauren wasn’t on video phone so she couldn’t see the bright glow heating my cheeks, or the smileI was currently sporting. The one threatening to split my face in half.
“Okay, thanks, let him up.”
I bent down on the counter, nearer to where the phone’s speaker was. “Laurie, I gotta go, call you later. Postmates is here.”
It was surprisingly easy to lie to her, even if every word was laced with a little guilt. I’d never kept anything from Lauren before; I’d never needed to. We shared everything. We poured over every problem, we dissected every date; cried together, laughed together.
But until I figured out what exactly was happening with Penn, I couldn’t tell her anything. Maybe there would be nothing to tell, though the thought of that tugged heavily in my chest. I also wasn’t sure what could happen. Penn was the eternal playboy, and while I wasn’t looking to settle down any time soon - much to my mother’s chagrin - there was too much at risk for the sake of a quick hookup.
“Okay, love you.”
“Love you, call you later.”
When I’d gotten home earlier, I’d flopped onto the couch and opened up all the books I’d taken with me, and set about creating the framework of a three-year brand plan for The Lions. I’d stayed there reading until ten minutes before Lauren called, when I’d realized the time and hotfooted it to the shower. I’d just stepped out of it and wrapped a towel round my head, which is where it stayed while I got dressed and listened to how her day had gone. And that’s why I was now frantically trying to smooth out the frizzy, crinkled mess my hair had become having dried in a kink under the towel, after I’d caught sight of myself in the enormous mirror by my front door.
At the ding of the elevator I gave up, scraping my hair back and securing it with a band.
Thick floral undertones curled through the air, fusing with the familiar heady scent of him. Then around the corner he came, carrying the biggest bunch of pale green hydrangeas and eucalyptus I’d ever seen, and my breath caught.
When he saw me standing in the doorway, he paused mid-stride, his eyes trailing my body like he hadn’t had a drink for days, and I was a tall glass of ice water.
“Hey…”
He shifted the flowers on his arm, and with one large stride, his other snaked round my waist so he could pull me flush against him. The tiniest curl tugged at the corner of his mouth right before his lips enveloped mine. I opened up for him, sliding my tongue against his, all warm and tasting faintly of peppermint. Too briefly he pulled away, then softly returned for another quick sweep. My toes were curling against the herringbone wood floor, and there was no way my bare skin wouldn’t be scalding his fingertips.
“Hey…” His grey eyes looked almost silver, shining with happiness, maybe pride, and perhaps something else I couldn’t put my finger on.
In fact, I realized that even though I’d known Penn since I was eight years old, all this - the being close enough for his scent to imprint in my brain, the noticing how his eyes were a different color every time I saw him, and the way his bicep flexed as he brushed his fingers through his hair was as new to me as a beginning with someone I’d only just met. He’d never been here, never been in my space, and I suddenly felt very exposed.
Because if I’d never seen him, would this be the first time he was seeing me?
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he growled against my neck.
The vibrations sent ripples across my skin, but his words… it was like my synapses were on fire, zapping out sparks of pureundiluted lust at max power to ensure it reached every nook and cranny in my body.
Hestepped back and thrust the flowers at me. “These are for you.”
I took them, brushing my fingertips over the delicate petals. “Thank you, they’re beautiful.”
He closed the door behind him but stayed where he was in my foyer, still as a statue, only his eyes moving as he looked around the space, taking it all in with the same manner a person would in The Louvre or The Met; the candle flickering on the entrance table next to a couple of small framed photographs of my family, and the Andy Warhol of Elvis Presley my parents had gifted to me for my birthday a few years ago, which hung on the wall straight ahead of us…
“You want to come in?”
He broke from his trance with a bright smile which made my belly somersault. “I do. Lead the way.”
I managed one step in the direction of the kitchen before he called me.
“Wait.” He reached out and laced his fingers through mine. “Now we can go.”
I glanced down at our joined hands, and just like when we’d walked out of the archives, it felt like the most natural thing in the world, like we should have always been holding hands, and I couldn’t hold my own smile back with a gun to my head.
