Page 293 of A Taste of Vanilla

I think about licking it.

However, that’s not appropriate in a public bar.

I lower my voice. “Do you remember the first night we met here?”

His jaw jumps. “Yes, Halston. I remember it quite well.”

“All of it?”

“Every second.”

“Even the part where I was a little tipsy and deeply committed to making chaotic life choices?”

“Especially that part.”

I roll my eyes with a smile. “You’re such a romantic.”

“You were angry, sad, beautiful, and I could tell you were trying very hard to be brave.” His voice is quiet enough that it doesn’t feel like it belongs in this bar. “I remember thinking I should stay away from you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I didn’t. A character flaw.” His mouth curves.

“One of your better ones.”

He looks down at the fries between us, then up at me. “That night felt like theft afterward.”

I still.

He continues before I can respond. “Not because you weren’t capable of choosing for yourself. You were. But because I didn’t know you were trying to escape. I didn’t know what I was stepping into. If we were strangers, like we thought, it would have been okay. But then I knew, and I still treated you too often like something I could protect.”

The warmth in me shifts, going deeper.

“Warren.”

“I don’t regret wanting you,” he says. “I regret every moment I made you wonder whether wanting you scared me more than losing you.”

God. This man.

He cannot flirt normally.

I take a breath and set the fry down. “That night felt like mine.”

He watches me.

“It started messy and absolutely smelled like tequila and bad decisions, but it was mine. I chose you then, even if I didn’t know what that choice meant yet. Tonight feels different.”

“How?”

I slide my foot along the rail beneath the bar until my knee brushes his. “Tonight, I know exactly who I’m choosing.”

The silence that follows is not quiet. The bar is full of clinksand laughter, Marley yelling, Oliver threatening someone with vermouth, and the Vipers erupting into applause.

But between Warren and me, something locks in place.

His hand moves from the bar to my knee under it.

Slow enough for me to stop him but firm enough that I know what he wants when I don’t stop him.