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She didn’t say anything to him, though, and he didn’t bring it up with her—at least not until it was well after dark and the rest of the company had closed around them.
She was working to finish a drawer of half-carat stones and was hoping to get one more drawer done after that before calling it quits. But as she put the last VVS1 stone back into its drawer, Marc’s hand covered hers. For the first time she realized he’d put his phone away and his chair back and was pretty much just hovering over her.
“I’ll put this bunch back,” he told her. “Why don’t you get your stuff together?”
She glanced at her watch, surprised to find it was after nine. “Actually, I was hoping to do one more drawer before heading home. It shouldn’t take me long—”
“Maybe not, but you look dead on your feet,” he said. “Whatever you still have to do will be here tomorrow.”
She thought about protesting—she had a limited amount of time and a lot of ground to cover—but she wasn’t the only one who looked exhausted. He was hiding it well, but Marc looked like he, too, was feeling the effects of three nights without sleep.
“Yes, all right,” she agreed. It only took her a couple of minutes to put her laptop away and gather the rest of her stuff. Then they walked out together, Marc making sure the vault was sealed behind them, the alarms and motion sensors all activated.
They were out of the building and almost to her car in the parking lot before he spoke again. “What kind of takeout do you like?”
“Takeout?” she parroted, the words so far from where her brain was that it took her a minute to process them.
“Food?” he said, his voice deep and amused. “I figured we’d grab something to eat on the way back to your place.”
“My place?” she echoed.
He looked at her strangely, the warmth in his smile fading as he took in her total surprise at the suggestion. “Unless you’d rather not have a meal together?” he said, and she knew he was thinking about Saturday night, when she’d refused every overture he’d made to get her to eat with him.
“No, no. Takeout would be nice.” This time, the word slipped out without her permission or attention.
But he picked up on it—of course he did—his eyes narrowing as he asked, “What is it with you and your preoccupation with the word nice today?”
She flushed a bright red, ducking her head as she tried to either avoid the question or figure out a way to answer him that didn’t make her sound like a complete crazy person. But he wasn’t having any of it, his fingers going to her chin and tilting her face up until her eyes met his.
She didn’t say anything and neither did he and, of course, she cracked first. She always had when it came to him—how had she not remembered that until this moment? The way Marc noticed every small detail about her? The way he’d wait her out whenever he asked her uncomfortable questions, never getting bored or anxious, but rather pausing patiently for her to wrap her mind—and her courage—around whatever it was she wanted to say.
“I just—” She broke off, shook her head. “Any chance we can just leave that alone for now?”
He quirked a brow in that way that made her insane—with affection, with envy, with lust. “Pretty much no chance at all.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” She sighed heavily, shifting her weight. She shoved her free hand in her pocket. Anything and everything to kill time as she tried to figure out what she wanted to say. But in the end, though Marc hadn’t grown impatient, she certainly had and she just blurted out the truth. “You said last night was ‘nice.’”
He looked baffled. “When did I do that?”
“In your text message to me this morning. You said you’d had ‘a nice time.’”
“And there’s something wrong with that?”
Her embarrassment faded as annoyance took its place. “I don’t know, Marc. Why don’t we test it out? You take me home, make love to me, and then—on your way out the door—I’ll tell you how nice it was.”
He didn’t say anything for long seconds, just stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. And maybe she had. At this point, she really couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she didn’t want him to drop his hand from her face, didn’t want him to stop touching her. Ever. And that was a huge problem considering the fact that she’d been promising herself all along that she wouldn’t fall for him again. That she wouldn’t let herself love him.
“Seriously, sweetheart?” he said after a minute. He dropped his hand and she made some kind of noise at the loss of contact—half protest, half plea. He responded by wrapping her in his arms, pressing her body against his from shoulders to shins. “I was half-asleep and barely coherent and that’s what you’ve been holding against me all day? Do you think maybe you could cut a guy some slack?”
When he said it like that, he made his words seem completely reasonable. But, still, before she got in any deeper, she needed to know. “You weren’t trying to blow me off? To distance yourself from me?”
He lowered
his head, pressed kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. “Does this feel like I’m trying to distance myself?”
“No.” She shook her head. It felt kind of wonderful, actually. Familiar, but not. Safe, but not—in the best possible way.
“Okay, then. Since that’s settled, why don’t you tell me what kind of takeout you want and I’ll swing by and get it on my way to your place. If I’m invited, that is?” He was grinning, his eyes bright with mischief as he teased her. But she could see the uncertainty there, too, lurking behind the easy facade. Almost as if he was as weirded out and nervous about this thing between them as she was. Almost as if he had as much to lose as she did.
