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Especially because Wyn is here.
She’s watching our exchange with wide, fascinated eyes, and now I’m regretting letting her stay. So I go to rectify that but he doesn’t let me.
Looking back at my face, he speaks before I can. “I have to admit. I’ve dreamed about this.”
“Dreamed about what?”
“About you,” he almost rasps. “In your St. Mary’s skirt. In fact, I had one yesterday. Would you like to know what it was about?”
“No,” I snap, fisting my skirt, squirming in my seat.
As if I’d ever believe that he dreamed about me.
As if I ever crossed his mind in the last two years.
He’s only saying these things to make me uncomfortable and I’m this close to standing up and walking out.
But then he begins to talk and I can’t move.
Because he leans forward and pins me in my place with his heated gaze. “So in my dream, you have this skirt on. It’s short and pleated and so fucking you, all good girl and innocent. It flutters around your thighs every time you move and it drives me so fucking crazy, watching you walk in that thing, watching you smile and look at me with your big blue eyes, that I ask you to dance for me. I ask you to jump and leap and spin on your toes, and you do it. But it’s not enough. I’m fucking greedy. So I tell you to spin faster. And you do that too. You do it so beautifully, so gloriously, like you were made to do this. Like you were put on this earth just to dance for me whenever I want, wherever I want. So I start to feel guilty.”
Don’t ask.
Do not ask, Callie.
“Guilty about what?”
“About the fact that I’m tricking you and you’ve got no clue.”
“Tricking me how?”
His lips twitch with a secret knowledge that I don’t have yet. But his eyes are all grave and intense as he replies, “The only reason I asked you to spin on your toes for me is because I wanted that skirt of yours to flip up. I wanted that skirt of yours to spin with you. Because I wanted to see. I finally wanted to get a peek of what’s under your pleated, good girl skirt.”
By the time he finishes with his story, my legs are all sweaty and sticking to the seat.
My thighs are clenched as well.
They’re all tight and tingly and restless and…
“I think I should go.”
A soft voice breaks my fog.
It’s Wyn.
Who’s been sitting here all this time — at my insistence, no less — and who heard everything. Every single word. Every single dirty word.
Crap.
How did I forget about her?
How did I forget that my friend was sitting right here?
From the looks of it though, he didn’t.
He didn’t forget that she was here.
In fact at Wyn’s words, his mouth tips into a tiny smile as he drawls, “Yeah, I think so too.”
And then without moving his eyes away from me, he stands up and makes way for her to do just that.
As she’s leaving, Wyn presses her lips together — no doubt to keep her smile or laughter or whatever at bay — and mouths good luck before disappearing.
As soon as Reed sits back down, I snap, “You did that on purpose. You said all those… dirty things in front of her on purpose.”
He looks at me calmly and picks up his coffee mug, which I didn’t even notice he had up until now.
He takes a sip of it as if he has all the time in the world, before putting it down and deigning to speak. “I gave you a choice. But you kept insisting.”
I growl, wrapping my fingers around my half-drunk lemonade and thinking about throwing it in his face.
But I won’t.
I’ve already displayed a lot of violence ever since he came back into my life. Which was not even twenty-four hours ago.
“How did you even know I was going to be here?”
As soon as I say it, that question — how he knew — becomes big.
It becomes the question of the hour. Of the day. Of the week even.
How did he know I was going to be at Buttery Blossoms today? And what about Ballad of the Bards? How did he know I was going to be there last night?
I look at him with parted lips. “Are you stalking me? Are you really stalking me? Like, really, really.”
For some reason, my heart starts to pound.
My fingers slip and tremble around the glass and I can’t catch my breath.
I wouldn’t put it past him.
If he can lock me up in closets, he can stalk me too.
He cocks his head to the side, still calm as ever, as he asks, “Why, does it make your little ballerina heart spin in your chest? Knowing that I’ve been keeping tabs on you.”
