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“I don’t make many promises.”
I felt a shiver. There it was again. The part of him that I was intrigued by. The part that said there was something mysterious and dark about him. He didn’t reveal much. He could seduce. He could flirt. He could sure as hell kiss. But there was some kind of wall—I could see it in his eyes. I recognized it last night.
And I was one of those girls who couldn’t walk away from the guy who had walls and secrets.
I was like a moth to a flame. It was my weakness. The bad boy. The man buried behind a mountain of pain. The guy who gave his emotions in bed, but never out loud.
“Ready?” Vaughn asked. He stood next to the door.
Maybe I should tell myself to end it now. To fake a headache before he stole another kiss. To delete his number so I didn’t end up letting him fuck me the rest of the night. To lock the door as soon as he walked past me so I could avoid the heartache that was inevitably going to follow. But I knew I couldn’t. Vaughn was already under my skin.
I smiled. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Four
I held the bar lightly overhead on the Metro. My fingers clasped the metal with hesitation. I was still trying to adjust to public transportation. I tried to visualize the hundreds of people before me who had stood in this spot today going to work, or riding home. How they had been staggered in here shoulder to shoulder, avoiding eye contact.
Vaughn’s hand tucked around my waist. He still hadn’t revealed where we were going. As the car swayed, he applied pressure to my back, making sure I didn’t tip with the momentum. It felt good. It felt safe. As if this man I barely knew had me.
“Should I start guessing?” I asked.
“You could try.”
I pinched my lips together. I didn’t know anything about D.C. other than the most famous national landmarks. Most of them were closed this late in the evening.
“Can you give me clue? Any kind of a hint?”
I looked into his dark eyes. He didn’t give anything away. If he was being playful, I couldn’t tell. There was a seriousness beneath him that never wavered.
“I’d rather show you.”
“All right.” I was ok reveling in the closeness we had on the Metro. How his body almost touched mine. How there was a current running from him to me with invisible wires. And I could stand here and inhale the intoxicating scent from his skin.
Each time the car stopped at another station I looked to Vaughn for a signal that we were going to hop off, but he stood tall, shielding me from anyone who boarded or exited. He was like some kind of body guard, making sure the only person who touched me was him.
Eventually, he pulled my hand from the rod, led me to the sliding doors, and tugged me behind him onto the platform as the bell dinged and the train charged on to the next stop.
I looked at the station. “Smithsonian?”
“This way.”
We took the escalator to the street level. It was quiet.
“Now will you tell me where we are going?” I urged.
“Let’s walk.” Vaughn led me along the sidewalk.
The Washington Monument emerged on our right, towering silently straight into the night. I paused for a moment to take it in, but we turned our backs to it and continued at an easy pace for several blocks. I also realized that we were putting more distance between us and the White House. That had been my first guess for Vaughn’s mysterious night stroll.
As we neared the water, Vaughn’s grip tightened around my palm. The lights from the memorial shimmered on the dark calm of the rippling waves. There was almost no movement at all on the water.
It was dark under the canopy of trees, but as we rounded the circle and made our way to the front columns, I realized why Vaughn had brought me on this route. It was breathtaking.
When we finally stopped walking, he stood back and crossed his arms. “What do you think?”
“I’ve never been here. I’ve seen it fifty times from the road or in pictures, but I’ve never actually been here. It’s beautiful.”
He winked. “It’s my favorite spot.”
