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She echoed his sorry in reflex and then laughed. “Was that so bad?”
He shook his head, a hand to the back of it. “Didn’t expect it. Not now.”
“But you wanted us to kiss.”
He locked eye contact. “More than is sensible to admit.”
His voice was low and went straight to her sex, making her stutter a nonsensical response, to which he said, “Kisses have been rare, lately.”
She didn’t believe that for a New York minute. “Halsey Sherwood, you’re a con artist. My guess is you get kissed often and well.”
“If I’m going to kiss you for the first time, it’s not going to be after I made your life harder. It’s not going to be because we’ve argued, or you feel sorry for me.”
He closed the distance between them, put his big, hot hand to her cheek, and it was her turn to squeak in shock. Her heart rate kicked, her breath snagged. His eyes were drown-in-them deep ocean blue, and she was sinking. He’d kiss her now. He had to, but when he simply caressed her face and she feared for the integrity of her jellied knees, she said, “What are you doing?”
Nothing, as it turned out. He stepped away as abruptly as he’d advanced on her and was gone before she remembered how to breathe again.
Chapter Fifteen
Halsey made it into the back seat of a tiny Uber car before the punch up between his conscience and his ego started. The fact his knees were wedged against the dash didn’t help. His elbows were in the way, too, and whatever the driver had used to perfume
the Chevy Spark, made his nose run.
Lenny had smelled like lemongrass soap, and her skin was extraordinarily soft and smooth. He should never have touched her face like that. Way too intimate. It freaked her out a little. It freaked him out a little. And when her eyes went wide and her voice got tight, all he could think was get the heck out of there before she fainted or slugged him in the nuts.
But she’d kissed him. And he’d gone and told her he rarely got kissed, as if he were some great hulking thirty-one-year-old virgin who needed a bedtime story and tucking in at night.
He’d utterly, totally, irretrievably fucked everything up, and they hadn’t even started Operation Green with Envy. From the bag of groceries that came across as if he was making a comment on the Bradshaw’s financial situation to the way he went after Easton, letting some inner come-at-me-bro attitude he didn’t know he possessed out to play.
And then there was the way he reacted when Lenny touched him.
She’d brushed his shoulder, and he felt it right through his skin and muscle and bone, as if she’d curled her hand around his heart and had given it a squeeze. She gripped his arm, laughing at his wordplay with Mallory, and he saw a new future. She kissed him, and that future died a fiery death before it’d ever had a chance to unfurl its colors.
He’d fucked up, and Lenny forgave him for handing her a more volatile situation to deal with. That burned in his chest, like he might explode. Walking away was unconscionable, but Lenny was too smart to let him meddle again, and he had no idea what to do to fix this.
And it had to be fixed.
“I’ll get out here.” He had a cramp in his thigh, and he wanted out of the car to breathe. He found a Starbucks still open and took a seat. Having a table in front of him was comforting. It was like sitting at his desk where he had everything under control, until he remembered the last coffee shop he’d sat in with Lenny opposite him, determined to think he was pond scum.
He took his phone out and swiped up Cal’s number, hovered a finger over the call symbol. He needed advice and since he wasn’t sure where Cal was, he didn’t know if he’d be awake. Phone back in his pocket, he stared out the window at nothing while one leg bounced an agitated rhythm until he shut it down with his hand. Everyone else in the family handled their field assignments with ease, while he’d turned a basic audit into a humanitarian crisis. He’d taught a fraught teenager that men couldn’t be trusted not to fight aggression with more aggression. And Lenny, who had no reason to want his crime family, law-breaking ass anywhere near her, kissed him.
That was a problem. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a kiss off, and they had unfinished business.
He pulled up Zeke’s number and called. On a Friday night, Zeke would be primed to party. “Where are you?”
He heard a horn blare and then Zeke’s voice. “Better be urgent.”
“It’s not urgent.”
Zeke sighed. “Then why’d you call?”
“I’m in a Starbucks.” That told Zeke all he needed to know. Halsey’s dislike of Starbucks was well known.
When Zeke arrived, he went straight to the counter to order them both the most obnoxious drinks on the menu. “Bad date? You’re all dressed down, sexy beast,” his brother said, when he took a seat, putting something frothy in front of Halsey.
“No. Yes. No.” He pushed the drink away. He could virtually smell the sugar in it.
Zeke slurped his hardened arteries in a glass. “Did you call Cal before you called me?”
