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She curled her fingers tightly round the handle of her bag instead. “Okay, Japanese then. There’s that place we went to for Carts’ birthday. It’s near here somewhere.”
“You’re on.”
She’d started to walk briskly down the steps towards the restaurant strip when Aaron’s hand on her elbow startled her. She halted and their bodies bumped. They’d touched more in one afternoon than they had in the last couple of months. It felt odd. And wildly exhilarating.
Aaron swivelled her round and, for a second, they faced each other. She gazed up at his mouth, his full lips slightly parted, his eyes glittering down at her in a way she had never seen before. A pulse started drumming in her neck. Was Aaron going to kiss her?
Alice tilted her chin.
Then he turned her another ninety degrees, and said, “Your sense of direction is shot. It’s this way.”
* * *
As a plate of sizzling Teriyaki beef arrived at the table, Aaron’s mind was working a lot faster than his facial muscles. He was good at not giving away what was going on in his head. He’d learned to do it after his mum died. A very useful strategy, he’d finally realised in his mid-teens—his face a blank canvas on which he’d perfected the laid-back smile, the heavy-lidded gaze; one elbow hitched over the back of a chair, accompanied by the full torso slouch. Add the casual flick of hair away from his eyes and he’d found out he was seriously onto something with the opposite sex.
Carts had called it hiscome-fuck-me look.
The issue was, Aaron had never dreamed of using hiscome-fuck-melook with Alice. Only now it seemed he was more than a little tempted to. And even more alarming, he was even enjoying the idea. Alice blinked at him over the top of her glasses. He’d always known vaguely that her eyes were brown, but they looked suddenly bigger… wider… darker.
“Don’t wait,” she said. Her lips seemed juicier too. They had drawn his attention all afternoon in the gallery. “I’ll wait for the tofu.”
He poured her a glass of wine. “Still doing your vego thing?”
She gave a little shrug. It made the small spheres of her breasts tip slightly towards him. Aaron swallowed the saliva gathering in his mouth, filled up his own glass and put the bottle down. He must be hungrier than he’d thought.
“Yes, more or less. I think I’m what’s called aflexitarian. We’ve got some flexitarian cookbooks in the shop. They’re very popular.”
“What does that term even mean?” Aaron said. Food fads annoyed the hell out of him.
“Mostly vegetarian, but sometimes not. And it sells books, I guess.”
Aaron dug into the bowl of rice then handed it to Alice. Her dish arrived; squares of fried tofu floating in a golden aromatic gravy, garnished with spring onions. Not so bad considering there was no meat in sight.
“Polly’s on the five:two,” Alice commented.
Aaron snorted. “I prefer the caveman diet. What’s it called?”
“Paleo.”
“Yeah, that one. The idea of spearing my food and ripping it apart with my teeth has a certain appeal.”
“I can’t see you doing that.” Alice smirked. “It would leave blood on your designer shirts.” She busied herself spooning tofu onto her plate. He took the opportunity to watch her. Her hair was tied into its characteristic ponytail, but little tendrils of chestnut had escaped and fell softly around her neck. How come he’d never noticed that little indent at the base of her throat? The soft v of her collarbones? His eyes slipped to the curve of her breasts once more and he found his mind toying with an image of her nipples. Small and rosy, he’d guess.
Something stirred in his groin.
Shit!
This wasAlice, for Christ’s sake.
Aaron shifted in his seat, skewered a slice of tender beef with a chopstick. “Obviously I would wear nothing but a loincloth while hunting.”
Alice made a strangled sound. He glanced up. “Are you all right?”
She grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her mouth. “I just choked on my tofu.”
“At the idea of me in a loincloth?” He cast her his best heavy-lidded look.
Alice placed her napkin down and her mouth trembled into a smile. “Maybe. It’s not something I’ve really thought of before.” She cast a glance at him over the top of her glasses again, and he suddenly had the urge to reach over and remove them.
