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I’m not sure why I’m actually considering his offer to meet, other than I’m curious and want to hear him out. Am I looking for a new job? Nope. I’m happy where I am and get to work from home. I also make damn good money, so it’s not like I’m looking for an increase in pay or more benefits. Yet, I’m curious as hell to hear what he’s been up to and how it could factor into my future. “I can meet up,” I find myself saying.
Dylan smiles. “Glad to hear it. I’ve been following the work you’ve been doing, and you’d be an asset. Here’s my card,” he says, pulling a small white rectangle from his shirt pocket and handing it to me. “My cell phone is on there. Give me a call when you have an hour or so free.”
I take the card and palm it. “I will, thanks.” Then, I stop and turn. “You’ve been following me?”
“Your work, man. Computer forensics is a small world. You’ve made a name for yourself.”
He reaches out his hand, shakes mine, says a quick greeting to Cricket, and then leaves to go back to his group of friends. “That was strange,” she muses, tearing off a piece of her pretzel and smothering it in cheese.
“It was,” I confirm, reaching over and pulling off a small piece of her food and taking a bite. “Too salty,” I mumble as I chew the dry, sodium-covered pretzel.
“It’s supposed to be, dummy,” she says, ripping off another section and covering it in cheese, coating her finger at the same time. “They’re better with cheese.” Then, as she shovels the food into her mouth, she licks and sucks the cheddar off her finger.
Lucky finger.
Clearing my throat, I tell her, “I was afraid to take any cheese. You’re kinda hogging it.”
“Am not!”
“No? You’re licking your fingers like you haven’t eaten in a week.” With the knuckle on my finger, I push my glasses up on my nose, not even caring that they’re slightly crooked.
Cricket glances down at her cheese to pretzel ratio, which is severely lopsided. “Fine, I guess to do like cheese. Everything’s better with cheese,” she states moments before she sets the pretzel down on the seat beside her and reaches for my face.
I don’t move—I’m not sure I can— as she takes both hands and gently adjusts the frames on my face, carefully making sure they’re straight. “There.”
“Thank you.” Why does my voice sound weird?
Her hands stay on the plastic, but her eyes are locked on mine. Something passes between us in that moment. Resolve, maybe? It’s like we both completely give in to whatever it is that’s holding us back. My lips tingle with anticipation. I’m going to kiss her, right here, right now, and it has nothing to do with who may be watching and everything to do with me flat-outneedingto kiss her like I need air.
“These frames look amazing on you,” she whispers, her voice deeper and with a touch of something raw and inviting.
My lips would look amazing on you.
Except the way her eyes widen, and her mouth falls open ever so slightly, I realize my mistake. I didn’t think that statement in my head. I said it.
Out loud.
There’s only one way out of my blunder at this point, and that’s why I’m moving, her lips drawing closer and closer as the seconds tick by. Cricket licks her lips in anticipation, and as I take her jaw in my hand and thread my right hand into her hair, I give her ample time to say no, to tell me she doesn’t want this kiss. She responds by tilting her head upward, her eyes locked on mine as she waits for the kiss.
Maybe she’s giving me a chance to back out, to change my own mind, but that’s not happening. No way in hell am I stopping the inevitable, and this kiss is unavoidable, like the waves crashing onto the shore. It justis.
Like the one we shared the night before at the pub, I feel like I’m punched in the stomach the moment our lips meet, but unlike the kiss from last night, this one is slower, tender, as if we’re both savoring the feel of the other’s lips against our own. She opens her mouth instantly, allowing my tongue to sweep inside and taste her. My left hand cradles her jaw protectively, while the fingers on my right hand tangle in those long, dark locks. The silkiness threads through them and my body responds in kind like an aphrodisiac. Who knew hair would be an undiscovered kink?
The kiss doesn’t last nearly long enough, and I especially hate the way it ends. “Hey, you two. Enough of that in public. They’ll call security on you.”
Danny.
The reason we’re in this pretend romance to begin with.
I slowly pull my lips from hers. There’s a heartbeat’s moment where I almost say ‘fuck it’ and kiss her again. Screw Danny. Screw the public. Screw the indecent exposure charge I’d be facing when I take the kiss a step or two further.
To be up front, I’m not sure how I feel about Danny in this moment either. I see exactly why she faked a relationship with the first guy to walk by. No, I wasn’t exactly walking by, but you get my point. Even if he means absolutely nothing to her anymore, she didn’t want to be made to feel unwanted.
Undesirable.
Fuck. That.
Cricket Hill is the most desirable woman I’ve ever known, and if we didn’t live half a country apart, I’d make that fact well-known to her. Actually, fuckthat.As her friend, it’s now my solemn duty to show her just how wanted and desired she is. Even if it hurts to walk away from her at the end of our short time together, I’m going to give her that.
