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His nostrils flared a little. “I’m completely okay with the idea of spending the night fucking you as well. Clothes it is.”
Leaving him to find his shirt, she hurried into her bedroom and yanked on the first things she put her hands on: a pair of jeans, her old Padres bomber jacket, and her trusty white sneakers.
“Ready,” she declared, almost running back into the living room.
He stood at the door, hand on the knob, grin wide. “Ready.”
Grabbing her keys and phone, she shoved them into her back pocket and then destroyed the space between them. She wrapped her arms around his neck, rose up on tiptoe, and brushed her lips to his. “So I see,” she murmured.
His hands found their way beneath her jacket and he smoothed them up her back. A shiver of delight and anticipation shot through her, and she smiled. “Let’s buy two boxes, okay?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Only two?”
“Okay, four.”
He nodded, drawing her closer. “Done.”
She laughed, yanked open the door, and pulled him through it by his hand. They’d just reached the elevator when her phone buzzed with an incoming text message.
“Give me a sec,” she muttered, pulling it from her pocket.
There was a text fromZeta. Hey, sis, I know you’re probably having insane amounts of fun right now, but if you see this message, is there any chance you could come back up to the party for a few minutes? I think Elisa might be heading into an anxiety attack.
“Oh no,” she whispered, re-reading the text.
“Everything okay?” Owen asked at her side.
She looked up at him. “We’re just going whip back up to the party for a few minutes, okay? I need to check on one of my sisters.”
“Sure.”
She studied him for a heartbeat. No questions, no sign of a frown, no reluctance or irritation, despite the change to their plans.
“In fact,” he said with a gentle smile, “I’ll find my sister and tell her I’m breaking curfew.”
“Curfew?”
“It’s a…” He rubbed at the back of his neck, his eyes sliding from hers for a second. “It’s a long story.”
A long story. Why did that sound…ominous?
“Can you hit the rooftop button, please?” she asked, tapping out a reply to Zeta: On my way. Tell her to take a deep breath and count backwards from 10 in Italian.
Elisa’s anxiety rarely raised its head these days, not since she’d removed herself from a toxic relationship that had almost destroyed her self-confidence, but perhaps the sheer number of people at the party was triggering it?
The elevator door chimed open, and she shoved her phone back into her pocket. “Sorry,” she said to Owen, hurrying into the carriage.
“No worries at all.” He followed, hit the close-door button and leant his back against the wall. “Is everything okay?”
She leant against the opposite wall, taking a slow breath. “Hope so.”
“If I can help in any way, let me know.”
Smiling, she shook her head. “I’m going to say something I might regret later, and I hope it doesn’t scare you off, but I have to say it anyway.”
His gaze held hers. “Okay.”
“I know this was only meant to be a party-hookup kinda thing,” she said, her chest growing tight, “but I really really like you, which sounds ridiculous given we’ve only known each other for a few seconds, but I really really do. You’re uncomplicated, insanely easy to be with, sexy as all hell, intelligent and funny, and I’m wondering if you’d be interested in maybe exploring the possibility of this, you and me, being something more than a one-night—”
