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“I didn’t think you were. I…” Hell, I am not sure why I am here, except I need to be and I don’t know why that is.
“It was sex.”
“No, it wasn’t. I mean, yeah, it was probably the best sex I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t just sex.”
She shakes her head and wraps her arms around herself in a rare display of insecurity. “C’mon, Travis, we were drunk and… things happened. Don’t worry, I’m not looking for anything.”
“What?” I move up to her, so close her sweet summer scent wraps about me. “You used me for a one-night stand?”
The look she gives me is so outrageous I want to laugh.
“No, I’m letting you off the hook.”
I slip a finger beneath her chin and raise it, trying not to think about the heat of her, the soft silk of her skin, and how kissable her mouth is as we stand so damn close. “Maybe I don’t want to be. And I have a secret.”
She frowns. “Travis… I…”
“I thought we could give this a go. A date? See what happens.”
Her fingers come up and latch on to my shirt. “You want to go on a date with me?”
“Is that so hard to imagine?” And I do, I realize. I want to see her again. Mostly naked and in my bed. The sun has dipped low and I smile at her. “I’m finding it pretty easy. And that secret? I wasn’t drunk, and I’m not stupid enough to think you were either.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m a mess. You don’t want to get involved with that,” she whispers.
“Yeah, maybe I do. Unless this is your way of letting me down easy?”
She shakes her head and gazes up at me. “I’m not crazy but you’re so… you and I’m… Of course I want to. But how does that work? I mean, we work together. How does this play out for us in the long run?” She’s panicking; I feel it in the way she’s taking short, rapid breaths, and the way the pulse in her neck races.
“Brandi, just look at me.” She does and I brush my fingers against her cheek. “I want to see where it might lead. I could say let’s just be fuck buddies, but I don’t want that. I’d like to see, just see what happens. We can take it fast or slow.”
“There’s work.”
“I know. A date and see where that leads. Look, I can’t tell you I won’t hurt you. That this won’t end as a catastrophe. But I want to see you again.”
She nods slowly, the heat coming back to her green eyes, her pulse still jumping, but it doesn’t seem to be panicked and heat flares in me, too. “What about everyone else? They’re going to notice.”
“Fuck everyone else, all our friends. I’m not saying that I’m in love with you. That would be crazy. What I’m saying is that this storm has given me a chance to see you and I’d like to see where that might go. If you want that.”
She nods and I’m pretty sure my entire month is made.
“And Brandi?”
“Yeah?”
“That doesn’t mean sex is off the table.”
7
BRANDI
“You better spit it out,before I lose my shit. I’ve kept the wolves at bay by lying my ass off about where you were when you were on the island. But no more. You better give me all the details, or I’m opening my mouth and I’m starting with Maya,” Poppy says as she practically leaps out of her seat and gives me the evil eye over the monitors.
The room we work in has no windows and we’re sitting under rows of fluorescent lighting. The same lights that give me a sickly appearance do wonders to give the redhead fairy-like qualities that make it impossible not to give her exactly what she wants. Mostly because I’m afraid if I don’t, she’ll murder me and hide the body and no one will think she looks the slightest bit guilty.
I wait until there’s no one else in the building before I start my story, casting a subtle look around, just in case.
I haven’t even had a chance to process everything that happened, and I definitely don’t want to discuss it with a bunch of people too nosy for their own good before I do.
