AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I try to play dumb, focusing on the screen of his phone on which I just finished registering my number between his contacts —possibly making a bigger mistake than agreeing to come to sit here in this restaurant with him turned out to be— but the way the callused pads of his fingers make me feel has me close to jumping out of my skin.
I let go of a shaky breath and slide my hand free of his in anot-so-very-casualmove.
Carson doesn't appear to be bothered by my retreat. He just studies me intently for a long moment and then picks up his phone and starts typing something.
He passes me his phone, and I read the screen.
“What's the matter, Mia? Don't tell me you weren't enjoying my touch just now because that would be a lie.”
Damn, he is so cocky and unapologetic about it. Why the hell do I find that so stimulating?
I feel another blush climbing up the sides of my neck and to my cheeks, and I sigh, resigned. I have done nothing but go up in flames around Carson since I met him, so maybe I should just give up the fight. No way I can keep my hormones in check around this man. He is just too much… too mucheverythingfor me to be left with a modicum of control.
“That might very well be true, but you should know better than to point it out. It's not polite.”
I type back.
He leans toward me to read the screen and chuckles. His reply is pretty swift.
“I'm not here to be polite. I'm here to see how many times I can get you to blush like you're doing right now…”
On cue, my cheeks turn even hotter.
“I know what you're doing, but I'm not sure I should engage with you.”
I slide the phone back to him. His eyebrows go up. He gives me a sexy little side-smile and then winks at me. Actually winks. Looking too handsome for his own good —or my own, rather— in the process.
“Oh, do engage, baby. Engage away… there's nothing I would like more than engaging right now. Wanna find someplace quieter to… engage?”
I read his blatant words and mask the arousal I feel with a laugh.
“You are a shameless flirt!”
He shrugs.
“Why would I be anything else around a beautiful woman like you?”
I shake my head.
“Stop it!”
I write and hold out the phone to him.
He doesn't take it. "Why would I stop, Mia?" he asks, mouth moving slowly for my benefit, so slow, in fact, that I can even catch the way the tip of his tongue wets his lower lip when he says my name, turning my body in a confused shivering mess just like that.
I take a breath and slowly let it go, and then I type again on the screen after I delete my own previous words.
“What do you want from me, Carson?”
He reads off the screen I'm holding up and tilts his head, green eyes scorching me. Then he leans toward me, so close that I can see the way his Adam's apple works up and down just above the hollow of his muscular throat. He says just two words, his eyes never leaving mine.
"Everything, Mia."
Motions fluid as a fucking lion in the jungle, Carson leans even further across the little round table of the restaurant, and both of his hands gently cup my face, his lips delicately brushing mine in a soft kiss that leaves me too stunned to even form a thought.
Before I can talk myself out of it, or before my legs, turning into a total mass of Jell-O, make the decision for me, I stand up and leave without a backward glance.
* * *
