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So she grabbed the lapel of his jacket and pulled until he was looking at her—mostly to give him a piece of her mind in a more effective manner.You are being a massive fool, she imagined herself saying. Only she didn’t have to.
He stopped the second he met her gaze.
Like her gaze was some kind of sedative.
It dropped his shoulders. His fists unclenched.
All the tension went out of his face. And when he finally spoke, he sounded weird. Hoarse, and strained, and like he wasn’tquite sure what he was telling her. But had to do it anyway. “You just don’t get it. You don’t get how you seem to other people. How dazzling you are, the way you walk into a room and light it up,” he said. At which point she wasn’t quite sure what happened.
She only knew that somehow her hand was no longer on his lapel.
That it was on his face. That she was touching his beard.
And she was saying his name.Alfie, she said.Alfie.
As if the other more normal words were all stuck. But it was all right because he didn’t seem to mind. Or notice that anything was weird. He just held her gaze in his for what felt like a long, long time, eyes all soft and warm like they had been that first time she’d touched him here. And even after that gentle light in them died, and he turned away, it wasn’t a bad thing. Because he gruffed out under his breath:
“That was really convincing affection. Good job.”
Then they carried on with dinner like nothing had happened.
The rest of the dinner went pretty smoothly after that. Or at least he didn’t threaten to beat anyone else up. Or get hypnotized by her. Or make her touch his face until everything got real unsettling. Instead, they ate delicious food, and did things like clink their glasses. As if they were celebrating some nonexistent anniversary for a relationship they didn’t have. That they would never have. Because he said as they got into the car: “Considering we have zero sexy feelings for each other we did a good job of looking like we’re two people who have sexy feelings for each other.”
So that was all settled.
No matter how weird things felt.
Because she had to admit: theydidfeel weird.
It was kind of why she wanted to screamno, when he asked her if it was okay to do the thing on the doorstep.What if I accidentally put a hand on his beard again, she found herself thinking.Then didn’t know exactly what was wrong with putting a hand on his beard. After all, it hadn’t meant anything.
She hadn’t done it in a sexy way.
It had just been an abrupt overflow of affection. Most likely brought on by him trying to defend her honor, or some daft nonsense like that, and he had obviously known that. Though of course she couldn’t help thinking: maybe he wouldn’t know it if she did it a second time. He might think she had a real thing for the beard touching. That she was mad for it.
And what then?
Heck knew.
But it was too late to back out now. They were getting out of the car, and he had his hand on her back, and the hand was kind of burning a hole through her dress. It felt very hot, and very big. And then they were there. Standing in the low glow of the light over the door to her building. Every part of her wanting to think about whoever might be taking their picture right now.
But none of her thinking of that at all.
Instead, she was just trying not to seem like she didn’t like looking at his face too much. While having to pretend that she liked looking at his face a lot. All of which was hell, it was a mess, honestly they should never have done this.
“Ready?” he whispered, and she came so close to sayingAbsolutely not.
So close. Just not close enough.
Because he was already leaning.
And if she pulled away now, anyone watching would know it was all just a bunch of bullshit. They probably already did, because she couldn’t seem to stop herself from stiffening up. Like he’d turned her to stone just by being too close and letting his warm breath stir against her face. And then he did it, he touched his mouth to hers, and oh, it got so much worse. She could actually feel her nails biting too deep into her palms; she held her breath so hard it hurt something inside her chest.
And not just because it was Alfie doing this.
Or because she was afraid of all her own reactions.
No, no. It was how he did it that really hit her hard. It was the sweetness of it, the gentleness, the unexpected softness of his lips. She’d always thought they looked mean beneath the tangle of his beard. But they weren’t, they weren’t—they were plush and tender and warm, like the curve of a peach that had just been plucked.
