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“You got the better end of the stick when we ignored each other.” He didn’t want to see revulsion in her eyes. He let go her hand and tried to get some waitress eye contact happening.
“Look at me, Ant.”
“Do you want another drink?” She’d barely sipped the last one.
She put both hands on his face, framing it, turning it so he had to look in her lovely eyes. “You have nothing to be ashamed about.”
“I’m not ashamed.” Never. There was nothing shameful about doing things the hard way. He was annoyed he’d reframed her achievements in the light of his disadvantages. As though what she’d done was less amazing. He tried to pull away, but she scooted closer. She was looking at him as if he was some goal she had to capture and hold.
“You don’t think I’m beautiful?”
“Shit, yeah. I think you’re gorgeous.” Since day one. She’d had those red shoes with the stripy heels on. And he’d known he wasn’t supposed to be attracted to her. Made it easy to paint her all kinds of wrong in his head.
“Are you going to ask me out properly?”
He peeled her hands away, but kept them in his and she didn’t shuffle back across the lounge. What was going on here? From the minute she’d taken his hand back at the restaurant, he’d been fantasising about getting closer to her. But that was a whole lot of bullshit, because she was way out of his pay grade and postcode, so there was no chance that was ever going to happen. Even if they weren’t work colleagues, and work colleagues weren’t totally out of bounds for a whole bunch of good reasons, least of all hysterics in the office when things inevitably went south because he screwed up. The best he could ever hope for from a classy chick like Bree was some hasty tasty drunken favour, never referred to again. So what the fuck was she asking him to ask her out properly for?
“I told the guys you were a colleague and it wasn’t right to involve you in this.” He could chew out his own tongue for every shitty thing he’d said to the boys about Bree. He did not need to subject her to their scrutiny and he’d do anything to stop it happening.
“Hang on. You bet if I won I’d get grovelling and a free feed and now you’re reneging.”
“It’s not like that.”
She shook his hands as if the answer could be rattled out of them. “What’s it like then?”
It was grubby and demeaning and he should never have made the bet in the first place. “You don’t want anything to do with it.”
“And miss seeing you humiliated, are you kidding?”
He looked down at their hands. “What’s going on here?”
She laughed, a green, fresh, musical sound, but when she spoke her voice was hot sweet toffee. “I don’t know, but I like it.”
“What are we going to do then?” His body was at war over this question. Only the tiniest part of his brain was holding out, processing what a bad idea pushing for more than just being with her like this was. The rest of him was already assessing what her skin would taste like and what she’d look like with her head thrown back and her eyes closed when she lost it under him.
“We should probably take it easy.” He wanted to lick her throat where her sweet voice came from.
“Is that a nice way of telling me whoa Nelly?”
She wet her lips. “Not necessarily.”
The remainder of the guts he hadn’t already spilled in her lap somersaulted. “Whoa Nelly. You mean, you’d consider...” he ran out of words. Not because there weren’t any left, but because there were too many that could be used to complete the sentence, and he couldn’t choose between the professional: ‘developing our relationship’, the benign, ‘letting me take you out’, or the new truth he suddenly knew was about to interrupt his romantically carefree life.
He wanted something more than a one night stand with this girl.
“Do you want to kiss me, Ant?”
He shook his head. The lie coming easy because the truth was foreign and dangerous. She freaking pouted, pushing that juicy bottom lip out. What was he supposed to say? His, “Fuck, yeah,” came out hollow and achy, like he’d chewed his tongue out.
She moved first. She leaned that extra bit forward, then stopped. He exhaled in surprise. Beer and God knows what other foul, half digested lamb chop smells must’ve been on his breath. She didn’t care. She licked her lips again. Shit, she was playing with him. Polite, reserved, cool, probably shy, private, Bree Robinson was playing with him. She put her hand on his cheek and ran her thumb over his bottom lip.
“Are you going to kiss me?” he choked out.
“I might.” He grunted as her other hand speared through his hair. “Do you want me to?”
“You would
, girl, if you were being nice.”
