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“I was wondering the same thing,” Abi said faintly.
“I mean, I didn’t just encourage you back here to talk about guinea pigs,” Ilan said, his head dipping closer to hers. They were so close in height that he didn’t have to go very far. Abi’s fingers flexed on his chest, her index finger so close to the place where the Henley buttoned that she wondered if she could get away with touching his bare skin the way he teased hers just under the hem of her cardigan.
“No?” she said because she felt that she needed to say something.
“Noble beasts, though they may be,” he said, his tone a little faint now as well.
Abi’s eyes flicked to his, and she realized she needed to breathe. Somewhere between remembering his touch on her bare skin and wondering if she could do the same to him, she’d forgotten she needed oxygen.
“We can’t make out in the middle of the Co-op,” Abi said.
“Right,” he murmured, his hand leaving her side to touch her glasses. Abi bit her lip as he gently lifted them off her face, repositioning them so that they were pushed back on top of her head like sunglasses.
“People can see us,” she pointed out, though she didn’t think it was as true as it had been earlier. There was the display of plants. And his body blocked her fairly neatly. To see out of the windows of the small room, she would have to crane her neck, so likely people couldn’t see her at all. But she knew better than to bank on that. Not in a town this size.
“We’re not going to make out,” he said, his fingers smoothing an unruly tendril of hair behind her ear.
“We’re not?” she said, hoping he wouldn’t hear the disappointment in her voice.
“No,” he said, his thumb tracing over a light smattering of freckles on her cheek, “but I am going to kiss you.”
Oh good, she thought, right before his lips touched hers.
* * *
Ilan had no idea why he’d decided that approaching Abi Meyer was a good idea, but he’d watched her come in. He’d seen her circle the produce section. And then he’d seen her put enough lettuce and green pepper in her cart to feed a family of six linebackers, so he got curious.
And she didn’t disappoint.
For some reason, Abi Meyer got incredibly prickly over the smallest things. Ilan was fully aware he was goading her, but he couldn’t help himself. He loved watching her internal struggle—the fight between remaining rational and calm, or just saying whatever it was she was thinking. The fact that whatever she was thinking was usually hilarious definitely helped.
Regardless, when he approached, he hadn’t been intending to kiss her. Or, that was to say, he hadn’t intended to kiss her in the middle of the Co-op. He knew she needed the appearance of respectability. The woman ran a kid’s school, the last thing she needed was rumors she picked up strangers at bars and bonked their faces off in the parking lot.
Though, exactly as he’d told her, they’d known each other since they were middle schoolers, so they weren’t strangers.
He still wasn’t sure how they ended up in the parking lot that night. If she’d asked him prior, he would have told her he wasn’t looking for sex. But there had been that ridiculous argument in the bar—he didn’t evencareabout old music, he only knew anything about it because his brother was a musician. It was just that she took it so seriously. And she really did make it so easy. So he poked the proverbial bear.
And then she’d made like a heat-seeking missile and gone for his face.
And then she pulled back before he knew what was happening.
Of course, he’d gone after her. More to make sure she was okay than to askwhat the fuck,butwhat the fuckhad also occurred to him. Once they were outside, she looked so conflicted he’d almost apologized, though he wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. But then, she was kissing him, and his hands were in her hair, and she tasted like whatever terrible mixed drink she’d been having, something with Maraschino cherries, or maybe just a cherry syrup.
Anyway, it had been her idea to go to the car, and he’d considered stopping, but Abi Meyer knew what she wanted, and frankly, at that time, he’d wanted the same thing so why not?
He hadn’t done anything but think about it all weekend.
It was a good thing he wasn’t the person operating any of the equipment on the job site either, his mind had been miles away for the better part of the day. His foreman could see it, though he was too much of a professional to ask.
Just now, Abi’s lips under his tasted like mint, and coffee. Her hair tangled over his fingers and he tugged at the base of her skull, gentle, but insistent. She nipped at his bottom lip and he grunted, his other hand leaving the shopping cart to grip her cardigan. Abi’s own fingers were tangled in his shirt, her body pressing flush against him.
He’d never met a woman who could look so buttoned up and so wantonly sexy at the same time. She was wearing one of those sweaters that secretaries in the sixties wore, for fuck’s sake. Every single button done up, and it had those pins on it with the chain at the collar to draw attention to the fact that she was definitely wearing a closed sweater. It should have been terrifying, like an avenging librarian, instead, she looked like Audrey Hepburn.
Abi moaned. A little, soft sound that he’d kill to hear again. He kissed her harder, pressing his body into hers, and her body into the cart. Not enough to be painful, just enough to show he meant business. Her fingers slid under the hem of his shirt, and he definitely growled. It was a sound he couldn’t ever remember making before, but it was proprietary, and he wasn’t apologizing for it. Her fingers scratched at his bare belly and up, further under the shirt.
Fuck, he would love to do the same to her, but she was wearing a tight, skinny belt over the cardigan. Not even a belt through her jeans like a normal person, but a belt over the stupid sweater that was already buttoned up, and also had that chain on it, to show to anybody curious that yes, she was most definitely strapped in.
No stray bits of skin anywhere for Abi Meyer.
