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“Yes,” she said. “Sorry, I don’t have a filter. I just say things when I see them. It’s not a bad thing to have loved your brother and to miss him.”
He shook his head. “Is it bad to be mad at him for dying?”
She lifted her hand to cup the side of his jaw. “No. I think that makes you human.”
She leaned in and took the kiss she’d been craving all night since he’d walked into her shop looking so sexy and stirring emotions that she’d forgotten. She hadn’t been in lust or even serious like in a long time. Part of it was that she hadn’t been able to like herself but more than that, she hadn’t found anyone who had shaken her out of the role she’d cast herself in.
Until Max.
She pulled back and he watched her for a long moment and then cursed under his breath. “So do you want me to drive you home?”
“No. You’ll have to follow me home. My mom has a meeting in town early tomorrow and will use this parking lot. If she sees my car in it…”
“Then I’ll follow you,” he said.
She got out of her car and walked through the chilly late December air to her car. She got inside and turned it on, wondering when she’d suddenly decided to take chances again.
*
Max pulled intothe parking lot at Angelica’s town house. She’d stopped and told him where to park. He walked over to her place where she stood on the doorstep waiting for him. There was a Christmas wreath on the door and the light had been left on.
She was definitely not Ms. Scrooge, he thought. It made him wonder again why she’d called herself that. Was it that she thought everyone else saw her that way?
He wasn’t sure but wanted to find out more.
“Um, Cosima and I live together. She just texted she wasn’t coming home tonight so it’ll just be us,” she said.
“Have you changed your mind about me coming in?” he asked. He knew women sometimes did. Hell men did too, he thought, but he wouldn’t. That kiss in his car had made him realize that whatever else this night had been, he’d been turned on by Angelica the entire time. Her laughter had just been the flash of tinsel that had caught his attention and now he was hooked by everything about her.
“I haven’t. Just I saw your house and ours is small, and—”
He put his finger over her lips, stopping the rush of words. He wasn’t looking at her place and seeing it as anything other than Angelica’s home. “That isn’t something that matters to me. Why do you think it would?”
“I’m not sure. Old me wouldn’t have cared but having lived under the glare of public scrutiny for the last year or so, I’m not sure of myself anymore,” she said. “Lame, I know.”
“Human. Don’t beat yourself up for being real,” he said, taking her keys from her and unlocking the door. “Let’s go inside and see what happens.”
She gave a little laugh. “That’s your new mantra, is it?”
“Only with you.”
She smiled then and there was so much vulnerability on her face that he almost turned and left. He didn’t deal well with people who needed him. His brother’s death was a good example of that. And Angelica was starting to make him realize that he might not want to just wing it with her.
But it was too late. She wasn’t ready for more and honestly, he wasn’t either. He should turn around and walk right back out the door, except he was hot and hard and he wanted her. He could have let her go earlier before she’d turned in the car and kissed him.
Put her hands on his face and woke something inside of him that he wasn’t going to acknowledge. That need wasn’t one he was interested in examining. Sexual need, well that was familiar territory. Maybe if he slept with her then things would go back to normal.
She was just a woman. Granted hotter than anyone he’d noticed in a while. That was it.
Maybe if they had a holiday fling she’d get her mojo back and he’d be able to leave and not look back. There’d be no vulnerability nor this odd need to know more about her and her life. He could just be cool again.
“You have a very fierce look on your face,” she said as she took off her coat and hung it in the closet and then pulled out a hanger as she waited for his coat.
“I want you. I’m not going to pretend I don’t,” he said, as he shrugged out of his coat and handed it to her. She put his in the closet and then closed it, leaning back against the door.
“I want you too; that’s why I invited you back here.”
“I figured.”
