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“You can work here. I have to work, too. We’ll order in dinner. Cat.” He softens his voice. “I want you to stay.”
He says these words as if they are a confession, but a confession of what? Needing me? Wanting me? He’s already said those things. I search his face, looking for an answer, when I don’t even know the real question, and for the first time since we met, I see the shadows in the depths of his stare: the hints of damage, maybe even pain, that he’s hinted at but I’ve dismissed. I don’t dismiss them now. I wonder if I’ve missed them or if he’s chosen to show them to me now. My chest tightens with this possibility, with the idea that he might be willingly exposing a piece of himself to me, no longer allowing me to call him a stranger. Yes. I believe he is, and this matters to me. I am naked with this man in ways I did not intend to be, but I’m still sitting here, wanting more of him.
“Stay,” he repeats. “I want you to stay, Cat.”
“Yes,” I whisper and I could leave it right there, but for reasons I don’t understand, it doesn’t feel like enough. “I want to stay.”
His eyes warm with my response and there is a shift between us in that moment. I feel him becoming more to me than I planned, and maybe I am to him as well. I can’t be sure. I don’t know. All I know is that my guard is too easily falling, and every warning I’d issued in my mind about “men like Reese” feels as wrong as tonight, and this man feels right.
He reaches up and brushes hair behind my ear. “God, you’re beautiful, Cat,” he murmurs, a raspy, tormented quality to his voice that says more than the compliment.
I am shaken by the spontaneity and emotion in his words and the rush of emotion I feel in response. I reach forward and curl my fingers at his jaw. “Everyone starts as a stranger,” I say, and this time I don’t go on, I don’t tell him how easy it is to be naked and still alone. I don’t tell him how easy it is for lies to read like truth.
He cups my hand and leads it to his lips, where he kisses it. “And everyone who matters once did not.” His lips curve, the mood shifting between us once again, lightening with the mischief that is suddenly in his eyes. “Will you tell me your secrets, Cat? Pepperoni or no pepperoni?”
I laugh. “Most definitely pepperoni,” I say, not sure any man has taken me on a whirlwind of emotions like this one. “What about you?”
“Double pepperoni,” he says quite seriously, before kissing my hand and setting it on my leg. “There’s a place on the corner that can have it here in thirty minutes.”
“I’m in love with the idea of pizza,” I say, “but I hate I’ll have to work while we eat.” I grab my phone and look at the time. “Yikes. I can’t believe I’ve left myself two hours to make press deadline. I’m not used to a Friday deadline. This is a special edition for the trial this week.”
“Because of the trial and my failure to nail a dismissal,” he murmurs under his breath before adding, “I need to work, too. Do you want to order now or wait until you’re about thirty minutes from finishing up?”
“Do you mind waiting?”
“Not at all. Better yet, the restaurant downstairs makes a killer sandwich tray I order on later nights. Why don’t I order that? It has, like, six different options. Then there is no pressure as to when to order or eat.”
“Even better,” I say. “I like that idea.”
“Do you want something to drink? Wine or—”
“No alcohol, please,” I say. “Just water if you have it. I don’t want to get sleepy.”
“I most definitely don’t want you to get sleepy. I’ll order a pot of coffee.”
I laugh at his extreme swing. “That actually sounds good.”
He tugs his phone from his pocket and punches a button, and quickly orders. “Done,” he says setting his phone on the coffee table. “Do you want to work here or do you need a desk?”
“Where are you working?”
“Right by your side, sweetheart.”
I’m surprised by how much I like this answer. Maybe more than I should. But “more than I should” could be my theme song with Reese. “Do you need a desk?”
“I’m going to catch up on e-mail, so I’m fine here.”
“I’m eying a spot on the floor in front of the coffee table.”
“I’ll grab my MacBook and join you.” I think he will get up, but he’s suddenly leaning in and cupping my face, his breath a warm tickle on my lips. “Just so we’re clear, Cat. I don’t invite women to my house. You wouldn’t be here if I planned to stay a stranger.”
“And if I say you have no choice?”
“Then I’ll kiss you a little deeper and fuck you a little harder, until you want to know me the way I’ve decided I want to know you. And that’s just for starters.”
He stands up and walks away, leaving my mind reeling with the most important question of this moment: How much deeper and harder?
Chapter thirteen
