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“Sure.” Her voice is small, and I don’t dare look at her. Next thing you know, I’ll pick at her just to get her to fight me.
I stand then, and she does the same. We walk to the counter, and I pay before I follow her out to the parking lot. I want to touch her, place my hand on the small of her back, and guide her to my car.
But I refrain.
Barely.
“Thank you for dinner.” She points to the other side of the lot. “My car is over there, so I guess I’ll see you Monday?”
“Of course, and I’ll walk you over.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to. Gotta make sure you’re safe.”
She presses her lips together as she wrings her fingers into a tight knot. I walk beside her and fight every need to touch her. I can’t. I know I won’t stop if I do. When we reach her car, I watch her as she unlocks her door and then climbs in. As I expected, the skirt doesn’t cover much, and I get a great view of silky, tanned thighs. I want nothing more than to push her against the hood of her car and trail my tongue along her thighs. Taste her. Devour her. Make her scream my name.
I swallow past the lump in my throat as she waves to me. “Thanks again, Riggs.”
“Of course. Goodnight, Clara.”
“Goodnight.”
Then she drives away, leaving me out of breath and hard as stone.
I am so fucked.
CHAPTER 8
Clara
“So, you hooked up with him?”
I flash my sister a confused look. She’s standing by her closet, packing for her trip with the Bears. She lives in Coleson and Eliza’s place above their coffee shop, Drippy Drip, which we frequent a lot. I love their smoothies, which is why I’m sucking on one right now. Elliot and Alex didn’t change anything about the apartment since it’s not their home. The only difference is the abundance of Amazon boxes since Alex just ordered Elliot’s whole wish list for her. We haven’t had time to unpack or put anything together with the play-offs in full swing, but that’s the plan once the guys win the Cup.
I lean back on my elbows, crossing my ankles as Darcy sits obediently by Elliot’s door, watching every one of her moves. He is going to be the best cousin to my nephew. Ignoring my heart swelling, I ask, “Hooked up with whom?”
“Coach, of course,” she says almost in a tsk.
“No. Not at all.”
“Could have fooled me.” Her eyes are full of all kinds of unwarranted suspicion.
“What does that mean?”
“Clara, it was like only you two were there, and we just showed up. Not the other way around. It was insane how quickly the rest of the world just disappeared while you talked about golden paste for your dogs.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lying is now my forte.
I do know what she’s talking about. I know exactly how I felt as Riggs and I went on and on about food and then went into golden paste. It was as easy as breathing. There wasn’t a moment to think about breath; we just kept going. He’d tried to one-up me, but he isn’t as passionate as I am. He’s so reserved that he couldn’t go up against my excitement or my knowledge. I loved that he tried, though, and that he listened intently. That his eyes never left mine, not even when we were shoveling food into our mouths, trying to figure out what was different about our dishes from before. We even tried each other’s plates and agreed the meal didn’t have as much garlic as it should have.
It felt so fucking right, I didn’t want anything else but that moment.
I didn’t even notice that my sister had left, and I felt like a dick for not saying goodbye, but I was completely consumed by everything Riggs McCoy. I couldn’t stop. I wanted to know everything that was in his head. Even if it was just about veggies and dogs, he was talking only to me, looking only into my eyes, and seeing me.
I had his singular attention.
