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He took my hand and led us down the back hallway and out the rear door until we were back on the streets of the city. He flagged down a taxi. Since the club was about to let out, there was a line of them ready to take drunk patrons home.
“You just left your teammates,” I said, not understanding this about-face.
“They’re grown men. They’ll manage.”
He was silent the rest of the taxi ride, and the more I sat there and thought about it, the more anger boiled inside me. He had the audacity to get mad at me for dancing with one of his friends? Since when did he think he was my father?
The taxi pulled up to the curb and I didn’t waste a second, letting myself out of the cab and stomping toward the building. His night doorman, Rowdy, hurried up out of his chair to open the front door for us.
“Hey, Rowdy.” I bowed my head and stabbed the elevator button.
“Miss Harrison. Mr. Greene.” He lowered his head in greeting.
“Thank you, Rowdy,” Xavier told him as he came to stand next to me.
His arm touched my shoulder, and as though everything he was feeling siphoned through our point of contact, I felt the torrent of feelings inside him. I wondered if this was all because it was the anniversary of his mom’s passing. She’d drowned in the lake by their childhood home when he was only eight. It had been early in our friendship, and he’d always kept those feelings close to his chest and I’d never pried. Maybe tonight was the night to do that.
The elevator arrived and we both stepped in. Xavier reached around me to press the button for his floor, and in doing so, his arm grazed my nipples. I inhaled a deep breath from the rush of heat that traveled between my thighs.
What was that?
When we reached his floor, I waited for him to open his door with his key, and when he did, he pushed the door open and motioned for me to enter first.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
I slipped off my heels as he stripped off his jacket and tie. I turned away and told myself to just go to bed and deal with this tomorrow when we were both sober, but I didn’t. I swiveled around to find him toeing out of his dress shoes.
“I’m gonna be honest, I’m not sure where you get off being mad at me.”
He concentrated on his shoes. “I didn’t like it.”
“Why? Because he’s your teammate?”
He went to his freezer and pulled a glass from his cupboard, pouring himself a glass of vodka. “I didn’t like seeing you with him.”
I threw my arms in the air. “That sounds like a you problem.”
He tipped back his glass and downed the vodka. “You’re not getting it.”
“Then explain it. Stop with this silent brooding you’re doing because you’re being an asshole. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He rounded the breakfast bar, his eyes on me with such intensity I found myself stepping back. Not because I was afraid of Xavier, but because the air had shifted, and tension was building between us. Almost like the electric feeling in the air a millisecond before lightning strikes.
“I didn’t like seeing you with him because it made me jealous as hell.”
“What?” The word fell from my lips in a rush.
After all these years, would this be the moment? During a drunken night of celebration, me dancing with someone else is what pushes us out of the friendship zone and into the romance one?
“I just spent the entire taxi ride convincing myself not to do this.”
My forehead scrunched up. “Do what?”
Before I could prepare, his hands clasped my cheeks, tilting my face up so he could dip down and kiss me. His lips were firm and not very welcoming at first. As if he wanted to make certain he felt nothing from our exchange. But then he tore his lips off me, and his hazel eyes ignited with something I’d never seen in them. I went to my tiptoes, and he pulled me into another kiss, but this time, his lips were soft, his tongue exploratory, begging for entrance. The minute I parted my lips, his hands left my cheeks and fell to the small of my back, pressing my body against his.
I’d fallen asleep on Xavier numerous times over the years, and I’d hugged him more times than I could count, but this was the first time I really felt the hardness of his chest with my breasts crushed against him.
Right as I was losing myself in him, he stripped his lips off mine. “I lost my mind seeing you out there with him.”
