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A smile pokes at my lips. “Thank you for listening, and for being here, and letting me come with you for Thanksgiving, and for everything.”
“Of course,” he murmurs. “After everything you’ve done for me, it’s the least I can do. You need a kidney, I’m your man.”
I laugh.
Luke grins at me, his hand flexing on my waist.
Our eyes lock, his gaze as warm as a physical caress.
He licks his lips and I stare at his mouth.
Shifting, his hand leaves my waist, trailing up toward my face, his arm stretching over me.
I lean into him, wanting his mouth on mine more than I want to breathe.
Then my lips connect with his shoulder.
“Oh.” His arm moves back down. “I was just, uh, reaching for the trash bag,” he says, his expression sheepish.
Heat floods my face. I cover my cheeks with both hands. “Oh, shit.”
I need a sinkhole to open up and swallow me and save me from this moment.
ChapterTwenty-One
Luke
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean, I mean, I know you don’t want anything to happen between us because of your past and—” I wave an ineffectual hand “—all of that.”
I should have kissed her.
I want to kiss her more than anything. With each passing minute, the rope of desire wrapped around me grows tighter and tighter.
“Right, I, um, I wasn’t trying tokissyou kiss you, I was just, you know, I wanted to thank you for listening to me and, uh, is there any water in here?” Her face is flushed.
“Listen, Mindy. We should talk about this.”
Her eyes are downcast. “Or not. We can pretend it never happened.”
I shift closer. “We both know there’s something between us.”
“Right,” she nods. “We should talk about it. Get it out in the open. We’re both adults. We can behave like grown-ups.”
I press my lips together. I don’t want to behave professionally. I want Mindy. I want her over me, around me, underneath me. I want to hold her hand and have the right to touch her in public. I want to fall asleep with her in my arms and wake up with her in my bed. I want all of it, but I know if I push her too much too fast, she’ll bolt.
I know she’s been burned, and she’s not wrong that if anything goes bad between us, or if it leaks to the press, it would be more harmful to her future than mine.
I would never want to put her in a position where she’s uncomfortable.
“I would be lying if I said I never had thoughts of what it might be like if we—”
“But we can’t.” She cuts me off, her voice overly loud in the small space. She winces. “I’m sorry. We have to be able to set aside whatever this is,” she motions between us with a hand, “and focus on work.
“Yeah. That’s smart.”
“We can do this. We can just not kiss each other, I mean how hard is that?” She chuckles, but the sound is forced. “I should go. We should go.” She rolls over, crawling out of the hidden room, and I follow her out.
After an awkward goodnight, she practically shoves me out of the den. I lean against the wall, breathing in the darkness, trying to calm my raging . . . everything.
