The Perfect Deception (The Perfect Match #3)

Chapter Thirteen

Chap-ter Thir-teen

W ait-ing was hard. Dina picked up her phone and put it down on the ta-ble next to her bed three times, be-fore grab-bing a book and march-ing into the liv-ing room to read. But her mind wouldn’t fo-cus on the words. It was fo-cused on sharp green eyes, tawny hair, and warm skin that smelled like cloves.

She couldn’t stop think-ing of Adam, which was an-noy-ing re-ally, since she shouldn’t be think-ing of him at all. They were only friends, at her in-sis-tence. And even if she did think of him—and friends thought about each other—she most cer-tainly wasn’t sup-posed to think about pud-dles of goo. Be-cause that’s how he made her in-sides feel, in a de-li-cious, warm, tingly kind of way.

And that couldn’t hap-pen.

So she left her phone—her life-line en-abling her to hear his voice once more—where it lay in her bed-room and once again tried to fo-cus on the cozy mys-tery she was read-ing. She couldn’t re-mem-ber the plot. She could barely re-mem-ber the mys-tery. She did know there was a cat, be-cause the de-scrip-tion of it in the book re-minded her of Adam’s soft cash-mere sweater, the one he’d worn the last time they’d eaten to-gether.

Ugh!

It had only been a day since she’d last spo-ken to him. She’d come to de-pend on his daily calls. Usu-ally, he called around seven-thirty. Seven forty-five if he was busy. But it was eight-thirty and he hadn’t called her yet.

Would he?

Maybe she should call him. Friends did that. She and Tracy were friends and they called each other all the time.

Ex-cept Adam was a guy. Would he look at her phone call as an ad-mis-sion of her at-trac-tion to him? Be-cause even she was hard put to deny her at-trac-tion to him any longer, even if she didn’t want to an-nounce it.

They had an ar-range-ment, and act-ing on her at-trac-tion would com-pli-cate things and make her seem pa-thetic.

She flung her book across the room, and then raced to get it. Pick-ing it up off the floor, she brushed it off and ex-am-ined it to make sure it wasn’t dam-aged. Li-brar-i-ans didn’t throw books. It was against their code of con-duct. The only thing worse than throw-ing a book would be to dog-ear the pages. She was pretty sure they’d re-voke her mas-ters in li-brary sci-ence for that.

Plac-ing the cozy mys-tery on the end ta-ble, she walked back into her bed-room and picked up her phone. This was crazy. She’d call him. She could al-ways plead a wrong num-ber.

She di-aled his num-ber and held her breath while she waited for him to pick up.

“Heyyyy, it’s Adam! Leave a mes-sage!”

Dina ex-haled and hung up be-fore the beep sounded, which would have re-quired her to leave a mes-sage. Only she didn’t have one. Be-cause any-thing she said would make her sound des-per-ate and clingy.

Later that night, just as she was about to go to sleep, her phone rang.

“Hey, Di-naaaa…”

Adam’s voice slurred. He was drunk.

“Adam?”

“I called you be-fore,” he said. “No, wait, you called me. Right?”

“Right. But it wasn’t im-por-tant. We can talk to-mor-row.” Hav-ing a con-ver-sa-tion with him when he was drunk wasn’t fun.

“No, should…should talk now.”

There was si-lence and Dina waited for him to con-tinue. When he didn’t, she sighed. “Adam, let’s talk to-mor-row.”

“You have a pretty voice, d’you know that?”

She sighed. “Thank you.” Why was he drunk? “Are you hav-ing a party?”

“Hah! No, I’m not hav-ing a party. A party would be fun. I’m not sup-posed to have any fun.”

This was new. “Why not?”

“Nev…mind.”

Dina paused. If you got past the fact he was drunk and you ig-nored the slurred, sloppy speech, there was some-thing off in his tone of voice. He was try-ing to be a happy drunk and fail-ing. Why was he call-ing her when he was drunk? Maybe some-thing was wrong.

“Can I come over?” she asked.

“Why do you wanna come here?”

The Adam she knew wouldn’t have asked why. There was def-i-nitely some-thing wrong. “I want to see you.”

“You want to party? The lib…libar…book lady wants to party?”

She’d laugh if he were sober. “Can I come over now?”

“Shh-hur-rrre.”

Throw-ing on jeans and a long-sleeved pink T-shirt, she grabbed her keys, black leather purse, and pea coat and ran out the door. The streets of Mor-ris-town were quiet at this time of night—it was af-ter eleven—and she made it to the lobby of Adam’s high-rise apart-ment in less than ten min-utes. The guy be-hind the se-cu-rity desk in the mar-ble and mir-rored lobby called up to his apart-ment and nod-ded to her.

She rode up in the el-e-va-tor, jig-gling her car keys in her hand and tap-ping her sneaker-clad toe on the gold car-pet as the el-e-va-tor crept up to Adam’s floor. She glanced around briefly at the fa-mil-iar hall-way as she got her bear-ings—black car-pet with sil-ver flecks that was plush enough to deaden her foot-steps; gray walls with white trim; and ge-o-met-ri-cally shaped mir-rors in-ter-spersed along the hall-way—as she won-dered whether or not this was a good idea.

She knocked on the door and it swung open as if he’d been wait-ing for her.

“Di-naaaaa!” He reached for her and stum-bled and she half hugged, half caught him, push-ing him back into his apart-ment and shut-ting the door be-hind her.

He smelled like a dis-tillery and his hair was spiked as if he’d run his hands through it nu-mer-ous times—the way she’d fan-ta-sized do-ing her-self.

“Adam, what’s go-ing on?”

“We’re hav-ing a party!”

She frowned. “No we’re not.”

“Don’t bring it down, Dina. You said you wanted to party.” He grabbed her hand and stum-ble-danced down the hall. He gripped her against him and she could feel his heart-beat against her chest. They banged into the wall and she winced.

“Oh, shit, Dina. Are you okay?” His gaze grew sur-pris-ingly clear and his eyes re-flected his worry for her for a mo-ment be-fore glaz-ing over again.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Maybe we should sit down, though.”

He took her hand and led her into the liv-ing room. Once again, the heat from his hand warmed her en-tire body. She tried not to fo-cus on it.

He sprawled onto a black leather sofa and pulled her down be-side him. Now the sides of their bod-ies were touch-ing, from their shoul-ders to their hips and thighs. That was even worse.

“Bet-ter?” he asked. He hadn’t let go of her hand yet and he be-gan play-ing with it, run-ning his fin-gers along her palm and wrist, and driv-ing her crazy. Mr. Flashy-pants was also the King of Dis-trac-tion.

“Tough day?” she asked.

“Don’t wanna talk about it.” He frowned, his gaze fo-cused on her hand. “Your skin is so soft.”

His body was close enough to her, she could al-most hear his heart-beat. Or was that her own pulse rac-ing in her ears? “Thank you.”

“Why do you put up with me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just go-ing to chase you away.”

“I doubt it. Did you have din-ner with friends tonight?” She needed to fo-cus and fig-ure out a way to get to what was both-er-ing him. The di-rect ap-proach wasn’t work-ing.

“Tried to.”

“What’s that mean?”

“My dad showed up at the restau-rant and made a scene.” She raised her eye-brows.

He lifted his whiskey glass to his lips, but it was empty, and he started to rise. She pulled at his waist-band and he fell back onto the couch. “Oh, is that what you want?” He leaned to-ward her, his breath a mix-ture of whiskey and him. She pushed against his chest un-til he was once again sit-ting next to her.

“First, tell me why your dad made a scene.”

He glared at her, but didn’t move.

His eye-brows were caramel-col-ored, a shade deeper than his hair and she pressed her hands to-gether to keep from run-ning her fin-ger along his brow. “He said I needed to learn my les-son.”

“What les-son?”

He lurched off the sofa and over to the side-board, where he sloshed whiskey into his glass. “Want one?”

She shook her head. Some-one had to stay sober.

Ap-par-ently, he’d over-ruled her, be-cause he brought the glass over and handed it to her. “Drink up.”

She took a sip and the am-ber liq-uid burned her throat. Cough-ing, she held the glass out to Adam, who banged it on the mar-ble cof-fee ta-ble, re-liev-ing her of hav-ing to drink any more of it.

“What les-son, Adam?”

He fo-cused his trou-bled green eyes on her and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, and prom-ise that ev-ery-thing would be al-right. He rose, banged his leg on the edge of the ta-ble and paced the room. She knew the only way he’d feel bet-ter is if he got out what-ever was tor-ment-ing him. In-stead, his jaw was clenched, his body rigid and he wouldn’t look at her. Each time their gazes met, his took off in a dif-fer-ent di-rec-tion.

But he con-tin-ued to re-turn to her and she knew it was only a mat-ter of time be-fore he had no choice but to stop and talk. So she waited.

Af-ter a few more cir-cuits around the beige area rug, he sank onto the couch next to her, his fore-arm cov-er-ing his eyes.

“What les-son?” she asked again.

“Hon-or-ing the fam-ily name.” His voice was low and a lit-tle fuzzy, but un-der-stand-able.

“Why would he think you weren’t?” What kind of fa-ther would say that in pub-lic?

“Screwed up three cases. No one wants ta work wi me. Giv-ing firm a bad name. Time for me ta get out on my own.”

“Did you talk to him? Find out what you can do to fix things?”

“Does’n mat-ter. Can’t change his mind.”

“You did say you wanted to get a job in Man-hat-tan.”

“Ha!” It sounded more like a bark, re-ally, and he jumped up, again. “Like I’ll get any sort of ac-cep…ac-cept-able ref’rence now.”

“I’m sorry, Adam. What can I do?”

He squinted at her. Loom-ing over her as he was, she felt at a dis-tinct dis-ad-van-tage, so she rose. Still, she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze—not that star-ing at the col-umn of his throat was such a bad thing, es-pe-cially where it dis-ap-peared into the col-lar of his shirt.

She swal-lowed. This was ridicu-lous. She was here, in Adam’s apart-ment, to make him feel bet-ter, not to come up with more rea-sons to fan-ta-size about him. Dina met his gaze.

His eyes had dark-ened, pupils wide. This close to him she could see the stri-a-tions of brown and green in his irises, the in-di-vid-ual lashes around his eyes and the mus-cle that jumped around his cheek-bone as he clenched and un-clenched his jaw. She swal-lowed again.

“Who are you?” he whis-pered.

“You know who I am.” She wanted to cup his face and stroke his cheek.

As if read-ing her mind, he lifted his hand, but in-stead of stroking her cheek, he ran his fin-gers through her hair, squeezed the curls and re-leased them. His hands weren’t gen-tle, but each tug of her hair sent rip-ples through her body. He slid his fin-gers over her scalp and around the back of her neck, and she sti-fled a moan. Shiv-ers ran down her spine and she in-haled, lean-ing to-ward him. Her breasts brushed against his chest. Her head jerked as they tin-gled on con-tact.

“Yurre the only one who’s ever be-lieved in me, the only one who hasn’t left,” he whis-pered. “Why?”

“Be-cause I care,” she whis-pered.

He low-ered his head close to her. His lips were so close to hers, their breath min-gled and it would take barely any move-ment at all for them to meet.

He was go-ing to kiss her. Or maybe she was go-ing to kiss him. She couldn’t tell at this point. All she knew was it was go-ing to hap-pen. De-spite her best ef-forts to pre-vent it, de-spite all her rea-sons it shouldn’t, it was hap-pen-ing.

He was drunk but she didn’t care.

When their lips fi-nally met, she melted, like but-ter left out-side on a ninety-five de-gree day. His mouth was firm and de-ci-sive. It brushed hers, back and forth and she opened for him. When she did, he swiped his tongue along her lips and delved deeper into her mouth. She did the same, tast-ing the whiskey. They ex-plored each other’s mouths to-gether, each of them thrust-ing and re-ced-ing in equal mea-sure. She re-mem-bered learn-ing in bi-ol-ogy that the tongue was the only mus-cle in the hu-man body that worked with-out the sup-port of the skele-ton, but she was loathe to men-tion that now—if she did, Adam might stop what he was do-ing and it was too de-li-cious to stop. He brushed his hands up and down her back, and she imag-ined what it would feel like to have his hands on her bare skin.

She rested her hands on his shoul-ders, feel-ing the flex of his sleek mus-cles be-neath her palms, be-fore let-ting them drift along his neck to cup his jaw, like she’d wanted to be-fore. Her fin-gers played with his ear-lobes and threaded through his hair and he groaned against her mouth.

“Dina.”

He grabbed her el-bows and backed her up against the wall with-out break-ing con-tact with her mouth, and she was grate-ful for the sup-port. Her knees felt like a jel-ly-fish and with-out the wall, and his hands, she would have dis-solved onto the floor.

If he never got an-other lawyer job, he could hire out as a pro-fes-sional kisser. Or maybe not, since he’d have to kiss other women and she wanted him all to her-self. She pressed her body against him, her soft-ness melt-ing into his hard-ness as he grabbed her hips.

She shifted and his breath caught. He pulled away from her mouth and trailed kisses along her jaw and down her neck, suck-ing her skin, no doubt leav-ing marks. Let-ting her head fall back, she gave him ac-cess and he con-tin-ued kiss-ing his way south to her col-lar-bone. She whim-pered and ran her hands up and down his ribcage, feel-ing the play of his mus-cles be-neath his shirt. She hooked her fin-gers in his belt loops, lock-ing him to her, and ro-tated her hips against him.

He hissed and pulled the hem of her shirt, loos-en-ing it enough to slide his palms be-neath it. Fi-nally, he was touch-ing her bare skin, leav-ing a trail of heat in their wake. She growled and took his lips be-tween her teeth, nip-ping them and mak-ing him chuckle.

“You’re as wild as your hair,” he said, plung-ing his tongue once again into her mouth.

Tak-ing a cue from him, she slid her hands be-neath his shirt. His skin was warm, and she ran her fin-gers over the ridges of his abs. When she reached his chest, she played with the hair there, and by the re-ac-tion of his tongue, he liked it.

“I want you.” His words formed al-most silently against her mouth.

Her whole body stilled. He was drunk. Would con-tin-u-ing this take ad-van-tage of their friend-ship?

Adam pulled away from her with great care, one body part at a time, as if he couldn’t bear any part of him to be sep-a-rated from her. De-sire and need matched her own.

With a nod, she pulled off her shirt.

He took a step back, swayed and reached for her. His hands landed on her breasts and his thumbs ca-ressed her nip-ples through her bra. She arched her back as her nip-ples tight-ened, and he of-fered a wolf-like grin.

“You like that.”

Over-come by the sen-sa-tions, she couldn’t speak. She nod-ded and reached for his shirt. Her fin-gers fum-bled with the but-tons un-til he ripped it open, pop-ping the rest of them. Out of the cor-ner of her eye, she saw them bounce on the fluffy car-pet, but she couldn’t avert her gaze from his mus-cu-lar chest.

Now she could see what her fin-gers had touched and she wanted more. Lean-ing for-ward, she licked his chest and he gasped.

“Woman, you’re killing me.” He dropped his head back with a groan and his hands shook on her shoul-ders.

With a low chuckle, she con-tin-ued, trail-ing her tongue and lips across his chest, tast-ing salt and sweat and man.

With-out warn-ing, he pulled away from her, bent down and with one arm around her shoul-ders and the other be-neath her knees, lifted her up as though she weighed noth-ing.

Dina knew that not to be true.

“What are you do-ing?” De-spite her state of un-dress, his body warmed her.

“Hav-ing my way with you,” he said, stalk-ing to the sofa and low-er-ing her onto it. He fol-lowed. She leaned against the back of the sofa and he braced his knees on ei-ther side of her hips, and stared at her. His gaze took in ev-ery inch of her and she re-al-ized he had be-come the hero in her very own ro-mance.

“You’re beau-ti-ful,” he said, and reached out to undo her bra clasp. When her breasts came free he filled his hands with them. If his thumbs had aroused her through her bra be-fore, they al-most sent her over the edge now.

She bucked and he tight-ened his thighs around her, fol-low-ing her body’s move-ments as if he were rid-ing her. Her hands rose rest-lessly and she reached for him. Shift-ing be-neath him, she felt him harden. Some-thing flut-tered low in her stom-ach.

“I need you now.” His voice was hoarse and he leaned away from her, un-do-ing his belt and yank-ing at his pants.

Oh my God, she was go-ing to see him naked.

Her heart thud-ded in her chest. She thought about stop-ping him, but that flut-ter-ing in-side her in-creased and all thoughts of stop-ping or slow-ing down dis-ap-peared. She wanted him, needed him, too. He climbed off her and watched as she wrig-gled her hips to re-move her pants. His nos-trils flared at her move-ments and within mo-ments, they were naked.

To-gether.

He pulled open a con-dom packet from the pocket of his jeans and laid her be-neath him. She stared up into eyes so green they were al-most emer-ald. Skin against skin, all kinds of tin-gling sen-sa-tions pulsed through her, ze-ro-ing in low in her belly as he rolled the con-dom on. He kissed her, open-mouthed and his tongue gave her a pre-view of what they would do. She ro-tated her hips and he trailed his hand from her cheek, along her neck, around her breasts down to where her body pulsed. His fin-gers teased her folds and her breath came in short gasps. He rose and hov-ered over her, the cool air be-tween them frus-trat-ing her. She needed him in her. Now.

As if hear-ing her silent de-mand, he low-ered him-self and en-tered her, paus-ing barely a mo-ment for her to ad-just be-fore rhyth-mi-cally mov-ing in-side of her. She stretched, try-ing to ac-com-mo-date him, want-ing to feel the pres-sure build once again. When he brushed his fin-gers against her, she gasped.

She ran her hands along his back, rev-el-ing in the feel of him as their hips rocked to-gether. His breath-ing grew heav-ier and she closed her eyes as her need built. He with-drew par-tially be-fore plung-ing in-side of her once again, and the pres-sure that had built within her ex-ploded into shards of light be-hind her eye-lids. His cli-max fol-lowed closely be-hind hers, his shout echo-ing off the walls, be-fore he col-lapsed against her.

Their hearts beat to-gether as slowly their breath-ing calmed and their sweat cooled. He made lazy cir-cles on her arms as his head rested on her chest. She was bliss-fully spent and had no de-sire to move.

If she did, they’d have to talk about what they’d just done and why. They’d have to dis-cuss where to go from here.