Chapter Fifteen
Chap-ter Fif-teen
T he last time Adam’s face had been this close to hers, they’d been hav-ing sex. From the looks of him, most no-tably his flared nos-trils and his di-lated pupils, he wanted to have sex again.
She must have smiled, be-cause his lips widened ever so slightly be-fore part-ing. His eyes hooded, he low-ered his head even closer to hers. She could feel her pulse pound-ing, hear his rapid breath-ing and a part of her wanted to suc-cumb to de-sire and let their bod-ies take over.
But first she needed an-swers. And this wasn’t ex-actly a po-si-tion con-ducive to dis-cus-sion.
Press-ing on his chest, she said, “No.”
He reared back and the elec-tric charge in the air fiz-zled.
“No?”
She shook her head. “You can’t kiss me again un-til you an-swer my ques-tions.”
His shoul-ders drooped for a mo-ment. But when he met her gaze, she saw re-lief.
“I thought…” He clenched his jaw. “Well, never mind what I thought. I’ll an-swer your ques-tions. But first I owe you an apol-ogy.”
She curled up in the chair, now that she had room, and waited for him to sit on the sofa. In-stead, he paced.
“Why do you owe me an apol-ogy?”
“Be-cause you de-serve way bet-ter than drunk sex, and while it was amaz-ing, it’s not how I had planned our first time to be.” He ran his fin-gers through his hair, mak-ing it spiky and sexy.
“You planned our first time?” It wasn’t just her.
Adam raised his head. “Planned, imag-ined, fan-ta-sized. And none of those fan-tasies in-cluded my be-ing drunk. I haven’t al-ways acted in ways that might con-vince you, but Dina, you’re the one I want to be with, and for more than just sex, al-though I def-i-nitely want that with you as well. I want to go out with you on a real date. I want to go the movies with you and the diner. Hell, I even want to go to the gro-cery store with you, so we can buy in-gre-di-ents for a ro-man-tic din-ner that leads… well.” He smiled. “And that didn’t hap-pen, es-pe-cially last night. So I’m sorry.”
Her body filled with warmth. She didn’t have to rel-e-gate him to “friends only.” She could be her-self. “Well, it’s not as if you planned on your fa-ther scream-ing at you in pub-lic. He did scream at you, right?”
He gave her a hu-mor-less smile. “Yeah. So, what ques-tions did you want me to an-swer?”
Dina fid-geted. He was will-ing to an-swer her ques-tions. It was time to trust him and ac-tu-ally get an-swers. “So, about your dad…”
All the ten-sion re-turned to his shoul-ders. “What else is left to say about him? He’s a clod-pate, as you so aptly put it, and I’m done.”
“Why do I feel like there’s some-thing you’re not telling me?”
Adam flexed and un-flexed his fin-gers. “Some-one lied about whether or not I gave my para-le-gal some-thing to file. It didn’t get filed and I lost the case. The sit-u-a-tion took on a life of its own and is hurt-ing the firm’s rep-u-ta-tion. And it’s not the first time a case I’ve worked on got screwed up. But no mat-ter how much I beg him to be-lieve that I’ve changed and that it wasn’t me who screwed up,” Adam swal-lowed in dis-taste, “good old ‘clod-pate’ doesn’t be-lieve me.”
“But he seemed okay at din-ner.” Not any-one she’d want as a fa-ther, but not some-one who’d dis-be-lieve his own son.
“He’s great at putting on a show.”
“Why is he so set on not be-liev-ing you?”
Adam sighed. “Hon-estly, I’m cocky, and I prob-a-bly cre-ated part of the prob-lem. I was care-less in the past. But I’ve changed, only he doesn’t see it—isn’t will-ing to see it—es-pe-cially now. Speak-ing of now, do we have to con-tinue talk-ing about him?”
She wasn’t fin-ished. “What are you go-ing to do about your pro-mo-tion?”
Adam nar-rowed his gaze. “I’ll fig-ure it out. I don’t re-ally know. What I do know is I want to kiss you.”
He leaned over and pressed his lips against hers, mov-ing his mouth against hers as if he was draw-ing the kiss out of her in slow, deep pulls. This time she didn’t stop him. This time, his mouth didn’t taste of whiskey. This time, his lips were gen-tle. He ran his hands through her hair, mas-sag-ing the back of her scalp. When she opened her mouth to moan at the de-li-cious chills run-ning through her body, he licked his way into her mouth, ex-plor-ing her and get-ting to know her by taste.
It was glo-ri-ous and she wanted him.
And then he pulled away, pant-ing.
“That was more like it,” he whis-pered, run-ning his thumb along her lower lip.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and reached to kiss him again, but as soon as her lips touched his, he pulled back.
“I can’t be-lieve I’m say-ing this, but no,” he said, adding space be-tween them. “We’re do-ing this the right way this time. Nice and slow.”
“I can kiss you slowly,” she said, shock-ing her-self at her own au-dac-ity. She must have shocked Adam too, be-cause he flinched and let out a low laugh.
“Yes, you def-i-nitely can.” He leaned for-ward and nipped her up-per lip be-fore once again pulling away. “But if we keep kiss-ing, it will lead to more. Right here, right away. I don’t want to rush any-thing. I want to dis-cover ev-ery-thing about you that I missed last night.”
Heat pooled low in her belly just lis-ten-ing to him. “So what does that mean?” she asked, her voice trem-bling with de-sire. She rose and rested her fore-head against his shoul-der.
“As crazy as it sounds, it means no more sex un-til we know each other in other ways. Much. Much. Bet-ter.”
Adam closed the door of his build-ing be-hind Dina af-ter promis-ing he’d call her tonight, re-turned to his apart-ment and took the first of what he sus-pected was go-ing to be many long, cold show-ers. Never be-fore had he de-nied him-self sex as he was do-ing with Dina. But Dina was spe-cial and he wanted to do the right thing with her.
He di-aled Ja-cob’s num-ber.
“Hey, want to meet me at the driv-ing range?”
“Sure, when?” Ja-cob asked.
“One o’clock?”
“See you then.”
He pulled into the park-ing spot, grabbed his golf clubs and walked into the driv-ing range of-fice. Ja-cob was al-ready there. They walked to their cage, each car-ry-ing a bucket of balls. To their right was a teenage girl and her coach; to their left were sev-eral boys, each in their own cage. Adam waved at Ja-cob to go first. His friend ad-justed his stance, shifted his hips, and swung his club. The ball soared through the air, com-ing close to the two hun-dred yard mark. Af-ter ten swings, Ja-cob stepped aside.
“So, what’s go-ing on?” Ja-cob ad-justed his golf glove.
Adam bent to line up the ball on the tee. “My dad fired me.” Even ut-ter-ing the words brought a bit-ter taste to his mouth. He swung his club, watch-ing the ball skip over the ground and travel nowhere. Just like his ca-reer.
“What the hell did the bas-tard do that for?”
It was sat-is-fy-ing lis-ten-ing to an-other per-son speak about his dad that way, even though Dina had a bet-ter vo-cab-u-lary.
“I lost us a case be-cause some-thing that was sup-posed to get filed, didn’t. It’s my word against the para-le-gal’s, and well, my word doesn’t carry much weight. Un-for-tu-nately, hav-ing me in the of-fice made oth-ers think I was get-ting spe-cial treat-ment. Es-pe-cially be-cause all the par-ale-gals think I threw mine un-der the bus and am re-ly-ing too much on my name.”
He hit an-other ball. This time it sailed back-wards, hit-ting the roof be-fore rolling back down and land-ing two feet in front of him.
“Ass-hole,” Ja-cob said, watch-ing the golf ball.
“Ex-actly.”
He swung his club again. Fi-nally, it sailed straight and true, no more than one hun-dred yards, but at least it went in the right di-rec-tion.
“Nice swing.”
Adam nod-ded. He hit an-other seven balls be-fore switch-ing places with Ja-cob.
He took a deep breath. “So, I was won-der-ing if you might have any con-tacts I could speak to,” he said, as Ja-cob pulled out some balls with his club.
“New Jer-sey or New York?”
The Car-ib-bean. “New York prefer-ably, but I sus-pect I’m not go-ing to get to be too choosey.” He should have known his friend wouldn’t make an is-sue out of help-ing him.
“Don’t panic yet. Your dad’s known as a ball-buster,” Ja-cob said. “If you get a job in New York, are you go-ing to com-mute?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve al-ways wanted to live in the city, but lately…”
“What about Dina?”
He was fi-nally in a re-la-tion-ship that might last. Sud-denly, the city was less ap-peal-ing. “We can still see each other if I’m in the city, can’t we?”
“So, you’re see-ing each other now?”
Adam filled him in as Ja-cob con-tin-ued his flaw-less swing. He left out “love.” No one would hear that be-fore Dina.
“What’s she think about your get-ting fired?”
“She doesn’t know about all of it.”
Ja-cob sliced his ball far to the right. He swung around. “What part doesn’t she know about?”
“The be-ing fired part.”
“Why not? She knows you well enough not to care.”
Adam shrugged.
“Adz, you can’t do that to her. You have to tell her.”
A jolt of fear ran through him and his mouth dried. He did have to tell her, and based on what she knew al-ready about him and his fa-ther, she’d be on his side, not his fa-ther’s. But what if he couldn’t find an-other job? What-ever re-spect she had for him would be lost. An un-em-ployed guy wasn’t boyfriend ma-te-rial. The thought of her leav-ing made his palms damp. He had to tell her he loved her first. Then maybe she’d stay. “It’s a mis-un-der-stand-ing. I’ll straighten it out with her when the time is right. First I need a new job.”
“That’s a hel-luva se-cret to keep from some-one you care about.”
That was ex-actly why he couldn’t tell her. Not un-til he told her he loved her, and she loved him back. And even then…“I’ve got it un-der con-trol.” As long as she didn’t press too hard about last night.
They fin-ished each of their buck-ets. Be-fore they left, Ja-cob clapped Adam on the shoul-der. “I’ll email you some con-tacts, so don’t worry about that. But Adam, you need to tell her.”
Adam wrapped his hand around Dina’s as they walked to the movie the-ater. It was their first “of-fi-cial” date since his es-cape from the “friend zone.” He was de-ter-mined to do it right. Af-ter show-ing up with flow-ers—daisies, which she loved—and com-pli-ment-ing her on her out-fit—jeans and a bright pink sweater that made her lips look ex-tra kiss-able—they’d walked to the movie the-ater down the street.
He hadn’t once let go of her hand, be-cause he hated the thought of be-ing apart from her, even by a few inches. Man, he was a goner.
In-side, he paid for the tick-ets, awk-wardly do-ing ev-ery-thing with his one free hand, and tak-ing twice as long as if he’d used two.
She looked on and laughed.
Ja-cob’s ad-vice still rang in his ears. So he held on, de-ter-mined to make him-self the best boyfriend she’d known so that even when she even-tu-ally learned his se-cret—and he knew he would have to tell her at some point—she’d stay. And maybe love him as much as he was be-gin-ning to love her.
“Would you like pop-corn?” he asked af-ter they had their tick-ets.
“I hate get-ting ker-nels in my teeth. But go ahead if you want it.”
“Candy? Pret-zels? Na-chos?”
“I’m good.”
“Are you sure?” She was his girl-friend. He needed her to know she could have any-thing she wanted from him. The voice in his head laughed at him. Dude, you’re toast.
She turned to him, putting her free hand against his cheek and his heart stut-tered in his chest. He turned his face into it, so he could kiss her palm.
“Re-lax,” she said. “I don’t eat at movie the-aters. It has noth-ing to do with you. My par-ents were al-ways ob-ses-sive about our eat-ing habits, and it’s stuck with me, at least as far as junk food in a movie the-ater goes.”
He kissed her palm again. “You know I think you’re per-fect, right?”
The blush ris-ing on her cheeks was adorable and he vowed to make sure he caused it to ap-pear more of-ten. She looked away from him. No way. He took her chin in his hand and made her meet his gaze.
“Did your par-ents give you a hard time about your looks?” His blood boiled at the thought of it.
“I don’t think they meant to, but when you’re al-ready in-se-cure about your looks, it’s dif-fi-cult to brush off well-meant ad-vice.”
He drew her against him and gave her a hug. For as long as she was with him, he’d make sure she knew just how per-fect she was. She’d never feel in-se-cure around him again. When it was his turn in the con-ces-sion line, he or-dered him-self a bag of pop-corn and a soda, and walked with her into the movie the-ater. The the-ater had been re-cently re-done, with leather re-clin-ing seats, so the ex-pe-ri-ence was more like watch-ing a movie in one’s own liv-ing room than in a pub-lic the-ater.
As they waited for the movie to start, Adam wished they could share a seat.
She lifted the arm-rest sep-a-rat-ing their seats and scooted as close to him as pos-si-ble. Had she read his mind? With a smile, he put his arm around her and pulled her closer.
“This is bet-ter,” she said.
He nod-ded and made small cir-cles on the in-side of her wrist with his thumb.
“You’re go-ing to dis-tract me from the movie.”
He looked at the ads on the screen. “It hasn’t started yet.”
“Did you know the first movies were un-der a minute long when they were in-vented in the 1890s?”
He huffed. “No, I didn’t.”
The pre-views started and she faced for-ward. “This is my fa-vorite part,” she whis-pered.
Lights and col-ors flashed on the screen, but Adam saw lit-tle of it, other than through his pe-riph-eral vi-sion. He was too busy watch-ing Dina. Her lips parted as she fo-cused on the screen in front of her. For each pre-view, he could read her ex-pres-sion as sum-maries of each movie played—hu-mor, sur-prise, con-fu-sion.
He liked her con-fu-sion best. She had this adorable way of wrin-kling her nose, mak-ing fine lines be-tween her eye-brows and al-most chal-leng-ing him not to touch them. Later, he’d have to fig-ure out a way to make her get those wrin-kles back, just so his fin-gers could be the ones to wipe them away.
When the main fea-ture started—a ro-man-tic com-edy he’d thought she’d like—she leaned over and whis-pered in his ear.
“She looks like she could use a plate of pasta more than a boyfriend.”
He took a mo-ment to ex-am-ine the ac-tress. Dina was right. The A-list ac-tress was su-per skinny and al-though tra-di-tion-ally at-trac-tive, not par-tic-u-larly ap-peal-ing. He frowned. Be-fore to-day, he’d al-ways thought she was hot. In fact, a lot of the women he’d dated be-fore Dina re-sem-bled that body type. Her neck looked stringy, the veins in her arms ropey. When he held Dina against him, her curves had made him feel she was melt-ing into him, like the two of them were be-com-ing one per-son, even with-out sex.
When the ac-tress and ac-tor lit-er-ally bumped into each other on the street cor-ner, he leaned to-ward Dina. Her hair tick-led his face and he pushed it out of the way, more to give him-self an ex-cuse to touch it than be-cause it both-ered him.
“He’s prob-a-bly got bruises from her ribs.”
Dina buried her head in his shoul-der and trem-bled with laugh-ter. He squeezed her hand, his cheek twitch-ing from try-ing not to dis-turb any-one. The smell of co-conuts wafted from her hair and he fo-cused on trop-i-cal is-lands, sandy beaches, any-thing but her silent laugh-ter. Be-cause if he thought about that he’d laugh out loud, and they’d get kicked out of the movie the-ater. Fi-nally, she took a deep breath and pulled away, and while he was grate-ful for the ab-sence of her con-ta-gious laugh-ter, his body missed her close-ness.
They con-tin-ued to make quiet com-ments through-out the movie—she point-ing out “too stupid to live” mo-ments, he point-ing out how the male lead was equally treated as eye candy—un-til in-evitably, the cred-its rolled and the lights went on.
Some-how, dur-ing the length of the movie, their hands had be-come in-ter-twined and their legs, ex-tended in the red leather re-clin-ers, rested against each other. He didn’t want to move. Ever.
“That was a pretty ridicu-lous movie,” he said, as they fi-nally rose and filed out of the movie the-ater.
“Oh, but I loved it,” Dina said. “It was so ridicu-lous that it was en-ter-tain-ing. What I love about movies like that is you know ex-actly what you’re go-ing to get. There are no sur-prises, be-cause there isn’t much depth to the story or the char-ac-ters, but it’s ex-actly what you need at the time you’re watch-ing.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.” He gave her a side-ways glance, in-trigued by this amaz-ing, in-tel-li-gent woman who could find mean-ing and joy in any-thing she did.
“Good. Al-though we might need to dis-cuss the genre next time. There are only so many skinny bim-bos I can han-dle at one time.”
He took her hand in his. “True. And that’s just the guys.”
She laughed, and it was the sweet-est sound. On their way home, they stopped for frozen yo-gurt, get-ting cups to go and eat-ing while walk-ing.
Dina looked over at Adam’s cup of yo-gurt, which was pineap-ple and co-conut. “Um, we may have a prob-lem.”
Adam stopped dead. “What’s wrong?”
Dina’s lips twitched and the pres-sure in his chest eased. “You don’t eat choco-late. That could be a deal breaker.”
Adam pulled her to-ward him and handed her his yo-gurt.
“My not eat-ing choco-late is a deal breaker?” He drew him-self up so he was as large as pos-si-ble and looked down at her, fo-cus-ing on her lips. There was a spot of choco-late, and he took his fin-ger, drag-ging it across her mouth to wipe the choco-late away.
She nod-ded her head.
With the back of his hand, he ca-ressed her cheek. Her skin was so soft and warmth pooled in his belly. “I would have thought that would be a good thing.”
“Wh…” She cleared her throat. “Why?”
He licked his fin-ger, slowly, watch-ing her mouth drop. “Be-cause you don’t need to share.”
He bent his head to-ward her and kissed her cold lips that tasted of choco-late. In the back-ground he heard a “plunk,” but to in-ves-ti-gate would mean pulling away from her and he wouldn’t do that. The co-conut scent of her hair mixed with the co-conut fla-vor of his yo-gurt and he couldn’t get enough of her. Af-ter what could have been hours or sec-onds, she pushed against his chest and he took a step back, his breath in short gasps.
“I dropped the yo-gurt.”