Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Lou
The light is still on in the office after I’ve finished putting everything in order for tomorrow, and it pulls me in even though I know I should go. Nothing good is going to come from pestering Clay. He clearly wants to be left alone.
What can I say? I’m a self-destructive moth drawn to a sexy bug zapper.
He doesn’t look at me when I stand in the doorway, but the tips of his ears slowly go pink, and he tilts his head down even more, as if I’ll go away if he ignores me. I walk up to lean against the desk, right next to the chair he’s sitting in. “I thought you were a professional.”
His brows furrow. “I am.”
“You’ve been avoiding me since the sauna.” I should let it go. I don’t base my worth on how some man—or woman—perceives me. I don’t need Clay to validate me. So why am I here? What do I want from him?
He looks up at me, his eyes showing no sign of coldness or bored indifference that his expression suggests.
Goddammit. I like him. I’m not here for validation, I’m here for confirmation that he feels it too.
“If I were avoiding you,” he says mildly, “I’d be upstairs.”
I cross my legs. His gaze drops and lingers on my thighs. Warmth gathers low in my core at the way he’s looking at me. “So I didn’t break you.”
His lips quirk, and he slides his hand from the armrest to my leg, just above my knee. Very lightly, he drags his knuckles up my bare skin, almost all the way to the hem of my short shorts. The touch raises goosebumps in its wake.
His eyes flick up to meet mine, but drop immediately.
“It was good,” he says to my thighs, “but not that good.”
Liar. It takes everything I’ve got to keep from breaking into a giddy grin. “Says the guy who can’t make eye contact for longer than two seconds.”
The chair rolls back slowly, and he gets to his feet, stepping over mine to straddle my legs. He leans down, his hands on the desk, caging me and bringing us nose to nose.
Anticipation has my heart skipping a beat, and I lose the battle with my smile. “What are you doing?”
“One,” he says softly.
This close, his eyes have a bit of a deeper amber in all that golden honey. Framed with those thick brown lashes, they’re quite pretty. How did I ever find them cold? They’re warm like whiskey.
He continues to stare, unblinking. “Two.”
“A staring contest?”
“Proving a point,” he says in that same quiet tone. “Three.”
“How long are you going to stare into my eyes to prove a point?”
“However long it takes. Four…five…six…”
We’re so close—closer now than when he started this. His breath is warm and minty as he counts higher. By the time he hits fifteen, my gaze drops to his lips, my head tilts, and I’m caught in the undertow, pulled toward the inevitable.
But I’m not going to be the one to initiate another kiss.
I turn out at the last second, the fine stubble that coats his jaw scratching my cheek. “I don’t think you’re proving the point you’re trying to prove,” I whisper into his ear.
His hands curl over my upper arms, firm but not painfully so, as he pulls back.
One hand drops away, but the other—his eyes are on my shoulder, his fingertips tracing a circuitous route across my skin.
My tattoo. He’s studying the delicate, thorny vines between the full-blooming roses.
I shiver as his touch curves along my collarbone, where the vine terminates in a rosebud.
He doesn’t stop there, fingertips slowly moving up the column of my throat until they rest below my jaw. His thumb presses against my chin, tipping my face up slightly as he finally meets my eyes. “I’m not afraid of you, Louisa Gallo,” he says with infinite softness.
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper back.
His thumb lifts from my chin to press lightly against my lower lip. “Maybe you should be more scared of me.”
I should be. I’m a hot mess right now. I’m still reeling from the shock of Hayden’s betrayal and sudden return, not to mention my cousin selling my bar.
Encouraging anything with Clay is a mistake.
And yet I love how every interaction feels like foreplay, like we’re walking a knife’s edge.
It’s addictive. I lightly nip his thumb, and his hand settles very gently low around my neck, lingering for half a second before dropping to his side.
I stand. He doesn’t step back, and now we’re hip-to-hip. My hand is on his chest, his expensive shirt smooth under my palm. He exhales softly, and it sounds like a sigh. “I’ll walk you to the camper.”
No. I want to stay and see what happens next.
I could kiss him. I could sink to my knees and blow his fucking world off its axis again.
But he seems firmly in control of himself, and I don’t want to discover I’m not enough to snap his self-restraint.
So I nod and let my hand trail down his front as I step away.
I’m proud of myself for listening to that voice in my head warning me that it’s a mistake to get involved with Clay. Really, really proud. So proud. This is learning. Growth, even.
I thought Hayden was one of the good ones. He was quiet with a smoldering intensity I couldn’t ignore. A little rough around the edges, but I didn’t mind because he mostly treated me well.
Mostly?
By mostly treated me well, I mean he didn’t cheat on me or try to gaslight me all the time. He didn’t raise a hand to me or manipulate me. What a low bar.
Of course, he skipped out of town with my savings, so he didn’t even clear that one in the end.
Clay grabs a white bakery box off a filing cabinet, and I follow him into the hall and through the side door out into the night. It’s warm, muggy, and overcast. He turns on his phone’s flashlight as we step out of the circle of the motion-sensor security light at the back of the bar.
“Do you believe in the curse?” he asks as we walk around the gate blocking the old dirt road. He’s walking close enough to me that his arm brushes mine, and it doesn’t feel like an accident.
It takes me a moment to realize what curse he’s talking about, but when I do, I shrug.
“Do I believe it’s inevitable? No. Do I believe that my bad choices in romantic relationships always come back to haunt me?
Yes.” All the more reason I should ignore how badly I want him.
I don’t need a crystal ball to know it won’t end well.
But it could be fun.
Ugh, stop it, Lou.
“And yet you try?”
“You’ve seen my collection of romance books.” They’re still in the bookcase upstairs. Despite how heavy tonight feels, I laugh. “I was so smug. The curse was always about shitty men, and I’m bi, so I thought I could opt out.”
“Let me guess. Your taste in women is just as bad as your taste in men,” Clay says.
I glance at him as his arm brushes mine again. “It’s like you can see into my soul,” I say dryly, but he’s not wrong. I am hopelessly attracted to people who aren’t good for me.
Clay shudders. “Dear god, I hope not.”
We’re nearly to the clearing where the camper is parked, and I’m not ready to be alone yet. “At the end of the day, I’m a romantic. I want to fall in love and live happily ever after. But I’m also a realist.”
“What about Milo?” Clay asks, trying to sound casual.
“We were convenient for a while. What about you?”
He trips on something in the dark but easily regains his footing. “Me? What about me?”
“I assume you had girlfriends or boyfriends in your life.”
“Not since high school.”
“Seriously?” The clearing opens up before us, the metal accents on the camper glinting as the light from his phone catches them.
“Not many people are okay with their boyfriend spending a lot of time with other men and women, even if fucking is off the table. And I didn’t want to take it off the table.”
The tone in his voice makes those words a warning, and yet I snag on the past tense. He didn’t want to then. Maybe his feelings have changed. “That would be a challenge, but not a deal-breaker for everyone.”
“Maybe,” he says, taking a deep breath, “it was a deal-breaker for me.”
The thought of him aching and yearning for more, yet believing it to be out of his reach, pulls at my heart. But maybe I’m projecting.
We reach the door of the camper, and I unlock it, opening the door just enough to flick on the lights without letting in the hordes of mosquitoes already buzzing around us.
“Here,” Clay says, thrusting the box at me. “Since your worthless ex is back in town.”
I frown at the box. “Is it a knife for stabbing him?”
The look he centers on me is pure exasperation. “It’s cherry pie, you murderous gremlin.”
My stomach rumbles. “Cherry pie? You made it?”
“No, the lady at the grocery store bakery made it,” he says with what I take to be feigned impatience.
“Anabelle doesn’t do a cherry pie,” I say, because she doesn’t. Never has, as far as I know. “Did you special order this for me?”
“Don’t be daft.” The lights from inside illuminate his scowl, and maybe it’s the sugar rush I’m about to enjoy, but even his scowl is handsome.
“For yourself?”
“It was her weekly special. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it back.”
He reaches for the box, but I twist my body to protect it. “Nope, it’s mine. Special order another.”
A ghost of a smile flickers across his lips, and he takes a step back. “Goodnight, Louisa. Enjoy the pie.”
I find myself smiling too, as I step inside the camper.
Because you like him.
Fine, I like him. I like the chemistry between us. I like the way he teases me, challenges me. I like the glimpses I catch under the jaded facade. I want to open him like a book and study each page, learning something new every time.
I don’t like that he’s laundering money. Or that he lied about that money.
Love and I don’t mix, so I should lock my heart up tight. Except it might be too late.