Mindy and Adonis?
Dahlia
We almost kissed!
Vex and I almost kissed right in the middle of the street with the whole world watching. Well, not the whole world, but at least Mindy and Diane, and that’s two too many.
What was I thinking?
That he’s literally the sweetest, sort of, and sexiest man you’ve ever met.
We stop in front of a steak house. They can be frightfully expensive. This one looks nice, but not too nice. A good local’s spot.
“This place has the best steaks in town.” Adonis holds the door open as we step in.
“Doubtful,” Vex mutters under his breath.
I squeeze his hand. His jealousy is kinda cute. Though, to be fair, the steaks he got us that first night were phenomenal. But we aren’t here to find the best steak. We’re here to make friends. I need Vex to sit close enough to Adonis not to kill him, but for the two of them to engage in a friendly conversation .
Adonis moves to sit next to me. That’s not a good idea. Not good at all. “Mindy, do you want to sit next here?” I pat the chair.
“Sure.” She hurries over.
Adonis moves to the seat across from me.
Why couldn’t he have sat next to Mindy? If we could get him to fall for her, Vex would relax a little.
And somehow my life has become a middle school drama.
The chaos of ordering with a large group like ours gives my nerves time to settle down. Though not all the way, because Vex has an arm slung over the back of my chair. His finger is twiddling with a lock of hair on my shoulder.
It’s nice. Too nice for my brain to fully function and come up with an innocuous topic to talk about.
“So what do you do, Vex?” Adonis lifts his frosted glass of beer.
“Vex owns the hottest club in town,” Mindy answers before either of us can say a word. “That’s where they met. Isn’t it romantic?”
That night wasn’t at all romantic.
“Oh really? We all love a good story. Tell us.” Adonis takes a swallow and then leans forward expectantly.
Should I tell the story?
“There’s nothing really to tell.” Vex’s finger stops moving and settles on my shoulder, still wrapped in my hair.
“Oh, there’s a story. Vex kicked her out of the club after they met,” Diane chimes in from the other end of the table.
“It wasn’t quite like that. Vex had a limo take us home safely. Wasn’t that sweet?” Mindy thankfully changes the narrative.
Adonis’ eyes pass over her quickly before moving back to Vex. Does Adonis even see her?
Can a man like a woman if he doesn’t even see her?
That’s a question for another day. Right now, I need to change the narrative. “Vex always makes sure that the women in his club are taken care of. ”
“Women are always targets at clubs. The number of calls we get for drugged women at clubs is astronomical.”
Wait? What? Adonis is making it sound like that’s Vex’s fault. “Women get assaulted at parties. Should they stop being allowed to go to parties? Or do you think we should hold every person who throws a party responsible for a woman getting assaulted? Vex isn’t responsible for what evil men do. And even talking like that is insulting to all the men who stand up to protect a woman. Because that’s what he does every night.”
Adonis stares at me, unblinking.
“Did anyone hear about the call Marge got?” Mindy breaks the tension.
It seems if anyone can’t keep their cool, it’s me.
And I was worried about Vex.
***
There’s a car waiting as we step out of the restaurant. Vex opens the door for me and I slide in. It shouldn’t feel this unsettling to be driven around. I have a service take me to work every day.
But none of those men are trained killers.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Vex takes my hand, squeezes it, and then he wraps his arms around my shoulder, pulling me in close. It’s been a long day. I snuggle in and let my body relax.
There might be snow in a few weeks, but you couldn’t tell it from the bright lights and cement all around us. I miss foliage. If Vex was a normal boyfriend, we’d be talking about visiting my parents soon or traveling together in the future.
Is travel even an option for us? Vex said he never leaves town. Could there be something preventing him from leaving? Probation? Another crime lord?
Even thinking about that makes me wanna giggle and cry .
“That’s an awfully serious face.”
“My parents are on the beach right now.” Wow. Smooth. Really smooth.
The shadows and lights from the road outside play across Vex’s wrinkled brow. “Are they having a nice time?”
How would I know? “I like going on vacation.” Maybe not to the beach, but I like traveling once in a while.
Vex's frown turns into a slow, lopsided kind of smile.
“I know we’ve only known each other for a short period of time, but… um… we could… maybe…”
“Where would you like to go, Dahl?”
That means. “You can go on vacation. I mean, not tomorrow or anything, but eventually we could plan a vacation together.”
“Sure. Payne can cover for me.” Vex leans down and whispers in my ear, “You grab some bikinis and I’ll arrange everything else.”
The darkness hides the blush that steals up my face from Vex’s guards. “I hate the beach!”
“Noted.” Vex pulls me in closer.
My suitcases! “We have to go to my place to get my suitcases.”
“No, we don’t. I have everything you need at my place already.”
No.
No.
No. “We aren’t talking about your excessive spending and need to buy me things that are completely unnecessary.” But beautiful. “I need to go grab my suitcases.”
“Dahl, I have everything you could need. Don’t worry.”
Vex doesn’t understand. He can’t understand because I haven’t told him about my trip. Why have I kept it a secret this long? There were so many times that I could have mentioned it throughout the week.
But they were sweet moments .
Going on a work trip shouldn’t be a big deal, but something tells me Vex is going to make it a very big deal. There’s no more time to procrastinate. “We need to talk.”
“Not here.” Vex nods towards the men in front.
The walls quite literally have ears.
This is going to be the longest car ride ever.
***
Twenty minutes later as the elevator doors slide open to reveal Vex’s penthouse, he scoops me up into his arms. “What are you doing?”
“It’s your tradition to have campfires with bad news, and it’s my tradition to hold you in my arms when you tell me something bad.”
“Since when have you had this tradition?”
“Since today.” He sinks down onto the couch with me on his lap.
“This isn’t conducive to fighting.” Or thinking. How am I going to hold on to a single thought like this?
“Then don’t fight with me.”
“I’m not going to fight with you. You’re going to fight with me.”
“Dahl, just tell me.”
“We haven’t kissed yet.”
His rough groan makes my whole body shiver and almost lose my train of thought… “What I mean is this isn’t a serious relationship—"
“It’s serious. Very serious.”
How can I mess this up more?
“Dahl, whatever it is, just spit it out. We’ll deal with it and go to bed.”
You know how to make a girl melt inside. “I need my suitcases.”
He sighs. “Okay, if it’s that important, I’ll send a guy to grab them.”
And he’s sweet. “Not tonight. We can go after you take me to the bookstore tomorrow. ”
A grin tugs at his lips. His very kissable lips. What if I kissed him just one time?
One little kiss wouldn’t be wrong. It would feel very right.
Except there are too many secrets between us.
“What is swirling in that beautiful brain of yours?”
Tell him. “Those suitcases aren’t for your apartment. Well, a couple of them are, but a couple of them aren’t.”
“Try explaining that again, Dahl.”
“I’m flying out of Urbium Monday morning, and I won’t be back until Sunday night.”
“What?”
“Monday morning I’m going to the airport—”
“Where are you going and why didn’t you tell me until just now?”
Vex is definitely vexed with me. Why do I find his wrinkled brow so sexy? My hand moves of its own volition, and I trail a finger across his cheek.
“Dahl.”
“Don’t be mad at me. I don’t like it.”
He sighs. “I’m not mad at you. It would have been easier to make arrangements if you told me a few days ago, but I’m not mad. There’s one good thing about having a private jet. It can be ready on short notice.”
“You have a private jet?” How?
“Yeah, Dahl. I have a private jet.”
Jets cost money. A lot of money. Club owners in Urbium can make a lot of money, but not that money. “How?”
“Do you really want me to answer that question?”
No. Yes. No. Maybe. “Sort of.”
“Not everything I do is legal.”Vex doesn’t expand on that statement.
Mindy was right. I knew she was right. “Okay.”
“That’s it. All you have to say is okay?” His eyes widen and he pulls back slightly.
“I’m glad you told me. ”
“Dahl, you make no sense. A woman like you should be losing her mind right about now.”
“A woman like me?”
“Yeah, a woman that should have a white picket fence, a dog, and a man with a normal job that comes home every day, knowing just what a gift it is to have you waiting there for him.”
Is that what Vex dreams of? “I don’t want any man but you.” Though I could do without the illegal machinations, it’s part of who he is now. Maybe it won’t be in the future.
“You didn’t even ask what illegal things I do.”
“Do you want me to?”
The crease in his brow deepens. “Not really.”
“Then I won’t ask. I know the important parts of who you are.” Maybe if I tell him that enough, he’ll believe me.
“What do you know?”
“That you’d never hurt an innocent person and you’re not out there swindling grannies out of their life savings. Past that, there’s a wide range of morally gray choices that I might not agree with, but if you eventually tell me, I’d understand.”
“Swindling grannies?”
I shrug. “People do it all the time.”
“But I never would.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” I should tell him the truth. Or a little of it, at least. “Um.” How do I say this? “The reason I hesitated to tell you was because you can’t come with me.”
His face morphs from confusion to irritation back to confusion. “You aren’t traveling without me. That’s not an option. Where am I telling the pilot to schedule a flight plan for?”
It would be wrong to sigh in his face, even though that’s what I desperately want to do. “You can’t come… No, that’s wrong. I don’t want you to come.”
Vex’s face falls .
Why can’t say this right? “It’s not that I don’t want you. It’s… I made these plans last year. My group gets together every year. We do silly stuff together. And Vex… you’re the opposite of silly. I don’t want to be the one to make the group awkward by bringing her super sexy boyfriend.”
“How will you sleep?” He brushes a finger across my cheek.
“I won’t, but we never do. It’s a week of unlimited caffeine, junk food, and giggling.”
Vex’s brow wrinkles.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” And for once I mean that. “Before I met you, this one week a year was the best time of my life.”
“Before you met me?” A smile spreads across his face. “Say it again.”
“Vex.”
“Say it again.”
The grin on his face makes me want to more than anything, but he still hasn’t said the words back. “We haven’t even kissed.”
He leans forward. His hands shift from the bar to my waist, sending shivers up and down my spine.
“You didn’t promise not to kiss me this weekend.”
“No, I didn’t.”
We’re so close our breath must be mingling.
Is he going to kiss me now? My heart starts beating like a hummingbird’s wings. We waited so long for this kiss to be right. Ending a fight with our first kiss doesn’t seem right. I lean back a little bit to give us space. “Why don’t I make you some brownies?”
Vex takes a long breath. “Bed now. Brownies tomorrow.”
“Fine, but that’s going to take time away from me raiding your library. Maybe we should take a little peek now.”
“Nice try.” Vex scoops me up into his arms. “You need sleep, woman.”
I yawn. “If I didn’t love you so much, I’d complain about all of this neanderthal behavior.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
He’s right, I probably wouldn’t. But I should at least pretend to.