Chapter 12
I’m saved from defining Reese as a stranger or otherwise when my cellphone rings and jolts me back to reality. “My agent. I was supposed to call her about that meeting with Dan. I’m sure he’s already called the publisher.” I try to roll away, but Reese doesn’t allow me such an easy escape.
He releases my hair but catches my leg. “You can call her back in sixty seconds. To be clear, we’re not done. We’ve barely gotten started.” He rolls off the chair.
I will my racing heart to calm and do the same, oh so aware of just how naked I am right now, and how my dress is a very long walk away. Actually, I really don’t know how far. I have no clue where it landed, but it’s nowhere I easily spy. My phone starts ringing again, which is a clear sign someone, most likely my agent, really needs to reach me. Reese hands me my purse and I grab it, also oh so aware of how naked he is. “Thank you,” I murmur, accepting my purse and retrieving my phone from inside.
“My agent,” I confirm, as Reese scoops up his pants and delivers me a view of his bare ass, so delicious that it could feed fifty nations.
“Hey, Liz,” I say into the phone as he covers the view with his pants, and I answer my call.
“Dan called the publisher and said you were a bitch.”
I scowl. “Did Dan actually say that I was a bitch, or did you add your normal colorful wording in the replay?”
“I’m quoting Dan, according to your editor.”
“He’s such a gentleman,” I snap sarcastically as Reese grabs a blanket from the couch and settles the soft gray material around my shoulders. I glance up at him, but he’s walking away, all loose-legged male swagger that was just pressed next to me in all the right ways.
“No comment?” Liz asks.
“I think he said it all for both of us, don’t you? It’s done.”
“What happened?” Liz presses. “I need details.”
“We can’t work together and I’m going to make this easy on all involved. I’m out. I’m not writing a book about this trial.”
“What? Are you insane? This is a six figure deal. In New York City, you don’t walk away from that.”
“This has never been about money to me,” I say as Reese reappears, a black T-shirt stretching over that incredible chest of his, another draped over his shoulder, and that loose-legged swagger of his is rather addictive to watch.
“No, but,” Liz says, snapping my attention back to the call, and sparing me the embarrassment of staring at Reese, as she adds, “smart people with money keep their money by never walking away from large sums of money. Especially when that money is a gateway to much more money.”
“You’re not getting it,” I say. “This is wrong for me,” and it’s then that Reese joins me, and I silently add: Just like the man now sitting on the coffee table in front of me, staring at me, only feels pretty right every time I’m with him.
“We need to meet. Where are you? I’ll come to you.”
“Now isn’t a good time,” I say, and sit up straighter. “I have to write my column.”
“Tomorrow, then. We’ll have lunch.”
I firm my voice and attitude, which is the only way to win Liz over. “I’m not changing my mind, therefore, I’ll call you Monday.”
“They’ll drop you if you shut this down,” Liz says of my publisher.
“I don’t like being bullied,” I say, my voice going from firm to angry. “And if you support me, then don’t participate in bullying me. I’ll call you Monday.” I hang up without looking at Reese, who is part of why I feel cornered right now, professionally and personally. “I have to write my column.” I start to get up, but I’m not holding the stupid blanket, and it slides away, straight to the ground.
I grab for it and drop my phone. I’m exposed and truly so very naked in every way with this man, but rather than looking me over, Reese produces that extra shirt he’d been holding. “I brought it for you,” he offers, his eyes meeting mine in one pulsing moment that steals my voice.
I nod my appreciation, but when I would take the shirt from him, he’s already pulling it over my head. It drops around my body and I slip my arms inside the oversized sleeves, which aren’t oversized for him at all, I’m sure. “Thank you,” I manage now, and dare to meet his stare, and that pulse is back, this charge between us that I’ve never experienced with any other man. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m so affected by him, I don’t know if I’m coming or going.
I’m falling for this man. I’m going to get hurt. “I need to go,” I say, but when I would move, his hands catch my legs, under his shirt, scorching me with the touch.
“Don’t go,” he says.
“I have to work.”
“You can work here. I have to work, too. We’ll order in dinner. Cat.” He softens his voice. “I want you to stay.”
He says these words as if they are a confession, but a confession of what? Needing me? Wanting me? He’s already said those things. I search his face, looking for an answer, when I don’t even know the real question, and for the first time since we met, I see the shadows in the depths of his stare: the hints of damage, maybe even pain, that he’s hinted at but I’ve dismissed. I don’t dismiss them now. I wonder if I’ve missed them or if he’s chosen to show them to me now. My chest tightens with this possibility, with the idea that he might be willingly exposing a piece of himself to me, no longer allowing me to call him a stranger. Yes. I believe he is, and this matters to me. I am naked with this man in ways I did not intend to be, but I’m still sitting here, wanting more of him.
“Stay,” he repeats. “I want you to stay, Cat.”
“Yes,” I whisper and I could leave it right there, but for reasons I don’t understand, it doesn’t feel like enough. “I want to stay.”
His eyes warm with my response and there is a shift between us in that moment. I feel him becoming more to me than I planned, and maybe I am to him as well. I can’t be sure. I don’t know. All I know is that my guard is too easily falling, and every warning I’d issued in my mind about “men like Reese” feels as wrong as tonight, and this man feels right.
He reaches up and brushes hair behind my ear. “God, you’re beautiful, Cat,” he murmurs, a raspy, tormented quality to his voice that says more than the compliment.
I am shaken by the spontaneity and emotion in his words and the rush of emotion I feel in response. I reach forward and curl my fingers at his jaw. “Everyone starts as a stranger,” I say, and this time I don’t go on, I don’t tell him how easy it is to be naked and still alone. I don’t tell him how easy it is for lies to read like truth.
He cups my hand and leads it to his lips, where he kisses it. “And everyone who matters once did not.” His lips curve, the mood shifting between us once again, lightening with the mischief that is suddenly in his eyes. “Will you tell me your secrets, Cat? Pepperoni or no pepperoni?”
I laugh. “Most definitely pepperoni,” I say, not sure any man has taken me on a whirlwind of emotions like this one. “What about you?”
“Double pepperoni,” he says quite seriously, before kissing my hand and setting it on my leg. “There’s a place on the corner that can have it here in thirty minutes.”
“I’m in love with the idea of pizza,” I say, “but I hate I’ll have to work while we eat.” I grab my phone and look at the time. “Yikes. I can’t believe I’ve left myself two hours to make press deadline. I’m not used to a Friday deadline. This is a special edition for the trial this week.”
“Because of the trial and my failure to nail a dismissal,” he murmurs under his breath before adding, “I need to work, too. Do you want to order now or wait until you’re about thirty minutes from finishing up?”
“Do you mind waiting?”
“Not at all. Better yet, the restaurant downstairs makes a killer sandwich tray I order on later nights. Why don’t I order that? It has, like, six different options. Then there is no pressure as to when to order or eat.”
“Even better,” I say. “I like that idea.”
“Do you want something to drink? Wine or—”
“No alcohol, please,” I say. “Just water if you have it. I don’t want to get sleepy.”
“I most definitely don’t want you to get sleepy. I’ll order a pot of coffee.”
I laugh at his extreme swing. “That actually sounds good.”
He tugs his phone from his pocket and punches a button, and quickly orders. “Done,” he says setting his phone on the coffee table. “Do you want to work here or do you need a desk?”
“Where are you working?”
“Right by your side, sweetheart.”
I’m surprised by how much I like this answer. Maybe more than I should. But “more than I should” could be my theme song with Reese. “Do you need a desk?”
“I’m going to catch up on e-mail, so I’m fine here.”
“I’m eying a spot on the floor in front of the coffee table.”
“I’ll grab my MacBook and join you.” I think he will get up, but he’s suddenly leaning in and cupping my face, his breath a warm tickle on my lips. “Just so we’re clear, Cat. I don’t invite women to my house. You wouldn’t be here if I planned to stay a stranger.”
“And if I say you have no choice?”
“Then I’ll kiss you a little deeper and fuck you a little harder, until you want to know me the way I’ve decided I want to know you. And that’s just for starters.”
He stands up and walks away, leaving my mind reeling with the most important question of this moment: How much deeper and harder?