Chapter Five
Hazel
My cheeks felt hot from how hard I was blushing, knowing that my flirtatious banter with bachelor number seven was not how I typically reacted to men. There was something about his voice that helped ease my nerves, and he seemed genuinely interested in getting to talk to me instead of turning this whole thing into something about himself.
Not that it was all about me either, but the conversation seemed to flow, unlike some of my previous unsuccessful blind dates. I’d already gone through two dude bros, one humble bragger, two obnoxious laughers and a one-word answerer so far.
By the time I got to number seven, my hopes weren’t very high that I’d be giving my number to anyone tonight, no matter how much I knew Charley wanted me to.
“You know, sometimes fantasies can be made a reality.” I tried not to read things into his statement, but my nipples didn’t get the memo, tightening as I thought about what fantasies I’d like bachelor number seven to bring to life. Ones that’d increased in frequency over the last several weeks, brought on by Reid’s insistence not to let me hide from him any longer.
While he’d always been Hudson’s friend, we’d once been close, too. But he’d never seen me. The real me. He’d seen the shy, reserved, completely inexperienced little sister of his friend I’d been in my teens. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to be that person to him any longer.
“Well, play your cards right and in a few weeks, you might be able to put your money where your mouth is… ”
“Trust me, my mouth is not where it wants to be right now,” he practically growled, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this man would get my phone number at the end of the night.
Charley would be beyond smug, but I wouldn’t let my nerves get the best of me and miss out on the possibility of pursuing something with him. Even if things went bust after we started texting or he wasn’t who I wanted him to be in a few weeks when I’d get to meet him for real, I would not be shy or talk myself out of things any longer.
“And where would that be?” I knew I was pushing the boundaries again since this was supposed to be a friendly date to see if our personalities were compatible, but I knew I’d kick myself if I didn’t follow my instincts. Even if my instincts were telling me that this man on the other side of the wall was vastly more experienced than I was.
“You’re trying to be naughty again, ha…” his voice trailed off abruptly, and I wondered what he was going to say. After he cleared his throat, he continued, his voice a bit deeper. “Have you always been this much of a rule breaker?”
Surprised laughter flowed out of me, and goosebumps raced across the backs of my arms—not helping at all with the nipple situation—when he joined in, his deep timbre evoking feelings only one other man in my life could ever create.
“No, I’m about the exact opposite of a rule breaker. You’re currently conversing with a bona-fide goody two shoes . If rule following was a sport, I’d be a world champion.”
“Hmm, I…” he hummed, and I thought he’d ask for more details, since he seemed to be more curious about me than revealing much about himself, but he didn’t, the sound of my best friend’s voice cutting him off.
“Thirty seconds, boys and girls, then we’re onto your next match.”
“Fuck,” he cursed, and the smile that pulled across my cheeks was obnoxious. “Okay, one last question.”
“Hmm? ”
“What’s your hidden talent?”
If only he knew what talents I’d been pursuing lately. Charley was the only one who knew about all the commissions I’d been working on. But as the seconds ticked by, I decided that playing it safe wasn’t what I wanted anymore. And at the end of the night, this guy—this man—on the other side of the screen was worth disclosing all my naughty secrets to. Because I had a feeling he wouldn’t judge me.
With a nervous laugh, I glanced at Charley out of the corner of my eye, and she flashed me a thumbs up while holding up her phone that was counting down the end to the weirdest, but most satisfying date I’d ever been on.
“Drawing naked people.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I thought maybe he was put off by my answer, but then his response moments after the timer went off on Charley’s phone had my heart beating faster.
“Don’t think for one second that timer is saving you from answering more of my questions. We’re continuing this discussion later.”
“Um,” I laughed, a bit startled by the gruff tone in his voice. “Pretty sure our date is over.”
“You better turn over that phone number at the end of the night, because I’m telling you now, this discussion isn’t finished.”
Glancing to the side, I noticed the next woman who’d be going on a date with bachelor number seven giving me an impatient look. Well, she could wait a fucking minute.
“Maybe that’s for me to decide,” I teased, knowing full well he was the only man to have earned my number so far. And I had a feeling he might be the only one.
“We both know you wouldn’t have told me that if you didn’t want a response.”
“Hmm, I guess we’ll find out.” I knew I was throwing off Charley’s schedule, but I also wanted to say fuck it and knock down this stupid divider to beg bachelor number seven to get me out of here.
“I look forward to your text. ”
“So cocky.” The arrogance suddenly coming off this man should have been a turnoff, but it had the opposite effect.
“You have no fucking idea,” he chuckled, and I really, really wanted the next two weeks to fly by so I could meet him for real.
“Bye, number seven.”
“This isn’t a goodbye, fourteen. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
No amount of pissed off blondes scoffing as I refused to move on to my next bachelor quickly could have wiped the smile off my face.
“So…” Charley had been waiting for me at the end of the event, grinning obnoxiously as I deposited the card with my phone number on it into two of the numbered boxes lying on the table by the entrance to the bar. “Looks like you didn’t totally hate it.”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, come on, you give your number to a guy—actually two guys—after an event you were very much against doing and you think I’m not going to ask you how things went? This is huge, Haz!”
“It’s not that big of a deal.” It kind of was, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. Just because I’d given them my phone number didn’t mean they’d follow through with texting me. The ball was in their court, and I was suddenly nervous that neither one of them would respond and I’d feel even more like a loser than I already did.
“Yeah, I see what you’re doing.” She gave me the side eye as she started gathering up the question sheets and table numbers from the ladies’ side of the room. I could hear a few people milling around on the other side of the screens, but all the other women had already left out the front and Charley had escorted the men out the back door before she’d come back in to interrogate me. “You’re trying to convince yourself that you didn’t have fun. That this idea wasn’t awesome. And now you don’t want to acknowledge that maybe this was exactly what you needed.”
“Wow, humble much?” There was absolutely no way I was confirming anything, because she was already feeling smug about how the event had gone. And if best friends were good for anything, it was keeping you grounded when your ego was at stake of getting obnoxiously large. “I wouldn’t go bragging about your success until the end of this thing.”
“It’s okay. I’ll wait to say I told you so until after you meet the love of your life at the party. I might even wait until after your wedding to say it. Just to be extra humble. But I’m expecting Charlotte as the middle name of your first-born child.”
“Just looking for someone to punch my v-card, Char, not looking for a soulmate. Not everyone has to be in love since you are.”
She frowned, and I felt a little bad about raining on her parade, but I wasn’t holding out for a soulmate anymore. I just wanted to feel wanted by a man for once. To be the center of someone’s attention—even if it was fleeting.
I wasn’t gorgeous and curvy like her. I wasn’t confident like her. I wasn’t the object of a man’s obsession like she was. And that was okay. I would be okay if that never happened for me. But for the next few weeks, I wanted to pretend it could.
“You’re up late.” My hand jerked at the low voice coming from behind me, but thankfully digital illustration had made it so mistakes, like the dark line now marring the face of the woman I was drawing, could easily be erased. Luckily, I had the image zoomed in close, so Reid couldn’t see the rest of it, but I still slammed the magnetic cover over the screen of my iPad and laid my hand on the top before I turned to face him.
“What are you still doing here?” I asked, my pulse skyrocketing as I turned on my barstool to face him. His hair was a chaotic mess, like he’d been running his hands through it. Under different circumstances, I would have automatically assumed it’d been someone else’s hands who’d made the mess, but I knew he’d been with my brother all night playing poker with the cooks.
“Was just helping break down the extra tables for Char. She and Hudson just took off. Wanted to make sure everything was locked up before I left.” Glancing up, I noticed the kitchen was dark, the bar surrounding us quiet, but the air around us felt charged. “I thought you’d be upstairs asleep by now.”
“Hmm.” My fingers absently tapped at the cover beneath my palm, my usual nerves around Reid surfacing. But I was trying to fight the urge to flee, like I normally did. Maybe Seven had been right, despite my unwanted feelings for him, maybe I could be his friend again. “Knew I’d never be able to sleep, so I was working.”
“Didn’t want to use that fancy new workspace upstairs?”
Reid and Hudson had been the ones to set up my new desk while I hid downstairs in the bar sketching, so I wasn’t tempted to drool over Reid using power tools. Once they were done, I’d been surprised to walk in and see they had set up the desk pad I’d been waiting to cover the surface with. And there was a fresh box of pencils I liked to use sitting on a brand-new leather-bound sketchbook. The only issue was, the sketchbook had metallic embossing on the front cover, clearly a joke from my best friend because it was in the outline of a cartoonish looking kitten. I’d wanted to call them out for getting me such a childish gift, but it was cute, and I’d kept it next to my bed to doodle in when I woke up in the morning.
But it also cemented in my mind that they still saw me as the awkward little girl who spent more time with her face buried in a sketchbook than anything else. Which was the last thing I wanted Reid to think of when he looked at me .
“What are you working on? Not forearms this time, I see.”
“No,” I scoffed, hoping he didn’t press me for details, because while the face of the woman with her eyes closed on the screen was unassuming, if I zoomed out, he’d get an eyeful of where she was supposed to be straddling a man’s face. Explaining that it was my latest romance book commission was the last thing I wanted to have to do right now. Never mind that it was unfinished while I was still trying to get the positioning right.
“Care to share?”
“No.” My palm flattened on the case covering the screen, hoping he’d take my answer and move on.
“What are you so secretive about suddenly? The last few weeks, anytime anyone asks you what you’re drawing, you slam the cover closed on your tablet.”
“Maybe I’m just protecting the privacy of my clients.”
“I wasn’t aware that illustration commissions were such heavily guarded secrets.”
“Well. They are. I like to maintain the integrity of my work, and some things I’ve been drawing aren’t ready to be shared publicly yet.”
“Hmm. And what are these things you’ve been drawing?”
Maybe I’d been listening to too many of my client’s books lately, but I could have sworn that Reid’s eyes darkened as they slowly tracked from where my hand held the cover of my iPad in place to my eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess he knew what I’d been drawing, which seemed impossible, because even Charley didn’t know all the details.
And after being caught by her, I’d started keeping my sketchpad full of dicks locked in the bottom drawer of my new desk along with all the source material I’d printed out. Just because I lived alone didn’t mean I could risk leaving cocks lying about if I had any surprise visitors. Because my mother would give me a talk about being safe—which seemed laughable with all the sex I was so clearly not having—Charley would tease the shit out of me, and Hudson would go all protective older brother on me, and he did that enough.
“It’s private,” I muttered.
“What?” He grinned, leaning in closer. “I didn’t hear you. Did you say it’s privates ?”
Since I couldn’t refute his question because that’d be lying to him, and I was trying not to do that, I just did the only other thing available in my virginal arsenal. I blushed. Hard.
Reid cocked one eyebrow, and my face flamed hotter, but I maintained eye contact, determined not to back down. He could tease me all he wanted, but I was proud of my commissions, and my growing list of clients, and nothing anyone else said about it would make me stop.
If drawing fictional naked people was my happy place, then everyone else could fuck themselves, Reid included. Although that thought just had me picturing him doing exactly that. Fucking himself with… Stop it.
Stupid intrusive thoughts were trying to get me in trouble again.
“Haz,” he murmured, his fingertips brushing against the back of my hand. Biting my lower lip, I fought off a shudder, my stomach fluttering at the contact from his calloused fingers. Fucking attractive asshole. I knew what he was trying to do. But I knew I was going to fall for his bullshit, regardless.
“Yes, Reid?”
“Give it to me.” I knew the command wasn’t inherently sexual, and I should not have been thinking of throwing my panties at the man like a brazen hussy, but I was. I most definitely was thinking about giving him things. All the things. The things being the clothing I wore that suddenly felt too tight.
“No,” I whispered, despite my intrusive thoughts. Those horny little fuckers needed to stop getting me in trouble.
“You know you want to show me. You thrive on positive feedback, just like I do. So why won’t you let me give it to you?”
Nope. No. I could not allow my mind to wander down that trail of thought .
“Because it’s not perfect, so your feedback might not be so positive.”
He gently pried my hand free, setting it down on the smooth surface of the bar. Holding it down with his palm, he picked up the tablet with his other hand, pressing the button to wake the screen. “Passcode.”
Shaking my head, I tried not to swoon at the feeling of him holding me down, even if it was just my hand.
Using his thumb, he quickly typed in a code, grinning when the screen opened. I knew I should have been more original than using my birthdate, but this tablet also never left my sight.
His ability to zoom out from the image on the screen was limited since he only had one hand available, but that didn’t stop him from scrolling down the page, his eyes widening as he likely took in the female form that I’d mostly finished the line work on. The very, very nude female character.
“You’ve been a naughty girl, Haz. But this is fucking hot. Why were you so afraid of me seeing this?”
“I think you know why,” I whispered, watching his gaze flicker back and forth between me and the risqué image on the screen.
“The female body is nothing to be ashamed about. And this is… This is not what I was expecting. But it seems incomplete.”
“Because it is.” My voice was quiet, but the look in his eyes had me transfixed. I couldn’t look away even if I tried. And I wanted the source of the desire in his eyes to come from me, not some illustration on my tablet. He was looking at her in the way I’d always fantasized about being looked at by him.
Somehow it seemed fitting that I was jealous of a figment of my imagination holding more appeal to him than me.
“What do you need help with?”
Nibbling on my lower lip, I averted my eyes to the screen, so I didn’t have to look at him. “I can’t get the posing right.”
“What’s she kneeling on? Maybe I can help. ”
“Um…” While I refused to look up, I still knew he was smirking, I could feel it burning into the side of my head. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“Haz…”
“His face,” I blurted, after a few charged moments of silence. “She’s sitting on a guy’s face. And since I can’t find a reference picture at this angle, I’ve been having a hard time getting it right. And I don’t have any firsthand experience with… that …so I’m just making it up as I go and it sucks, okay? Happy now? Ready to tease me some more?”
Reid didn’t say a word as I internally freaked out, mortified that I’d basically just told him I’d never sat on a man’s face before. Or even had my lady parts anywhere near a man’s face, for that matter.
“Actually,” he said, clearing his throat. “Maybe I could help you out with that.”
Um, excuse me. What?