Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hayden
“Are you okay?” Adam barely said two words when he returned to the bar and told me we were leaving. He looked upset, and I didn’t ask questions. But I’m asking now.
“I’m fine.” He pulls down Club Tahoe’s long, winding drive on the way to the main highway. “Do you mind if we go to your place?”
“Of course not. But if you’re planning on blowing out some walls in your frustration, maybe we should go to your place. I don’t have many left after your work on the closet, and the ones I do have I want to keep.”
He shoots me a quick smile. “I thought we could grab a bite and bring it back. Hang out.”
“I’d like that.”
He reaches over and holds my hand. Who knew Adam was such a touchy-feely guy?
On our way to my place, we swing by a taco joint. In cocktail wear. And it’s interesting. And also the most natural thing in the world.
“Two chicken burritos.” Adam glances at me. “Hot sauce?” I shake my head. “Hot sauce on one, and please label it.”
“And a churro,” I tell him, poking him in the rib to make sure he gets it. I’m starving. And a little buzzed after that second glass of wine I downed without food while waiting for Adam to finish talking to his dad.
“Two churros,” he tells the guy.
Adam pays for our meal, and we stand off to the side, people-watching and eating churros while we wait for the rest of our order.
He grabs paper napkins and hands me one, then dusts off sugar from his mouth.
People come in and out of the two-table taco joint, staring blatantly, but I don’t mind.
Waiting inside the taco place eating churros with Adam is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.
Come to think of it, spending any time with Adam is the most fun I’ve had in forever, even when he was antagonizing me and driving me crazy at work. I just didn’t realize it then.
“Sooo, girlfriend?” I say, once we’ve finished our churros. There is no way I’m letting the comment he made to his father slide.
He raises an eyebrow, challenging me.
This is how he’s going to play it? He’s not even going to discuss it?
“I take it you will be forgoing all women henceforth.” I’m joking, but seriously, if he thinks he can call me his girlfriend and go around hooking up, he is crazy.
I’d rather keep things casual with dates than label us before there’s a commitment.
Adam walks across the room and fills small paper cups with water from the dispenser. He hands me one. “I haven’t been on a date in almost a year,” he says.
My eyes widen. “A formal date. But other types of…intimate relations?” My face heats. I sound like a politician. “You know what I mean.”
“Nope.” He finishes the water, crushes the cup, and tosses the crumpled paper at the garbage, making a perfect basket. “None of that for a long time either.”
“Really?”
“Really. You?”
“I’ve been busy.”
He wraps his arm around me, grabs my hip, and pulls me close. “Busy doing what?” There’s an edge to his tone.
I laugh nervously. “Not that kind of busy. Busy with work.”
He leans in and brushes his lips over my ear. “So you’re not seeing anyone? Besides me, that is.”
I lean back and stare at him. I remember our conversation at Nessa and Zach’s about my dating status.
He tried to fish it out of me then, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Particularly since the truth wasn’t very exciting.
But now I don’t mind him knowing. In fact, it makes sense, given all the kissing business that almost led to other business.
“No boyfriends,” I say. “Can’t remember the last date I went on, though I don’t think it was as far back as a year. Maybe six months.”
He stares at the floor a moment, as though gathering his thoughts.
“I called you my girlfriend because nothing else fits.” He looks up.
“You’re more than a friend or a coworker.
More special than just about anyone. It seems fast, but not when you figure I’ve been…
thinking about you since I started working at Blue.
And probably subconsciously since I was sixteen and talked Jaeg into breaking up with you so I wouldn’t have to watch you with another guy. It’s been a long time coming.”
“You know, you’re kind of a bad friend,” I say, humor in my voice. “I can’t believe you sabotaged your best friend’s love life for your own nefarious purposes.”
He leans over and kisses my neck, tickling the skin with his warm breath and causing me to squirm beside him. “If he’d liked you the way he should have, he wouldn’t have fallen for it. I did you a favor. And Jaeg too, because he found Cali.”
I glower, even as he nuzzles my ear. “Very clever the way you’ve justified that.”
He straightens, his expression serious. “It was a dick maneuver, but I’ve grown over the last eleven years. I’m not flawless, but I want this to work.” A touch of vulnerability reflects in his eyes. If I didn’t know him, I might have missed it. “What do you think? Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
“Oh, you’re asking me now?” I say saucily.
A grin flashes across his face and he hauls me to his chest. “You’re never going to back down, are you?”
I sniff his coat. “Never.”
“If you’re smelling me, I suppose that’s a yes?”
“Yes. And I want permission to sniff you whenever I like, because you smell really good.”
“I can agree to those terms, as long they work in reverse.”
“Agreed.” I warm up with my arms wrapped around his waist and my face plastered to his chest. “I’m not against being exclusive and finding out where this goes—take things slow.”
Famous last words…
We manage to make it inside the door to my house before Adam is kissing me and I’m loosening his tie and struggling to get it off so that I can kiss his neck. Of course my fashionable Adam has to wear a tie while all his brothers skipped it with their sports coats.
“I hate this thing.” Somehow, an item that should be so simple to remove has become complicated, as I’ve managed to triple-knot the slipknot. Adam slides the straps of my dress over my shoulders, making it even more challenging to get the dang tie off. “Arghh!”
He pulls back and glances down. He fusses with the tie for a second, then strides into the kitchen.
“Hey, where are you going?” I stand there confused, my arms bound to my sides by my dress.
I hear him shuffling around in a drawer, and then he returns, a wad of something in his hand. He passes it to me, and starts kissing my neck and the tops of my breasts again. I glance at the wad. It’s his tie. Cut in two.
That’s hot.
I kick off my heels and yank his coat off his shoulders.
He wiggles out of it, and I start working on the buttons of his shirt.
One of them shoots past my head, almost taking out an eye, but I maintain focus.
Until cool air hits my back and I suck in a breath.
Adam unzipped my dress, the fabric dropping to the ground.
Well, there goes that.
I’m in panties and a strapless bra that cinches like a bitch in order to keep the girls up. I’d beg Adam to remove it just to return feeling to my skin, but there’s no need. With one flick, he has it off and his hands on my breasts are circulating all kinds of heated blood flow to the area.
His thumb glides over my nipple and I squeak.
He pulls back and quirks a brow. “Sensitive?”
“Maybe?”
He starts kissing me again and leans down, his palms gliding down my bare legs and up the backs of my thighs.
Shivers rack my body. And then he’s circling his arms around me and lifting me, his chest and arms blasting heat where our bodies connect, though I’m in far less fabric, according to my calculations.
I got the shirt off, but he’s wearing a damned undershirt too.
His soft, nimble mouth is seducing the hell out of mine as he carries me down the hallway.
My calves hit the mattress of my bed, and then I’m half falling, half lowered as he covers me, toeing off his shoes in the process, his arms supporting his weight.
But the weight that isn’t fully supported feels incredible, pressing in all the right places.
I drag my mouth away from his. “Shirt. Off.”
He sits back on his heels, his knees on either side of my hips, and whips the offending T-shirt over his head. He tries to cover my body again, but it’s too late. I saw his chest for the very first time.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up, buddy.” I push his shoulders until he straightens, his muscular thighs straining the dress pants he has on, a belt resting below thick ridges of abdominal muscles.
I run my hands up and down his chest, trailing a finger along the muscles above his belt.
His breathing increases, his mouth tense. “Finished?”
I don’t get a chance to answer, because he’s on top of me again and kissing me with an intensity that makes my head spin.
“Hayden,” he says, with a level of feeling I’ve never heard from him before.
Soft fingers trail gently along my jaw as he gazes down at me.
His eyes are nearly black in this light, and so warm I don’t know how I could have thought him cold.
I let out a sigh and wrap my arms around his shoulders, holding him to me.
When did Adam become so essential to a good day versus a bad one?
It used to be the opposite, but at some point things changed.
The linen and manly scent of him drugs me, his touch ignites, and his voice seduces.
But his eyes—they tell me everything I’ve missed.
Adam is not the rich opportunist I took him for. And he cares more than I knew.