Chapter Thirteen #2
He doesn’t look like he believes me, but he does look quite red.
I reach over and lay my hand atop his. Which I somehow fail to notice is resting on his thigh.
His fingers twitch slightly beneath mine as if startled as he stares down at where our hands overlap.
He watches as I withdraw my touch just on the wrong side of it becoming awkward, then looks back up at me with a heat in his eyes that I don’t expect and says, “Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” I say.
He considers it for a moment. “Show me your best party trick.”
I laugh. “What makes you think I have one?”
“Well, do you?”
“Maybe,” I say. I slide off of the bed and grab the three remaining oranges from the bowl. “Ready?”
“Go for it,” Cal says.
“Oh. My. God. Becky. Look at her butt,” I start, tossing two of the oranges in the air rhythmically.
By the time I get to the end of the opening monologue I’m juggling all three pieces of fruit in time to the imagined intro beat, then flawlessly rapping Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” And Cal is laughing his ass off, which eventually leads me to laugh myself.
I mess up and drop an orange right after the anaconda not wanting none.
“That is not at all what I expected,” Cal admits once I’ve restored all three oranges to their bowl.
“I’m full of surprises.” I say it a bit too flirtatiously, maybe, and Cal’s responding swallow is visible.
Hmm. That’s interesting…
He said attraction isn’t frequent for him. But that doesn’t mean it’s completely unheard of. What if I’m one of the few exceptions?
The thought that Callahan Leitner could want me causes warmth to pool between my legs.
I have to admit that I might still be into him.
Or into him again. He’s so different than the man I thought he would be based on his Roadshow appearance and my light social media stalking.
At first I thought he was much worse. But now, learning more about him, I’m starting to think maybe he’s even better than the version in my head built of daydreams and assumptions.
“Where did you learn to juggle?” he asks.
“Don’t laugh, but for some reason I was absolutely obsessed with the idea of becoming a circus performer in my early teens.
A real mystery why boys my age weren’t interested, huh?
” He smiles politely at the self-depreciation.
“Super basic juggling was the only skill I was able to pick up, though, so my dreams remained out of reach.” I wipe my hands on my dress, running my palms down my thighs to get some of the citrus oil off them.
When I look up again, I catch Cal looking away, as if he was watching me. “Are we still playing?” I ask.
He nods. “If you want.”
“Sure. Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” he says.
“Oh, feeling braver now, are we?” I tease. My eyes focus on his mouth, the way his lips part just slightly under my gaze.
I should dare him to kiss me. I should dare Callahan Leitner to kiss me and see if the chemistry between us is all in my imagination. And if it isn’t…well, we seem to have both privacy and time. Possibly even all night, if Genevieve never gets back to us.
Except I don’t want to ask Cal to do anything that he doesn’t want to do.
If I am misreading his interest in me, and he’s actually repulsed by kissing me, it will be mortifying.
I’m also not fully confident that the urge to do this is in line with who I’m trying to be these days, which is, well, myself.
It’s too tempting to put on my sex kitten mask, deliberate and seductive, and I’ve promised myself that the next time I’m intimate with someone it will be without any pretense.
And I’m not sure I’m quite ready for that.
So instead I say, “Give me a compliment.”
“Hmm…”
“Tough one, huh?” I joke after he still hasn’t responded half a minute later.
“No,” he says simply. “I’m just thinking how to phrase it right.
” Then he reaches out and gently runs his fingers over mine where they’re resting between us on the bedspread, tracing their length.
“You have really beautiful hands. Nimble. Graceful. I noticed you were folding some sort of origami earlier today, when you were standing at the counter…?”
“A lotus flower,” I respond to the implied question. “I tend to make them when I’m bored. To keep my hands busy.”
“Well, it was a pleasure to watch,” he says softly, continuing to study my fingers with his own, feather-light.
A pleasant shiver runs through me, settling at the base of my spine. “That sort of sounds like something a serial killer would say before chopping off my hands,” I whisper, watching him touch me.
Cal laughs. “And that’s after I took a moment to figure out how to phrase it.” He returns his hand to his lap, and the loss of contact feels like a shift in the air around us. “Truth or dare?” he asks.
Somehow, over the course of the last few minutes, I forgot we were even playing a game.
Cal’s compliment managed to fluster me more than I anticipated.
I truly thought he would go with something sharper, drier, almost begrudging.
Something like, “You aren’t actually the worst person to have around at Virtu.
” To have him instead talk so genuinely about something he noticed me doing when I was just going about my business…
It was a pleasure to watch.
I glance over at him and find him looking back at me, awaiting my answer, and it feels like agreeing to continue playing Truth or Dare is the equivalent of sealing my fate. A guarantee that I’m going to, in a matter of time, make a move on this man.
Who may or may not even want me to.
And if he doesn’t want me to, I will then be trapped here with him for who knows how long, having to stew in the discomfort of it all.
That’s not even taking into account having to continue working together for three more weeks.
Or the extracurricular activity of goose hunting we’ve gotten ourselves into.
“I’m pretty tired, actually,” I say before my libido can talk me out of it. “I think I want to try to sleep, if you don’t mind.” I settle against the mountain of decorative pillows piled at the base of the headboard.
“Oh, sure. I’ll go sit in one of the chairs over there, give you some space.”
“No,” I say, reaching for his arm to keep him from leaving. “Stay here. Be comfortable.”
The tension in his muscles seems to slowly evaporate as he eases into place beside me. “All right,” he says. “I will.”