Chapter 7 #3
I waved my mozzarella stick at him. “Of course I do.” He leaned forward and took a bite out of my stick. I glared at him. “Honey straight from the hive can have dirt or grit in it just like anything else found outdoors. Do you clean veggies before you eat them?”
“Who says I eat veggies?” he shot back at me, still chewing on my cheese stick.
I shook my head, smiling. I loved talking with him. It was so easy, like we’d been doing it all our lives. “You’ll eat your veggies, sir. Because I want you to live to a ripe old age.”
“Cracking the whip already?” Starbucks’ smile was pure lust. “Fuck, that really shouldn’t be so hot.”
He leaned towards me. We still hadn’t had our first kiss. He’d brushed his lips close to mine, kissed my temple, my cheek, my forehead… But no kiss yet. My heart hammered in my chest, anticipation making my blood sing.
But just before his lips made contact, I let out a gasp and turned my head towards the front entrance. A second later, three women walked in. The one in front was the blonde from my vision on Saturday, the one who’d told someone on the phone she was pregnant with Starbucks’ baby.
Starbucks must have sensed my reaction, because he straightened up and turned to see what had drawn my attention away from him.
I wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing that he immediately spotted the blonde and could guess that was who had distracted me.
And then I felt like a total bitch for, one, ruining what should have been my first kiss and, two, even reacting in the first place.
Why did her entering the bar even bother me? It shouldn’t.
From my seat in the back of the bar, I could tell she wasn’t pregnant.
While Dosia’s pregnancies had unique identifiers, I could always sense pregnancy or illness in others.
Well, most everyone. Some were natural blockers, like magical duds.
I couldn’t read them even if they came with a free audiobook.
But the blonde? I could read her very clearly, and she wasn’t pregnant.
Which made me believe that I’d been correct.
If she’d won Starbucks’ auction, she’d planned on getting pregnant by him.
The sour taste in my mouth I’d gotten from that vision led me to believe that Starbucks wouldn’t have been in on the plan.
While he would have been a willing participant in—gag—the sex part, he wouldn’t have been in procreating.
Normally when someone had ill intentions, there was a darkness surrounding them.
I didn’t see auras like some could. For me, it was more like a shadow or a cloud than a shimmering glow.
Looking at the blonde now, though, there was no darkness to her.
Was that because she hadn’t come here now with dark intentions or had her original intentions from my vision not been dark all along?
My eyes scrunched in confusion, because I wasn’t sure.
That vision had come to me so randomly. I didn’t know the blonde.
As far as I knew, we’d never met before.
I didn’t even know her name. Yet I’d had a vision of her.
That was unusual in and of itself because I normally only had those surrounding people I was close to, like Dosia or my parents.
The visions I had of Starbucks were intimate and personal, but I never considered them out of place because he was my future.
When I had the vision of the blonde at the auction, I’d assumed the vision was about Starbucks being the father.
It was the only explanation as to why I would have such a strong vision about a stranger.
Her actions would influence my future, even if indirectly.
Had I been wrong? Had I made an assumption based on fear and jealousy? What if sitting here now with Starbucks, starting our future outside of what Fate had planned for us, was all a mistake, because I’d misinterpreted a vision?
“Do you know Kora?”
I blinked, my eyes leaving the blonde by the bar and going to the man sitting in the booth next to me. “What? No. I… I mean, I remember her from the auction.”
His dark eyes studied me for a moment, assessing. “You know we were sleeping together.”
My cheeks flushed, and not just from his blunt honesty. I ducked my head. I had no idea how to answer his statement or even if I should.
I felt his fingers under my chin, gently lifting my head back up to his eyelevel.
“Winnie, it wasn’t serious. None of them were serious.
” I was sure he meant that statement to be comforting, but all it did was remind me that he had slept with a lot of women in this town, the next, and Goddess only knew where else.
“It was sex, nothing more. I’ve never been on a date with any of them.
I’ve never,” he cracked a smile, “eaten any of their mozzarella sticks.”
My heart skipped a beat at his attempt at humor, but then, I’d already established that I had a very stupid, stupid heart. “It’s not that,” I tried to assure him. “I don’t judge you for your history.”
He ran his fingers around my ear, like he would if he was tucking my hair back. “I know you said you didn’t save yourself for me, but if I’d known you existed, that I would feel this way about you, I would have saved myself for you.”
Yup, there went my heart again. “I’m not jealous or anything.” I winced, because that made me sound exactly like a jealous girlfriend. “Fine,” I made a face. “I’m jealous a little. But only because she, they,” I corrected, “got to experience time with you that I haven’t yet.”
Starbucks took my face between his hands.
I loved when he did this. He was so gentle, like he was holding something precious, and yet firm, asserting his dominance.
“I need you to listen to me very carefully, Calliope. I don’t fall for women.
” He shrugged carelessly. “It’s not who I am.
I’ve fucked. I like sex, and,” he added with a coy smile, “I’m very good at sex.
But everyone knows the score. There’s no feelings, no intimacy.
We both get off and then go our separate ways. There was nothing special about it.”
I tried to pull away from him, but he held tight. “I don’t know what the point of you telling me this is, but it’s not making me feel any better.”
He got right up in my face, his nose and mine nearly touching. “You’re not listening to me, Winnie. There was nothing special about it,” he repeated forcefully.
I stopped struggling, taking in the double meaning of his words.
He nodded as if he could see the lightbulb turn on above my head.
“I have experienced more intimacy with you in the past twenty-four hours than I ever have with the countless women I’ve been with.
I’ve joked with you, talked with you, held you, in ways I’ve never done with them.
You and I, we’ve barely begun, and I have already done things with you that I never would with them.
You, my dear Calliope, have left your mark on me in ways no one else has—or ever could. ”
I stared into his coffee-colored eyes. They were so intense, earnest. He truly believed everything he was saying, and it made me feel elated and guilt-ridden at the same time.
He was being entirely honest with me, no hiding or dodging his past, and yet I had not been honest with him.
I’d unintentionally started our future off with a lie.
I touched the flat of my hand to his chest. He was wearing a black, long-sleeve Henley under his cut. The shirt was so tight across his broad chest that I was impressed that the buttons were holding.
“I told you about the vision I had of us in the future. The reason I believed we weren’t supposed to be dating now, but two years from now. I also told you that I shouldn’t have bid on your auction. That I was wrong to do so. But I didn’t tell you why.”
Starbucks moved his right hand from my face to place it over my hand on his chest. “Tell me now.”
He was so calm, so trusting. Like he believed I could do no wrong. What if he thought my actions too interfering? What if he got up and walked away from me now, and it took him two years to forgive me? Or worse, got up, walked away, and never looked at me again?
Despite that neither of us were on our phones, I heard the swoop of a text message being sent as he squeezed my hand on his chest. “Whatever it is,” he said steadily, “it changes nothing.”
I wished I wasn’t so nervous, but also knew that I needed to get this off my chest. Beyond anything else, he deserved to know what would have happened if I hadn’t won his auction.
“I had no intention of bidding on you. I went there to speak with Dosia, to clear the air between the two of us.” I paused, but he sat there, waiting patiently.
“The women started to bid on you. I’d been trying to distract myself with JJ.
I knew that it would be painful to see you—it always was, especially when you were with other women.
But not seeing you was always worse.” I let out a self-deprecating laugh.
“Gods, that makes me sound like such a stalker.”
“You think I hadn’t figured out you’ve been watching me for the past three years?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
My blush deepened. “I’ve found I have little self-control when it comes to you.”
The hand that was still on my face swiped his thumb across my cheekbone. “Ditto.”
I chuckled, appreciating how he helped to lighten the mood. I felt less like there was an axe hanging over my head, waiting for the king’s permission to swing.