Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Tristan
It’s taking every bit of my fucking focus to keep my eyes and hands off the stunning woman in the passenger seat.
Luckily, Cherry Poppin Karaoke isn’t too far from her apartment, and then we’ll have the buffer of her girls and the few guys who wanted to come tonight.
I’m not sure it will be enough.
I chance a glance at her, soaking her in.
There’s a little bit of cinnamon sugar on her upper lip, and it’s all I can do to keep from licking it right off her.
I’ve never seen her hair like that, tousled and down. There’s some kind of intricate design going on with it that makes it look like she just fucking got out of bed. Then those shoulders, all that skin on display and fucking perfect, the tight fit of her colorful dress on her muscular body…
She’s beautiful.
So beautiful, and smart, and serious.
My cock’s so hard it aches, and I shift, hoping like hell that the ridiculous boner I have just from seeing her bare shoulders isn’t visible.
Or if it is, that she likes what she sees.
I’m not sure what I want more, but I do know that I want her.
“You built this truck, right?” she asks, running her fingers along the pebbled leather lining the glove box.
“Repaired, really. I wouldn’t say built. I had a lot of help with the interior. Sewing is a shit-ton harder than it looks. And the paint, too.”
“It’s really beautiful,” she murmurs, tracing the wood whorled paneling with an admiring finger. “I can tell you put a lot of work into it.”
“You would know,” I say, my voice gruffer than I mean it to be.
“Huh?” she asks, tilting her head and staring at me with huge, guileless eyes. “Why would I—”
“Because you’re gorgeous,” I interrupt. “And if you don’t know that, then someone should be telling you every day. That you’re beautiful.”
Her long lashes brush together as she blinks, and I force myself to look back at traffic.
Nearly there, and then there will be other people.
“Is this the lesson?” she asks. “Complimenting me? How did you know accepting compliments is like the most awkward thing ever for me?” A laugh slips from her, and there’s a self-deprecating lilt to it that makes me want to pull over the damned car and figure out exactly why it’s there.
I don’t answer, turning onto the street that will take us to the ridiculously over-the-top karaoke place.
“It’s a good lesson—”
“It’s not a lesson.” It comes out harsh, from between clenched teeth in a burst of air. “It wasn’t supposed to be. I meant it.”
“Oh.” Her voice is neutral, and I’m too much of a coward to see how she’s reacting.
“You deserve to be told how beautiful you are the minute you wake up and the minute you go to bed, and in all the moments in between.”
God, why can’t I just shut the fuck up?
I slam my hand into the turn signal, beyond irritated with myself.
This is why I don’t date. I make a mess of things. Always.
“We’re going to have fun tonight, okay? The lesson is just to have fun and loosen up. To be yourself.”
“And take the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten,” she adds with a soft laugh.
When I glance over at her, there’s no mistaking the painful curl to her lip.
I gently pull into the parking spot I paid extra to reserve, putting the car in park and less in control of myself than I can remember being for a damned long time.
“I would treat you right,” I tell her.
She stares at me, her big brown eyes uncomprehending.
“If I were dating you, Michelle”—she startles at my use of her first name, and I want to say it again, to savor it on my tongue—“you wouldn’t need compliments from anybody else.
You wouldn’t doubt how perfect you are, how utterly breathtaking you are, what a good person you are.
How deserving. I would make you feel good. ”
Cursing myself mentally, I pull the keys out of the ignition. It takes me no time at all to cross in front of the car and open her passenger side door, where she’s sitting with a look of pure shock on her face.
Shock, because I just fucking blurted out exactly how much I want her.
Shock, because I took what was supposed to be a fun time out with her girlfriends and made it about me.
I hold out a hand.
“Let me help you down,” I tell her. “It’s farther than it looks.”
Her white teeth flash as she nibbles her lower lip, studying me from beneath those lush lashes. “This feels like a test.”
She’s giving me an out. I should take it.
“Thank you for…saying that about me.” She meets my eyes, her chin lifting, and she’s so goddamn pretty it makes my chest hurt.
And my cock.
“You would pass with flying colors.” I force out the words, and she grins at me.
Not the real one.
That’s the forced smile I see her put on at work. It’s not the one she gave me at the rage room, or when I held her just yesterday morning.
She takes my hand, hers so much smaller than mine, and leans on me as she navigates the step out of the Bronco.
I lean in, first to make sure she’s got it, and then I smell her.
Good god.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out how badly I need her, how badly I want her.
I never should have made this bet, because her walking away from me at the end of it is going to break my fucking heart.