Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Christina
Danny really just relocated himself and one of the cameras to the bar. And he is waiting for me to come hit on him. As practice.
Let me say this another way: The man I care about too much to sleep with is wearing the sexiest slim-cut suit in existence, and I have had to actively keep myself from damning it all to hell and begging him to put his mouth on me all night, and I’ve drunk half a bottle of wine, and now I am supposed to “practice” flirting with him heavily enough to end in a hypothetical one-night stand.
This should go just swimmingly.
I gather my clutch (and any semblance of bearings) and saunter over to the bar. The restaurant is starting to empty out—we must have been here for a while. I tend to lose track of time when Danny and I are together.
I first lean against the far end of the bar so I can examine Danny’s profile where he’s the only figure sitting about halfway down.
I take a moment to drink him in while I’m still out of camera frame and before he’s noticed me.
Fuck me, he’s hot. The long, powerful lines of his body are more obvious in the suit.
His rich brown hair tumbles to his shoulders, and all I want is to gather it up in a tight fist and pull.
He remained relatively composed when I shared my reservations about sex with him, although the slight wrench of his jaw alerted me to how much more was happening under the surface, especially considering how long he just stared at me. I wish I could see everything that goes on in his head.
When Danny finally notices me approaching, his eyes go wide and rake down me slowly, as if he forgot what this dress looked like underneath the table.
Every bit of my skin—both exposed and unexposed—heats to boiling in the fiery sweep of his gaze.
I sidle up to him, and his eyes stay locked on the hem of my dress that cuts right across the top of my thighs. “Hi,” I say softly.
He finally drags his searing gaze back up my body, lingering a beat too long on my breasts, before meeting my eyes. I can barely breathe.
And he says, voice dark and low, “Would you like to come home with me?”
My whole body clenches as hot liquid loops low in my belly. “Danny!” I choke.
He unfurls that slow, lazy smile at me, one side tugging higher than the other. “Sorry, I just wanted you to be prepared for that possibility.” His eyes flicker down me again. “Especially if you’re wearing this dress.”
I thump him on the arm with my clutch even as I try to get my breathing under control. “It’s not going to go down like that. Do-over.”
He shrugs. “Okay, don’t say you weren’t warned.”
I swipe my flat hand over my face to reset. “Hi,” I say again.
“Hi,” he echoes. Thank heavens.
“May I sit here?” I ask, gesturing to the empty bar stool beside him.
“Please do.”
I slip onto the stool and cross my legs. He can’t help but watch that movement. I give him an encouraging smile and hold out my hand. “I’m Christina.”
His lips twitch but he slides his hand in mine and shakes. “Danny.” His thumb sweeps across the outside of my wrist twice before he lets go.
“Can I buy you a drink?” I ask, fulfilling about ninety percent of my fantasies with that one line.
“No, but I would like to buy you a drink.”
I scrunch my mouth to the side. “Why don’t we each buy our own drink but enjoy them together?”
His grin is so sudden I fear I may topple off my bar stool. “We can do that.”
“Cut!” I lean in conspiratorially, and he mirrors me. “Men won’t be put off by that, will they? I really would rather pay for my own shit and leave money out of this weird exchange.”
“I thought it was hot.” A stab down low. “I doubt it’d be worth taking home a man who’s put off by it.”
“Roger that.” We straighten back up into character.
“So what’ll you be having, Christina?”
I bite my lip and try not to visibly react to his smoldering voice. “Cut again!”
His face is all amusement when we lean back in.
“Could we just order waters for now? I think when I do this for real, I’ll probably order a Jack and Coke. But I don’t wanna throw anything else on top of all this wine and I’m mad dehydrated.”
He chuckles. “Of course.”
“Great. Action!” We straighten again and order the waters.
I curl a finger in a strand of my hair where it’s knotted at my shoulder. “Do you come here often?” And there’s the other ten percent of my fantasies fulfilled.
He watches that finger very closely. “First time. You?”
“Also first time. Maybe there’s some kind of cosmic fate to our meeting here tonight.”
He loosens his tie and pops open the top button of his dress shirt in one deft movement. I barely catch what he says next over the blood pounding in my ears: “I’ve never put much stock in fate. But then I’ve never had anything so special happen to warrant it.”
“Ah, I think people can only ascribe fate retrospectively, once they can see the full picture of how things turned out. If fate is real, there’s no way we could know it’s happening in the moment.”
“Which maybe signifies more than anything that it’s not real,” Danny says. “We see the patterns we want to see.”
Dropping our waters in front of us, the confused bartender eyes the camera suspiciously. Danny and I share a secret delighted look out of character.
“But maybe there’s beauty in that,” I say, returning to character and picking up my water. “That life is random and chaotic and meaningless, but we still create meaning. Maybe that’s even more beautiful than some master plan or cosmic scale.”
Danny’s big eyes barrel into the core of me.
I lean in. “Was that too heavy for bar chat?”
He just shakes his head, still staring at me like he’s trying to work out an insurmountable riddle.
I clear my throat and straighten again. “What should we toast to?”
“How about … to all the yet-to-be moments that may make us believe in fate.”
I like that answer too much, and he knows it. He’s smirking when he clinks my glass and takes a long draft. I watch his throat a while before remembering to drink from my own glass.
“So what line of work you in, Danny?” I ask, attempting to move this practice session along.
He peers mischievously at me. “Do you really wanna hear about what I do for work?”
“I … um …” I squirm on the stool, the heat stealing through me making me fidgety. “Well, do you wanna hear about what I do for work?”
He scrapes his eyes down my body again. “Not at this moment.”
I may be gawking. “What do you want to hear about at this moment?”
His tongue grazes his bottom lip and I have to clamp down on a moan that rises unbidden up my throat.
He leans in close, closer, until his lips are at my ear and his knees are interlocked with mine under the bar and his presence is flooding my every sense.
“I want to hear about what you want from me, baby.”
Now a soft moan does escape me, and I feel his lips curve into a smile against my ear.
He withdraws so he can meet my eyes, but he stays close. Close enough for his woodsy, masculine scent to drown me. Close enough that—
“Your eyes are brown,” I say simply.
His brow furrows slightly. “Yes.”
They are a gorgeous brown, just a touch lighter than his hair with the tiniest flecks of green. I’ve spent a good amount of time the past month staring into this man’s big, deep eyes, but I’ve never consciously acknowledged their color. I always just think of them as burning.
They are beautiful. He is beautiful.
“Christina?” he asks with an edge of concern.
“You wanna hear what I want from you?”
He hums in his throat, and I’m close enough to feel the vibration in my own body.
“I want you to fuck me.”
He’s deathly still. He doesn’t breathe, or blink, or move. Then, he speaks with a voice like heavy velvet. “Have you been good enough for that, Christina?” My core goes molten. He leans in to brush his lips against my ear again. “Or should I say, have you been bad enough?”
I throw my hands onto his shoulders to keep upright on the stool, and his hands likewise clamp down on my waist. Our chests heave with only six inches of space between them, his breath hot in my ear.
And suddenly there is no path. No right or wrong or up or down.
There is only him. It’s not just a physical attraction, though.
It’s the way he can’t hold on to that performative front with me.
How he can’t help but expose himself. The way he stares at me when I’m talking, as if he’s committing my every word to memory.
The way he stares at me when I’m not talking.
How serious he seems, but how he can actually pick up a joke in stride.
My cheek scrapes against his when I turn my face into him, and there’s nothing but raw need in my voice as I breathe against his skin, “Can I kiss you?”
He answers by likewise shifting into me on a sharp inhale, but then we freeze when the corners of our mouths connect.
Oh god. That little taste of him. Just that heated brush of soft edges.
This man is going to set me on fire.
One of his hands tightens on my waist as the other slips to cradle my head, long fingers splayed across my neck and his thumb braced at my ear.
He pulls back slightly to align our mouths, and I briefly catch a glimpse of his now-black eyes, pure smoldering ash.
My lips part for him a split second before he crashes into me with what seems to be the bare minimum of restraint for this public place.
I’m melting. His lips are demanding and sure and hot on mine.
The thin material of my thong is so soaked through already I can feel it heavy against my throbbing core, and I grip his shoulder tighter with one hand as my other slides down his loosened collar, my fingers curling inside against his hot skin.
We both take our fill as we alternate getting the other’s top and bottom lips between our own, each hot brush heightening the almost unbearable sensitivity everywhere our bodies touch.