by Susan Ward
I’m positive that’s why the interior of most elevators is mirrored. It lets people watch as they have sex in them. Though this is only a freight elevator. No mirrors. It’d still be a fucking rush to do it our first time in here. She might if I show her a nice time today and act all boyfriend wanting to know you like.
Girls love that shit.
It turns them into sex machines.
It’s the only reason why guys do it.
Ever.
Decision made: boyfriend mode during the day and then I make my move first thing when we’re in this elevator.
Yeah, that’s something to look forward to. The thought is exciting, and I pick up my pace as hurry out the doors and into the bar.
IT’S NEARLY ELEVEN. Willow’s shift ended thirty minutes ago. What’s the holdup?
My fingers tap on the counter as I sit back in my stool, ignoring the dweeb beside me. Dean, I think Jade said his name is. He’s been spewing nonstop into my ear since he parked himself next to me. He’s one of those guys; the guys who talk because they enjoy hearing themselves.
I wonder which one of the girls—Jade or Ivy—is responsible for him being here. It sure as fuck isn’t Willow. She’s out of his league in every way. The guy practically has no chance, no future tattooed on his forehead. He isn’t getting anywhere in life unless he can learn how to keep his trap shut or be something interesting.
“You should really come to University of Virginia and check out the campus,” Dean prattles on. “It’s never too late to start college. Don’t blow your future, man. Without an education, your lifetime earning potential goes to shit.”
Great, he’s transitioned into a motivational speaker.
Gag me.
I wonder what this douche would say if I told him in five years I have a trust fund coming my way and the size of it. High eight figures, baby. That’d shut him up. Fast.
“I know, I know,” he croons, entertained by himself. “I sound out there. Who wants to ruin their party hitting the books? But if you don’t think about the future you don’t have a good one. Consider the college thing. You don’t have to commit.”
Smiling and nodding, my gaze seeks out a Willow sighting in the mirror above the shelf with the liquor bottles, and I try to will her with the intensity of my stare to save me.
Hell, she can’t feel my stare through the glass. She doesn’t look at my reflection. But then, she’s moving through the bar like a cyclone. Maybe her doing that is a sign of how badly she wants to get out of here with moi.
No, all three of those chicks are moving at warp speed. I’ve never seen women work this way before. Like it’s a mission or something.
Dean notices who I’m preoccupied with and laughs. “Willow’s a great girl.”
The hairs on my arms stand up. “Don’t have to tell me that.”
“It sucks that I have to leave tomorrow. I’m flying back to Virginia. Could only spend eight days here as I’m on the freshman orientation team and she’s been working the entire time because of her dad not being here.”
I shrug because what am I supposed to say to that? Congrats on scoring a short-time part-time gig after three years of college? Or I’m glad you’re leaving? Or I’m thrilled her dad’s not here to get in the way of my getting to know her?
Dean sighs and joins me in staring at Willow. “I’m sure we’ll connect when Willow starts school in the fall. She’s going to be an amazing addition to the campus. She’s everything Jade says she is. Fix-ups never end up with girls as incredible as that. Whenever I look at her, it’s like I need to pinch myself.”
Oh, fuck to the no. My fingers curl tightly around my glass of sparkling water. No way is a loser like him ever getting anywhere near her.
“When does your plane leave?” I ask.
He flushes and waves me off. “Hey, man, I’ve got transportation to the airport all worked out. Jade set it up. Willow’s driving me in the morning.”
Whoa, this dude is slow on the uptake and can’t read other guys. He thinks I care about his shithole life, which I don’t. I just want to know how quickly he’ll be a coast away.
And that part about Willow driving him—not happening. “Oh shit.” I say it like I’m concerned. “I didn’t know Willow was your ride to the airport. We have plans tomorrow all day.”
He stares, confused, then it’s like the dots connect in his head and his eyes flash. Wow. This dude’s missed everything. How the fuck doesn’t he know with the way Ivy and Jade run their mouths that I nearly hooked up with Willow in the stairwell yesterday and that I’d slept in her room last night?
His stare grows more intense and I answer back all innocent and clueless to what his expression is asking me. Yep, asswipe, we’re after the same girl and I’m doing better.
Our stare-down doesn’t end until Willow darts behind the bar and his eyes shoot toward her. That poor dweeb’s begging her to notice him. I almost feel sorry for him. But I don’t.
Willow rips off her apron and makes a flouncy move as she swings around to face me. “Done. Jade said I can leave. The rest of the day is mine. Do you want to get out of here?”
Fuck yeah. “That depends.”
She giggles since I used our banter from the stairwell. “On what?” she says overly dramatic and cutesy with an accent to mimic me. She’s trying to hide how much she likes me. But sorry, love, body language doesn’t lie.
She has her elbows planted on the bar and is leaning forward. My eyes travel from hers smiling at me to take advantage of that view of her tits made by how she’s balanced on her arms.
“Hello? Eric? On what?” she demands, exasperated that I haven’t answered her yet.
My gaze moves upward back to her face. “On whether you’re leaving with me.”
She beams and rounds the bar to my side, stopping beside my chair. Not one flit of her eyes wanders to Dean. Never a doubt. That guy’s delusional if he thinks he has a prayer of ever being anything to her.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“Wherever you’ll let me,” she murmurs then bites her lip. Holding her hand in mine, we head for the door. Eat your heart out, Dean.
Chapter Thirteen
Willow
MY LAUGHTER ERUPTS THE second we’re on the street. The force of it hits me so hard I can’t walk. I’m half doubled over and no longer holding Eric’s hand.
I’m behaving so badly.
Unkind.
I need to stop it, but the way Eric’s golden brows furrow makes me laugh harder.
“What?”
My eyes flare wide. Shoot, he thinks I’m laughing at him. It’s nearly impossible to talk. “I’m going to go to hell for that. I was supposed to give Dean a tour of Seattle this afternoon. It was bad not to invite him to join us. But it felt so good to escape him. My sister’s been throwing him at me all week. Making me take him places when I’m not working.”
“Your sister did that to you?”
I shouldn’t encourage this discussion, it isn’t right, but I nod. “I told her no way, not ever, and she refused to believe me. He’s nice enough but he’s just so…so…”
“Stale and dry as week-old bread, love?”
“Exactly. You’ve hit it spot on. That’s exactly what Dean is. Week-old bread.”
Now we’re both laughing. Eric takes my hand and we move briskly down the street.
“Does your sister do that to you often? Fix you up with guys no one would want to date?”
I give him a look. “This is a first. I’m sure Jade and Ivy consider it an intervention.”
Now he’s alert. “An intervention for what? Insomnia?”
“He’s not that bad.”
“Compared to what?”
The names of my exes rattle off in my head. Diving into that is too much sharing with a guy this early on. Instead I say, “You.” And I make a flirty shake of my hair with my nose close to his.
“Me?” He sounds genuinely taken abac
k. “How am I bad?”
You’re so hot you make me want to be bad. Ditching a guy when I’ve got plans with him is a first for me.
I tap an index finger against my cheek. “Hmm. Do you want the list?”
“Oh, you have a list. Bring it on, love.”
How he says love should be item number one. It turns my insides to liquid lava and, worse, I can tell he knows it.
I smile. “Well, for one thing you haven’t told me anything about you.”
“I answered every question you asked me in the stairwell. What’s left to know?”
“Everything.” I growl playfully, hoping it doesn’t show how much I want to know everything.
He groans. “Don’t tell me we’re doing another job interview. I thought we were past that.”
Giggling again, I ease closer into his arm. “No way. I’m one of those nosy girls. I like the full info dump on a guy on the first date.”
“The first date?”
“Yep, I need to know everything if you want to have a chance with me.”
Which isn’t precisely the truth. In fact, I don’t have a great track record of guys being up-front with me. I wasn’t born with an inner lie detector the way Jade and Ivy were. Probably because I like people too much, I want everyone to be as they seem.
“No one knows everything about anyone, Willow,” Eric says quietly. How Eric’s face changes makes me stop walking. What did I say to cause the light to go out of his eyes? “We all hold pieces back.”
I frown. I was only teasing and he’s suddenly serious. To test his mood, I say flippantly, “That’s a terrible thought. Never getting to know anyone completely.”
“It’s reality. How things are.” He grimaces. “If we knew everything about everyone, no one would ever like anyone. That’s not a terrible thought at all.”
My mind is suddenly paralyzed with apprehension. I’m wondering if Ivy’s right and he’s not the guy I’m hoping he is. “Yes, it is terrible, if you think about it. We all spend so much time trying to be who we are it’d be a shame if no one ever fully shared it. Like a great gift under the Christmas tree that never gets unwrapped. Sometimes I feel guys are deliberately that way, when letting themselves be unwrapped would be such a wonderful thing for a girl.”
I’m struggling to maintain a composed expression, but it’s very hard to tell what he’s thinking.
“Is this where we’re going?” he asks, jutting his chin toward the building. We’re in front of the Java Hut, my favorite Capitol Hill coffeehouse.
His question isn’t what I expect, and changing the subject makes me wonder if we’ve drifted into territory he doesn’t want to be in: the sharing zone where he tells me about himself and I tell him about me. Is it both sides of the exchange, or just the part where he talks about himself?
“Coffee, or are we walking more?” he prompts again.
I’m not sure I want either now. The mild summer day has lost its luster. The sun’s shining and the traffic is light. The most pleasant kind of day, the kind when I could walk in my neighborhood for hours loving every second of the familiar sights and smells. The day I’d planned to have with Eric before he closed up right in front of me.
And yes, that’s what he did. Closed up. It’s him he doesn’t want to talk about.
“We don’t have to do either if you don’t want to,” I say, avoiding his eyes. “We can just go back to the apartment and wait until your mom texts you and sends money so you can go home. Running out of the bar with you was more about escaping Dean than anything else. We don’t really have to spend the day together.”
“Whoa. Ouch.” He raises his eyebrows. “That’s a slap in the face and get lost rolled into one. What’s changed, love?”
I shrug. “Nothing.”
“You’re not a very good fibber, Willow.” When I peek up at him, he’s rubbing his chin, thoughtful. “Nosy girl, huh? One cup of coffee, and while we drink it you can put me through one of your interviews if that’s a requirement of yours. But when the cups go into the trash, can we go back to having fun together? Can we do that, love? I really like you. That’s all I need to know about you.”
For a moment I’m not certain I should spend the day with Eric, but fortunately my subconscious kicks in with a pep talk. Don’t let Ivy and Jade blow this for you. You really like him, too.
“On one condition.” I say it playfully, but I’m nervous as hell.
Eric chuckles. “Not only nosy but a one-condition freak. Shoot.”
I surreptitiously gaze at him from beneath my lashes as he waits. “We drink very slowly, and I’m allowed a refill if I want one.”
“You drive a hard bargain to spend a day with you, love. Is it me or are you this way with every guy who tries to get to know you?”
I debate how to answer that and go with the truth. “Just you.”
“Hmm,” he replies noncommittally. Then his dazzling smile spreads wide as he reclaims my hand in his long, warm fingers. I feel the current of him run through me, and my heartbeat accelerates. “We’ve got a deal. On one condition.”
My heart soars. “Oh, you’re a one-condition freak.”
“No, not usually. I want to know why you’re only nosy and suspicious of me?”
“That’s obvious.”
“Not to me. Are you going to answer or not?”
I smile as he opens the door. “You’re mysterious. It’s not often you meet a guy who tells you practically nothing about himself. Talking about themselves is almost the favorite pastime of every guy I know. That alone makes you different.”
“We’ve only known each other one day.”
“Yes, but you kissed me and slept in my bed.”
The look he gives me tickles between my legs, and I’m whisked up against him, his mouth closing in on mine. My pulse goes through the roof, but he stops with his nose touching mine and air between our lips. “We only slept in your bed. That makes you different from the girls I’ve known.”
“Like you said, we’ve only known each other one day.”
“Damn, you don’t have one of those three-dates rules, do you?”
“No. It’s more like five dates. That isn’t going to be a problem, is it?”
He cocks his head to one side and rapidly assesses my face. Holy crap, why did I tell him that garbage? Five-date rule? Stupid. No guy wants to hear that.
His lips quirk up in a half smile. “It could be a problem. It depends.”
I laugh, nervous but curious. “On what?”
“If I’m here another night with you.”
I blink rapidly, but before my reeling mind can form words, he closes the door, flattens me against it, and captures my lips in a bruising kiss. The way his mouth moves against mine—sweetly gentle with soft touches of his tongue, his body balanced with a hair keeping us separate as his fingers dance in my hair—is the sexiest kiss a guy’s ever given me. I’m a quivering mess, hungry for the full-length feel of him, and he’s painfully quiet and in control.
His mouth lifts from mine and I’m panting. “I need to be honest here, love. I’ll do my best, but I don’t think I have it in me if we room together another night. You’ve been warned. That five-date rule is going to get shredded.”
As he leads me into the Java Hut, I attempt to hold back the ridiculous grin that threatens to break through. Be cool, Willow, my inner me implores. If all I get out of this is getting to know him, it’s going to be as amazing as our kiss against the Java Hut door was. I know it.
Chapter Fourteen
Eric
INSIDE THE COFFEEHOUSE, I glance around as though undecided about what table to take. In truth it’s a delaying tactic. I don’t want to release Willow’s hand. Her fingers feel that good in mine.
“Do you want to get our coffees or just sit for a while?” Willows inquires sweetly. “Boomer’s cool with people hanging out without buying anything since a lot of people in Capitol Hill don’t have money these da
ys.”
“Boomer?”
“The owner. He’s my dad’s best friend. He lives in the apartment next to us.”
The mention of her dad reminds me of something Dean said. “Where is your dad? On holiday? Is that why you and your sister are running the bar?”
“Holiday?” She scoffs as if the notion is absurd, then her eyes cloud over. “The only time my dad doesn’t work is when he gets sick. He has diabetes. It’s been really bad the last year. He’s been in the hospital two weeks this time. I’m really worried about him.”
My heart clenches and I give her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t know your dad was sick. I don’t know what I’d do if my dad ever got sick. He’s like the rock of our family.”
Her glistening brown gaze melts into something moving and I’m not sure what I’m seeing in her eyes. “You love your dad, your entire family, very much, don’t you?”
It’s not something I think of, but having her ask me that makes it something I feel powerfully. “Yeah, I do,” I admit without hesitance, then uncomfortable with how her expression changes, I pull a grimace. “That’s probably not very cool to say. You know, with my bad-boy image and all.”
Her eyes flare wide as her fingers tighten around mine. “Yes, you’re the worst bad boy I’ve ever met. You know, that stealing-kisses-from-me-while-I’m-asleep thing completely shredded your good-guy image forever.”
“That’s not saying very much for the guys you dated before me, love. Not if kissing you shreds my image. It’s amazing your five-date rule hasn’t been shredded long ago.”
She makes a cute little I’ll never tell sort of lift of her nose. Someone’s feeling sassy, flirty, and confident. Damn, it makes Willow so fucking irresistible. There should be a law against girls this sweet and hot.
“How do you know some other guy hasn’t already shredded the five-date rule?” she taunts spiritedly.
I lean closer to her face. “The way you kissed me at the door. If I’d given you full tongue in the mouth you’d have had an orgasm.” Her eyes grow enormous as her cheeks cutely pink, and I kiss her again, quick, fast, searing and tongue deep.
