Page 8 of Kiss Kiss Bang
Neil had been even-keeled, well-mannered, and polite. He’d never spoken to her so directly, even when they’d been married.
Neil had known her better than anyone and he knew that she did not have one submissive bone in her.
Yet she had to stop herself from exhaling a breathless yes in reply to his demand to see her again.
Joey was close. So close.
Was he going to kiss her?
Oh God, he was, wasn’t he?
But she tamped down the desire to agree to go out with him and instead said, “I can’t.” It was barely audible and it was absolutely not confident. It almost sounded like a question.
He leaned in. His nose grazed her ear and her heart rate picked up and her pulse started to race. She should push him away. She should step back. Instead, she was unable to speak, which was not at all like her. Usually she spoke. She spoke a lot. And often and confidently. But this was the second time that evening he’d left her speechless. And, truth be told, breathless.
She closed her eyes and wet her lips knowing he was going to kiss her. But then she felt the heat of his body leave and she opened her eyes as he handed her back her computer.
Then he reached around her, her body sandwiched between him and her Lexus, and opened her door. The man knew exactly what he was doing. He was riling her up, driving her wild. It was in the twinkle in those dark and dangerous eyes and the slight upward tilt of the corners of his lips. She moved out of the way to allow him to open the door. “Goodnight, Livie.”
She cleared her throat. “Goodnight, Joey.” She was still just staring at him. Not like a professional politician. Not like a single mother. Definitely not like a thirty-five-year-old woman. Like a teenager experiencing her first bout of lust. Or a woman who hadn’t had sex in many many years. She shook her head and slid into her car. He shut the door and tapped the roof twice.
Pulling out of the parking lot, she couldn’t help but glance in her rearview mirror to look at him one last time. They hadn’t exchanged numbers and she hadn’t agreed to go out with him. She immediately regretted it as she watched him, his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against his sports car.
But now, as she drove away and thought about the last few hours, she felt disheartened that he hadn’t tried harder to go out with her. A little nudge would have probably had her agreeing to most anything.
Unfortunately, her experience with men, aside from Neil, had mostly been the same. Men didn’t really like strong women, even if they thought they did. And a man like Joey would balk at being with someone like her. One night together—yes. But after that? When she was running around from meeting to meeting, speech to speech? Flinging orders and fighting with everyone who opposed her positions?
And when she wasn’t campaigning, she was spending time with Sophie. Finding time to fit in a relationship was almost impossible and a man could never be a priority. But still, sometimes she wished she could find someone who’d scoop her up and have his way with her and make her his priority, even if he couldn’t necessarily be that for her.
Maybe she did believe in fairy tales after all.
Because a man like that didn’t exist in real life.
