Page 9 of Business Casual
The longer I’m quiet, the more her expression slips. She drops my gaze to look back at our feet, her mouth set in a firm line. Her hand tightens against the back of my neck, and she puts two inches of space between us. I’d wince if I were capable of feeling a single thing above my belt.
“Stop making that face,” she seethes from between clenched teeth.
“What face?”
“The one you’re making.
“I have no idea what my face looks like, Nova. It’s my face.”
She huffs, leans back, and presses her fingertip to the corner of my lips. “You look like someone just shoved an entire lemon into your mouth. Fix it.”
“Sorry.” I try to school my features into something neutral, buteverything feels numb. Like I’m underwater. I’m not entirely convinced I’mnothaving a medical event. “Is it better? Did I fix it?”
She shakes her head, sighs, and looks at the trees around her, her chin to her chest.
I’ve embarrassed her.
Worse, I think I’ve hurt her feelings.
“Nova.”
“Forget I said anything.”
I don’t mean to laugh, but I feel slightly hysterical. “It is burned into my brain.”
I’ll be hearing her murmurcome home with mein her husky, sweet voice for the rest of my life.
She frowns. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“That makes one of us.”
She makes a frustrated noise under her breath. Finally, she meets my eyes again. “Charlie. Please. I don’t know what I was thinking. Let’s just…let’s just talk about expense reports instead.”
A faintly pained noise leaves the back of my throat. “I don’t know how you expect me to talk dirty to you on top of everything else.”
Amusement flickers across her face. “You’re ridiculous.”
I am ridiculous. I’m also confused.
“Nova,” I say gently. “Last week I told you that your hair looked nice and you told me to get a grip. I’m trying to figure out how we got from there to here.”
She gives me a long, considering look. Her eyes look darker tonight, like a dense fog in the middle of the woods. Lazy mornings beneath the sheets, rain pelting at the windows. Tea on the kettle and nothing but socks and bare skin.
“You know how we got here,” she says quietly. The start of a confession, I think.
“Humor me.”
She catches her bottom lip between her teeth again. Before I caneven think about it, I reach up and curl my fingers around her jaw, my thumb popping it free. It feels imperative, a need burning through my blood. I rub once. Her mouth feels like silk. Her tongue barely touches the pad of my thumb and I almost send us back into that tree.
“That’s how we got here,” she explains, her voice still a low hush. “You’ve been flirting with me forever, Charlie. You’re surprised I want to flirt back?”
“I’m surprised you want me to take you home,” I murmur.
I return my hand to the small of her back, fingertips splayed wide, and then clear my throat three times in a row for absolutely no reason. She looks up at me from beneath golden-tipped lashes, a smile flirting with the corner of her pale pink lips.
I move us across the dance floor, painfully aware of every place our bodies touch. Thighs, hips, chest.
This dance I begged her for is now my personal hell.
