Page 48 of How to Get Lucky
“I’m afraid somebody may have cut my brakes when it comes to you,” I say, then I brush a kiss along her cheek. “And I mean that in every way. Not just the physical. You know that, right?”
Her lips curve into a soft grin. “I think I do know that.”
I squeeze her hand. “I mean it. I meant everything I said earlier. But I mean this too. Being with you is one of the easiest things I’ve ever done, not just in ages, but ever. Talking to you, laughing with you—everything with you. It’s kind of crazy.”
“It’s kind of crazy good.”
“Kind of wild that twenty minutes ago, I was telling you that things would be different if I had a different job and how I don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past . . . and now all I want is to spend more time with you.”
Her smile is sweet and sexy. “I guess the blow job worked, then.”
I don’t return the joke. Instead, I tuck her hair behind her ear. “No. It’s not the blow job. Though it was spectacular. It’s you. Just you. Nothing about this feels like a mistake.”
“I know,” she whispers softly. “I feel the same.”
I press my forehead to hers, my hand brushing over her soft hair. I’m savoring this moment. It feels like we’re teetering on the edge. Of saying more. Of admitting hearts and feelings and all those other things.
But the last twenty-four hours with her have simply been a bubble, and I’d do well to remember that.
We separate, and I do up the buttons on my shirt. “I want to taste you, touch you, feel you. Slide inside you. Watch you melt. Make you come a second time and then do it again,” I say. “Which we really shouldn’t do in here.”
She laughs, breathes out hard, then waves a hand in front of her face. “Okay, you make me laugh and you turn me on at the same time. Is that your special skill?”
“Why, yes, it is.”
“But the trouble is . . .”
“Barking pumpkin dog.”
“Nailed it,” she says a little sadly.
“Well, if we were dating, what would you do?”
“If we were dating?” She asks the words as if she’s tasting them. As if they’re cherries or ice cream and she likes the way they feel on her tongue.
Hell, I like the way they sound on her tongue.
“I think we’d go to my house,” she continues, “pick him up, and take him to yours.”
“So that’s what we’d do if we were dating?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll do that.”
And it feels like we are dating. This is a dating conversation. This is a few days with a woman I’m falling for. These are the type of days I’ll remember two, three, four years down the road when we talk about how the two of us started to fall for each other.
Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.
“The very puppy-friendly pooch Sir David Bowie and I extend a most humble invitation to Mr. Darcy for an evening in our home,” I say in an over-the-top British accent. “Would you like to bring Mr. Darcy to my house?”
“Mr. Darcy accepts your invitation. However, he is a horn dog.”
“He will be in excellent company, then.”
* * *
A little later, London pulls up at my house in her cherry-red VW bug. She parks the car, unbuckles her dog, and steps out with Mr. Darcy in her arms.
Little dude wags his tail when he sees me waiting with Bowie, so I scratch the small pooch’s chin, then give him a kiss on the head.
She sets him on the ground, and the dogs greet each other.
I waggle the dog bags in my hand. “I got the dog bags. Please try not to get too excited.”
“Oh, that is so sexy,” she says.
I take her hand and we walk our dogs and they do their business. It’s not romantic, yet it’s ridiculously romantic because the stars are out, the night air is cool, and we’re wandering through my neighborhood like we would if we were dating.
If we were together.
Everything about tonight feels like it could be repeated for the next week and the next month and the next year. Everything about this feels like this could be how we are.
I squeeze her hand.
She smiles in my direction. “What’s that for?”
I shrug. “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.”
She laughs too. “I feel the same way.” She nudges my elbow as we round the corner on my street. “Hey, on a scale of one to ten, how great have the last twenty-four hours been?”
“Five hundred,” I say.
“C’mon. I was thinking a thousand.”
“We haven’t even had sex yet. Let’s wait for the sex till we give it a thousand.”
“That’s my point. It’s amazing with you even if we don’t sleep together.”
I groan—a groan of happiness. I stop in my tracks, my dog by my side, her dog by her side, and I cup her cheek. “You’re right. It’s a thousand already.” I press a kiss to her lips. When we separate, I say, “I like hanging out with you. I liked it last night, and I liked it today. I like working together. I like all the things.”
