Page 74 of Cut Off
“Yeah?”
“You look—” He shakes his head. Starts over. “You look stunning.”
“Stunning is a strong word.”
“It’s the right word.”
I want to make a joke. I have one ready, even, something about how a girl could get used to this, but his hand is still on my hip, his eyes are still on mine, and the joke dies somewhere between my brain and my mouth. “Thank you,” is all I manage.
He opens the door for me. He opens the car door for me. He puts a hand on the small of my back as I lower myself in, andthe silk slides against the seat and he watches that too, before he closes the door like it’s taking all of his self-control.
He drives. He doesn’t tell me where we’re going. I try, for one mile, to play it cool.
“So,” I say.
“So.”
“Are we going to talk about the part where you turned my bedroom into a scene fromPretty Woman?”
“Not yet.”
“Are we going to talk about the countertop?”
His hand tightens on the steering wheel. He glances at me, and that look does something unhelpful to my pulse.
“Eventually,” he says.
The drive isn’t long. He turns into downtown Dickens, past the Stagger Inn, and heads down the wrong side of the river to go to the Velvet Steak.
He pulls up in front of the Kingston Hotel. It’s the only place in this town with a doorman, and the doorman is the same guy who once chased my brother off the property for trying to do a backflip in the lobby fountain.
Jonah hands the keys to the valet. Comes around. Opens my door. Offers a hand.
I take it.
I step out onto the sidewalk in front of the Kingston Hotel with Jonah Holt’s hand on the small of my back, and I say, “Wow. This is pretty forward of you, Holt.”
He huffs a laugh. “Is it?”
“A hotel? On the first date?” I shrug. “Well, unless you count the countertop as a first date.”
“The countertop was a lot of things,” he says it low, into my ear, as we walk, and I almost trip on my own shoes. “But it wasn’t a date. And I didn’t bring you here for a room.”
“Mm. Disappointing. Though I would point out, in the spirit of full disclosure, that after our first encounter—no pun intended—a bed seems generous.”
He actually stops walking, right in the middle of the Kingston lobby, with its enormous chandelier, fountain, and brass bellhop carts, and he closes his eyes for a beat and breathes out through his nose.
“Zoe.”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Probably.”
He shakes his head and steers me forward, and I let myself enjoy the small high of having broken him in a public space.
We approach the Kingston’s hotel restaurant, which is the second-nicest in town, all dark wood and white tablecloths. I mentally rehearse what to order from their menu, but then we walk right past it.
