Page 23 of True Ruin
He thought she wasgorgeous. Gabi laughed to cover her delight, grateful for the break but not nearly as grateful as she ought to be. She’d had a mad urge to grab his hand and lead him to the closest bedroom. “Is your obsession that bad?” she asked instead.
“Worse. I would have totally used the phrase ‘postmodern anxiety.’”
She sputtered her wine. “O-kay.”
“Witness my restraint.” He cut into his chicken, his smile returning. “A lesser man would already be quoting lyrics.”
Dinner was better than she’d dreamed it would be, the tomatoes soft and sweet, the sauce rich enough that Gabi gave up pretending she wasn’t going to drag every bite through it. Outside, rain began to tick softly against the windowpanes, turning the moonlit glass silver while the dim light held them in its warm circle. They drank more wine, opening her bottle, and talked about easy things—Sam’s latest campaign for a puppy, the progress with Wilder Grounds, Dallas’s half-finished book, whether music sounded better if you were slightly brooding or burdened with a sunny disposition, which described the two of them fairly well. Gabi laughed more than she thought she would, and Dallas did, too, leaning back occasionally to stretch his ankle, looking less like a man passing through and more like someone who, for one dangerous second, might belong right here.
Or maybe that was her covert hope.
While he stacked plates in the sink, again shutting down her offer to help, Gabi took quick glimpses at his ass while trying to figure out how to move them into deeper territory. It didn’t make sense—obviously—to want more when their relationship had the shelf life of a farm-stand peach. But he’d had a second glass of wine, his smile had mellowed, deepening a dimple in his cheek she wanted to sample with her tongue, so…
It was time to find out what made Dallas True tick. Even if it went against the plan, she couldn’t fight her nature. She was inquisitive. Sue her.
Gabi traced her finger around the rim of her glass, then brought it to her mouth to suck off a drop of wine.
Glancing back, Dallas’s hand clenched around the dishrag, his chest lifting.
Before he recovered, Gabi dove in. “You mentioned a skirmish at work.”
“Wow,” Dallas murmured, the corners of his impossibly sexy lips tilting. “I owe you an apology. I had you pegged as snoopingbeforedinner.”
“Please, I’m a Southern girl.” She took an indifferent sip, hoping she didn’t look half as interested in his answer as she was. “I wait until dessert.”
His mouth twitched, but he turned away, reaching into the freezer. “Good thing I made that low effort. Less time for cross-examination.”
“I’m intrigued,” she said, thinking she might have to hate him a little if he could bake on top of the rest.
“Don’t be. It’s nothing like those dream things you make. Ice cream. Hot fudge. A simple design.” He pulled out a carton of vanilla, then bent for something in the refrigerator, slower than he had before, careful with the ankle though he hadn’t mentioned it once. “If you’re the kind of woman who can be trusted, I might add whipped cream.”
“I’m absolutelynotto be trusted with anything involving sugar.”
“Good to know.” He set a small saucepan on the stove and dropped in a pat of butter, then chocolate, then something from a jar. He kept his eyes on the pan, not on her.
Which was answer enough about his indecision.
Gabi watched his broad shoulders flex under the mellow light. Sometime after dinner, he’d changed the CD, and Billie Holiday drifted through the kitchen, her world-weary voice threading through the hiss of melting butter and raindrops tapping the windowpanes.
“So?” she asked gently. “What happened?”
“Like I mentioned before, I’m on a professional reprieve.” The statement came out flat. Too flat. “I made a mistake. A stupid, ambition-driven mistake.”
“Everyone who wants something badly enough goes a little stupid sometimes.”
“Generous revision, Wilder.” He stirred the chocolate as it softened, his profile turned away, probably the only way he was going to talk. “I wrote for anyone who’d take me at first. Wire services, papers that paid late, papers that didn’t pay enough. A twenty-two-year-old kid can sleep anywhere, anytime. Or not sleep at all. Eventually I was doing steady work out of Sarajevo. Some AP, some Reuters.The Guardianwhen I could sell them something with teeth.”
Gabi tried to picture him and couldn’t. A gorgeous guy in a kitchen with his glasses sliding down his nose, making hot fudge in a ragged T-shirt and beat-up jeans,yes. That same man in another country, under shellfire, filing stories from places she only saw in broken pieces on the evening news?No. Sleeping God knows where and learning which sounds meant run? She couldn’t make the two versions of him fit.
“And the skirmish?” she asked, drawing him back. She did the same dance with Sam when something had gone wrong at school.
Dallas laughed, because she wasn’t letting go. “Skirmish. That’s my word, because I’m charming.”
“That’s your word because you’re slippery. The charm offensive is how you get away with it.”
He glanced over, and she could tell whatever answer he’d had ready didn’t make it out. That she’d surprised him. His eyes caught on hers and stayed there, green and gold-flecked, the humor thinning into something hotter. As if he was deciding whether to deny her point or come around the island and prove it.
Suddenly, she very much wanted him to prove it.
