Page 26 of Dating Mr. Right A Collection
And my heart goes thud. It falls to the floor, beating for him, like a silly, lust-struck fool.
Kristen: I’d love to. But it’s easier to talk it through on the phone.
Three seconds later, my phone rings.
“What a cheap excuse to get me to call,” he teases.
“But it worked.”
“I’m easy like that.”
I go to the deck, stare at the night sky, and tell him how to find the constellation. When we’re done searching millions of miles away, we talk about music and our friends. I learn about Lulu, and I tell him about Piper, and the ache in my chest grows.
But so do the feelings.
They balloon.
“What are we doing?” I ask.
He sighs, a little sadly. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t be calling you like this. It makes everything harder.”
“I know. Talking to you till all hours makes it harder.”
“It makes me wish I were there.”
I lean back in the chair, closing my eyes. “What would you do if you were?”
“Kiss you.” His voice is a sexy rumble.
I hum. “Where?”
“Your lips, the hollow of your throat, your earlobe, where you like to be nipped.”
I shiver. “Do I like to have my earlobe nibbled on?”
“Oh, you absolutely do. And I’d kiss you for hours.”
“I’d squirm for hours,” I whisper.
“I like all the sounds you make when I kiss you. I’d like to know what other sounds you make.”
Flames. I go up in flames. “I suspect you’d be cataloguing a whole lot of noises.”
A soft chuckle comes from his end of the line, followed by a sexy sigh. “I’d like to kiss you everywhere, Kristen.”
And I die. From the visual my brain helpfully assembled. From the shiver that rushed down my belly thanks to that image. And from the possibility of his mouth exploring me everywhere.
When we hang up, I’m lonelier than when we started.
* * *
It would have been smarter to stop, but we don’t. We keep going over the next few weeks, as I work and see my friends, as he works and travels more for business.
Every night, we talk.
Every day, we text.
Every time, the math geek in me craves a solution. We are one side of the equation, and I don’t know how to solve for x with all these miles between us.
I long to know what’s on the other side of the equal sign.
One day when I return home from work, I find a package waiting outside my door. Bending, I pick up the padded manila envelope. Once inside my condo, I slide open the envelope, then I shriek.
Oops.
I’d shrieked so loudly that Grams opens her door seconds later.
“Cockroach, gator, or dragonfly?”
Laughing, I shake my head, clutching the package to my chest. “Neither. It’s Cupid. DVDs of Cupid.”
“That Jeremy Piven show? Who sent them?”
I can’t wipe the dopey grin off my face. “Cameron.”
She arches a brow knowingly. “Told you so.”
I pluck the card from inside, opening it. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I tracked these down for you. I hope you enjoy every single second of them. The only thing better would be if you were wearing knee-high socks and curled up next to me on the couch.”
He’s right.
That’s the only thing that would make this better.
The next day I send him a gift. One that lets him know how much I like this one.
19
Cameron
“What do you think? Great name for the new line?”
I blink up at Lulu. Shoot. What did she just tell me was her idea for the new line of chocolate?
I was too busy replaying last night’s conversation with Kristen, when we listed all the things we could do in either a Ferrari or a Bugatti.
News flash—driving wasn’t that high up.
Still, Lulu deserves an answer, and since she’s aces at names, I take a wild guess that she’s devised a fantastic one. “Brilliant name,” I say, leaning against the counter in the shop. It’s quiet right now. There’s a lull in the afternoon traffic.
She shoots me a thumbs-up. “Fantastic. Toe Jam Chocolate it will be.”
I adopt a straight face, though I cringe inside. “Excellent.”
She shakes her head. “You are so busted.”
“Please, I knew you were putting me on.”
She shakes her head, poking my chest. “You. Did. Not.”
“Did. So.”
“You lie.”
I shrug. “Fine, you caught me. I was drifting into Daydream Land.”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time in Daydream Land since your Miami trip with Kristen.”
I sigh heavily. “I know, I know.”
“Heck, that weekend you guys took me to the Hamptons, you were texting her the whole time,” she says, reminding me of the trip a bunch of us took Lulu on when she needed to sort out the complexities of her love life. I might have been talking to Kristen a whole lot that weekend. And the next week. And the next one. And telling Lulu about her. “Which makes me wonder,” she adds, “why are you still here?”
