Page 71 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
Zander’s eyes flash up to meet mine above the rim of his coffee cup, eyes guarded, face expressionless, and he holds my stare as he slowly lowers his cup and leans back.
And of course now that my initial surge of courage is gone, the words thrown out there without any precursor, the doubt laced with nerves takes over and I begin to second-guess whether I should have kept my mouth shut.
His unwavering stare and continued silence scream for me to explain myself. I hate that I want to, that I don’t want to, but this morning-after business is all new to me and I don’t know what to do or expect.
All I know is how I feel. It’s a jumbled mess of want and need and fear of the unknown and insecurity and confusion. I already know I’ve stepped over the imaginary line he’s set for whatever to us meant that night at the Italian restaurant and yet don’t know how to pull myself back.
In a move I’m not sure is smart or stupid but is spurred on by his unyielding stare, I try again. “Look, if you think last night was a mistake . . . or you were faking how you . . . oh, just never mind.” I shift my gaze to my own fingers fiddling with the handle of my fork, hating my sudden inability to string words together to make a coherent sentence and my lack of nerve to stand behind my opening question.
“If you’re gonna open the door, Getty, you might as well walk on through it.” There’s a warning tone in his voice that makes me fidget in my seat and I wish I’d just let things play out however they were playing out.
But now I can’t. Now I have to finish what I started and I’m not so sure I want to. My mouth suddenly becomes dry as uncertainty clouds every ounce of hope I woke up with this morning. “I just—I understand why . . . if I wasn’t . . . if you regret last night . . . that’s all.” My eyes sting with the rejection ringing in my tone.
“What gives you the impression I regret anything?” His eyes search mine and his voice scolds me in a way that makes every part of my body stand at attention. And I’m not quite sure what it is about him that gives him such pull over me, but as much as I want to look away, I can’t. “Well?” The quirk of an eyebrow. The dart of a tongue. A lazy but more-than-deliberate glance down my body and then back up to my eyes.
“It’s not like you’ve been exactly pleasant this morning.” When he just raises an eyebrow again, telling me to go on, I continue. “A few grunts here and there followed by one-word commands . . . the caveman thing doesn’t do it for me.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what does it for you,” he says as a smile ghosts over his lips and travels up to his eyes, but then it’s gone just as quick as it comes. The fleeting appearance of the man I slept with last night feels just as confusing to me as the verbally stunted jerk of a guy from this morning. “I warned you.” He shrugs. “I’m moody.”
“Seriously? The Mander excuse isn’t going to fly with me right now. I mean . . .” I huff out a breath and roll my eyes, distracted momentarily by a loud clatter of sounds on the floor above us. “Was saying good morning or granting me more than two words on the ride here that difficult for you to do?”
We sit in silence, eyes locked. I’m not sure what happens to cause it, but all of a sudden his face softens subtly and he shakes his head before looking down at his fingers on his coffee cup. His voice is gruff when he finally speaks. “I’m pissed at you.”
“What?” I laugh in disbelief, more confused than ever. “What the hell did I do?”
When he looks up, I’m staggered by the sudden empathy in his eyes and the shy smile on his lips. The hard edge from moments ago is gone. Stripped bare. This is the man who was with me last night. The one I’m still trying to figure out but, more important, want to know more about.
He licks his bottom lip and then bites it as he leans back into his chair and shakes his head. There’s a knowing look in his eyes like he wants me to understand something that he doesn’t understand himself. Confusion wars across his handsome features as I just sit and wait for him to work through whatever is weighing so heavily on his shoulders.
A loud sigh. A toss of his napkin on the table beside his plate. “We’re venturing into uncharted territory for me, Socks.”
I angle my head and blink a few times, trying to understand what he means. His toast flashes through my mind: . . . because friends between the opposite sexes leads to friends with benefits and that always ends in disaster, and you know what, Getty? I don’t want that with you, so let’s just say “to us,” whatever us may be. . . .
“Like as in ‘always ends in disaster’ territory?”
“Something like that,” he says with a nod, but his eyes tell a different story I can’t quite read yet. He twists his lips, lowers his eyes for a fraction of a second before raising them back up to mine. This time there’s a bit more resolve in them. “When I left home after everything with Colton, I promised myself from here on out I’d live my life without regrets. That every step I take, every decision I make, everything I do, will be with that as a constant in my mind. So, Getty . . .” He shifts forward in his seat, places his elbows on the table so that we are as close as we can be with a table between us. “Let me make myself clear when I say I have zero regrets about last night and you even thinking it pisses me off.” And the way he speaks, voice deep but still quiet and intent, makes any response I have insignificant.
“Oh” is all I can muster, considering he deliberately holds my gaze hostage with that amused glint in his eyes as he sits back in his chair.
“Yeah. Oh.” He says both words in a way that has my body standing at attention and taking notice of everything about him like it’s my first time really looking at him.
He’s sitting across from me, angled in the chair so that one elbow lies on the armrest, arm bent with his finger running back and forth over his bottom lip. I take in his unshaven jawline, dark hair hidden beneath the lid of a Giants baseball hat, the broad set of his shoulders, and the flex of his bicep.
Ungodly handsome. And so damn pretty. The last thought makes me smile and earns me a raised eyebrow asking me what’s so funny. But I don’t answer, because I’m so captivated by his fingers running over his lip. My mind immediately recalling what those lips felt like when they moved against mine.
And over my skin.
“Getty?”
I lift my eyes to meet his again and instantly the air begins to shift. Electrify. It fills with an underlying tension that vibrates all around us. My pulse picks up, body becomes restless.
His eyes still hold that hint of irritation they’ve had since he stalked in the house, but there is no mistaking the desire now clouding them too. And even though I’m still confused as to why he’s pissed at me for venturing into this uncharted territory, there is no way in hell I can deny my body’s immediate response to him.
I never thought sexual desire could be tangible, but my God, in this small space of time it feels like I’ve just been sucker punched.
He continues to rub his finger back and forth, visual foreplay that I’m pretty sure is a deliberate taunt to my awakening libido. I’m irritated that he can affect me so quickly and at the same time I’m turned on so much that I have to press my thighs together to ease the ache burning there.
Determined to let him know that I can play whatever game he wants to play, I shift my gaze from his mouth back up to his eyes. And those eyes? Whew. The look they give me, like he wants to clear the table, lay me down, and devour me, right here, right now, causes my breath to stutter in my chest.
