That kiss…
“David. We need to talk. We can’t just…” she broke off, her chest rising and falling as she battled for breath. “We can’t just make out and ignore all that has happened.”
Shit. She was right, of course, but being anywhere near her made him crazy, willing to toss aside commonsense just to be with her. Be inside her.
Dropping his hands, he took a step back, everything within him screaming that he was too far away from her now. He couldn’t feel her body heat, nor the hard softness of her belly.
He swallowed, opening his eyes to peer down at her with a guilty smile on his face. “You are right. I would say I am sorry, but that would be a lie. I cannot be sorry for wanting to kiss you, Diana.”
She lifted a hand, skimming her fingers over her own, kiss-swollen lips. God, he wanted to crow into the sky for being the one who’d made her lips like that.
“I wanted to kiss you, too, David, but…we really shouldn’t. There is just too much…bad air between us.”
“So let’s clear it. We’ll talk, eat once the food arrives, and then I will show you what I invited you here to see.”
She pursed her lips before nodded. “Okay.”
Letting out a relieved sigh, he led her to the dining room table and pulled out a chair for her. She took it, thanking him, and he pushed it in for her—as a true gentleman would. And he could be a gentleman, dammit! He would be for Diana, and he would be for his daughters, if his babies were daughters. He wanted to be an example of how a man should act toward women.
You’ve done a piss poor job of it so far, mate.
And, God, had he.
Make up for it. There’s still time.
Just as he opened his mouth to ask Diana about her day, the phone rang. He answered it and told the doorman to send the delivery man up. Striding to the door, he cracked it open and turned back to find Diana at his table, her expression one of uncertainty and apprehension, but there was also a…hopefulness glinting in her eyes.
I hope I put that there.
The delivery man arrived with their lunch and David handed him a hundred, thanking him and waving off the man’s effusive appreciation. Closing the door, David hauled the large paper bag to the dining room and placed it atop the table. Without prompting, Diana tore into the bag, lifting out her soup, baguettes, mac and cheese—which definitely looked better than whatever the hell he’d tried to make—and her iced tea.
Her first bite into her mac and cheese, she moaned, making David’s cock twitch.
Ignoring the blood flow into his shaft, he bit into his turkey avocado BLT, which was delicious. He almost moaned himself.
They ate in companionable silence until his sandwich was consumed and Diana had finished off the mac and cheese and one of the baguettes.
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs at the ankles, stretching out and purposefully invading her space. Closer. He needed to be closer.
God, I’ve become an absolute nutter for this woman. All his life, he’d never felt so impulsively driven to be near another human being, and it didn’t help that he’d spent his formative years traveling from place to place, never laying down roots, never being in one place long enough to create lasting relationships. Rick was the first person he’d ever let in to his private world. Rinna was the second…and she’d twisted him up so badly, he’d almost lost the third. Diana.
“So, you didn’t work today?” Diana asked after taking a long sip of her iced tea.
He shook his head, preparing himself for all he needed to say now that they were at the conversation portion of their afternoon.
“Though I usually put in several hours on the weekends, no. Something more important came up,” he remarked, peering into her eyes.
She must have caught his meaning because she blushed, rushing to take another sip of tea.
“Surely, you know you are the most important person in my life, Diana,” he drawled, sitting up and reaching across the table, extending his fingers in a silent plea for her hand. She hesitated, biting down on her plump bottom lip. He wanted to do that for her, then soothe the bite with his tongue.
Finally, she placed her hand in his and he silently roared his satisfaction. There was still so far to go, but this was a step in the right direction.
“David, when I texted you back, I intended to meet with you to get some things out in the open.” She paused, sucking in a breath before shuddering. “At the party, I overheard some women in the bathroom talking about you. About me and you together.”
Goddammit! Nothing good ever started with ‘I overhead some women in the bathroom.’
Instead of rushing to defend himself against whatever shit she’d heard, David bit back the urge and instead said, “What did you hear?”
She caught his gaze, holding it, and he couldn’t be prouder of his brave girl. She wasn’t backing down.
“Well, besides them calling me a porpoise and them gossiping about you and Rinna, they said that you’d spoken with a woman named Disher. She asked you who I was and you told her I was merely a charity case.”
Taken aback by that, he flinched, nearly dropping her head.
“That’s bullshit! I would never say that about you. And who in the fuck called you a porpoise! I will have her raked across the coals for speaking such outright shit about you,” he thundered, barely keeping himself from jumping from his chair to pace like a taunted lion.
She shrugged, her expression trying and failing to look nonchalant, as if the whole thing hadn’t hurt her, badly. “Some women named Barb and Sarah.”
Barb
