me so forward, so flirtatious. The alcohol and the fact that I had liked him once upon a time.
“ You didn’t.”
I froze for a moment, and then smiled, reaching for my drink. I held it up as if I were about to make a toast.
“We could remedy that.”
His eyes widened slightly before narrowing, and a small line creased his forehead.
I’d shocked him. Good. Because he’d shocked me, too, by admitting he’d wanted me. Or maybe he’d wanted a threesome.
“Mina.” All humor fled his voice and in the face of that seriousness, I downed the rest of my drink fast, even though I knew I should stop. If the food didn’t come soon, I’d be a mess. “I know I didn’t handle things well that night.
“I suppose I thought after seeing me with Tanya . . . I was trying to . . .”
“You don’t have to explain , ” I interrupted. Thankfully, the waitress seemed to realize a diversion was necessary for my sanity. She slid our plates in front of us before disappearing again.
“But I do,” he insisted. “It was an awkward situation, and I figured I’d lost any chance with you anyway—”
“Sebastian, your point is made,” I said quickly, cutting him off again. I no longer wanted to hear his explanation, to have to think about what it meant for my life, for the choices I’d made. I was so tired of analyzing everything. He had insisted on dinner, and therefore, tonight, he was simply a means to an end. “You have had to struggle against adversity in your life.”
He laughed, and I laughed, too, before pointing to the television screen hanging from the ceiling and asking about the soccer game that was playing. He paused for the briefest moment before answering my question, and I hoped he wouldn’t press the issue. He didn’t. Instead, I listened to his patter, relieved that he seemed willing to follow my lead.
My lead. This time I was in charge. I wasn’t the same girl who’d run from the kitchen in embarrassment, and I’d meant what I’d said so carelessly a few minutes earlier. There was one way to make this chance encounter meaningful. One way to close the circle.
As we ate our food, talked about sports and team rivalries, my focus was on the very near future. On getting Sebastian Graham into bed.
Chapter Two
W E LEFT SHORTLY after finishing our meals. The night was chilly, a mist in the air, despite it being spring.
“Where are you staying?” he asked as we walked toward his car. He played with his keys in his hand and the sound of their jangling was loud in the relatively quiet neighborhood.
“So that’s it?” I asked. “Just dinner? Old school chums catching up? As if we both aren’t curious what it would have been like between us?”
“I didn’t think . . .” I’d caught him by surprise. Sebastian stood on the sidewalk, keys dangling from his finger. He watched me carefully, assessing, maybe realizing that I’d meant what I said earlier in the pub, that this night could go differently than he’d imagined.
“Then don’t think,” I interrupted, moving closer. I’d learned a lot about seduction in the last two years. I’d learned that conversation was like music, physical space a medium to play with. As I stepped close, merely a centimeter between us, his breath caught. I lifted up on my toes and closed that infinitesimal space with the press of my body against his, enjoying the delicious electricity of first contact as I looked up into his face and willed him to kiss me.
He answered, and I knew his heat an instant before the touch of his lips, the wrap of his arms around me, the sensation of being completely taken over by a man who understood exactly what he was doing. I was held up by his arms and lost in the pleasure that unfurled down my body in increasingly potent tendrils.
I pressed closer to him, feeling the strength of his body beneath his suit, the heat of his growing erection against my hip. Simply the knowledge of that hardness made me shiver with longing,
Cari Quinn, Taryn Elliott