The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

“Drew is the reason I work hard and I’m ambitious and I want so badly to succeed in Washington. If it weren’t for Drew, there would be no job with Coalition for Humanity. But I’m thinking of giving it up so I can be here if he changes his mind about seeing me.”

“Washington is only a ninety-minute flight. You could be here the same day.” Or she could stay. It might be the fact that it was a little past 2 a.m. and he wasn’t entirely in his head, but if she stayed, maybe they had a shot at becoming something together.

Washington was only a ninety-minute flight, but it was enough of a barrier they would never try to get past it and this tension between them, the thing that made him stutter and give in to her softness, it was a thing worth exploring, but too tentative to survive being in demanding jobs in different cities.

She nodded and put her folded arms on the railing too. “I keep telling myself that.”

“But it doesn’t feel right.” He liked Flick far too much not to play straight with her.

“It feels like I’m running away.”

“What would Drew want?”

She shoved him with her shoulder. “He wants me to get on with my life.”

It was good advice. Kudos to Drew. “But you get to decide what that is. Chicago, New York, Washington, wherever.”

She leaned her head on his arm. “That would be why I’m out here staring at the city.”

He had to lock down on his jaw so he didn’t pitch her on staying, pitch her on taking a chance on him. It was crass, opportunistic, a bastard act. He pulled away from the railing but reached for her hand. “Back to bed.”

Her fingers crisscrossed through his, he walked her to her bedroom and closed her inside. His head had barely hit the pillow when she knocked on his door. “Tom.”

“Yeah?”

The handle depressed and the door opened a crack, and then Flick pushed it wider. She wore sleep shorts and a big T-shirt and her hair fell about her shoulders. Her silhouette was dumpy and he knew she had dark slashes under her eyes and a breakout on her chin. She was utterly beautiful.

His chest did this painful hiccup, but his arms reached for her. “Come on.”

She ran at the bed and leaped on it, diving into his arms for the second time that night. They didn’t say another word. Flick arranged herself on his pillow, shoved her butt into the curve of his body and dragged his arm over her hip.

She was gone when he woke in the morning and he was unaccountably disappointed to have the bed to himself. The only saving grace was not having to keep his morning erection away from her body. Shaving, he thought about the ifs. If she stayed. If he quit Rendel. He’d briefed his favorite headhunter, Denise Revero, to find him something interesting in Chicago, but what if he widened the brief? He was settled here, hadn’t thought about moving, and moving for a shot at a relationship he didn’t even have was ridiculous. He nicked his chin and had to use a tissue to soak up the blood.

Flick got home before him, but only just. She was still dressed for the office, still had her heels on. Say what you would about how impractical a woman’s heeled shoe was, it did something to their legs, to the way they stood, changing the balance of their bodies. He’d noticed it on other women, on Wren, but on Flick it was devastating.

Last night she was an amorphous blob in the doorway of his room. Tonight she was a bombshell in a sleeveless navy dress, fitted enough it needed one of those sexy slits at the back so she could take a decent stride.

“Oh good. I’m starving. We’re having Chinese delivered.” She bent to pick up her phone from the lump of stuff she’d left on the coffee table, bag, scarf, folder, tablet, and his hand itched to run over her rump, a distinct change from itching to clean up after her. He shoved it in his pants pocket. “Is that okay with you? My treat. Anything you don’t like?”

“Skip the soup.”

“You don’t like the soup. What’s wrong with you?”

He grinned stupidly at her. The rapid-fire response, the near insult. She was less a poor clone of herself today.

“Why do you have that stupid look on your face?”

Before his stupid look called for greater scrutiny he backed off to ditch his suit, calling, “Skip the soup.”

When the food arrived, they were both out of their work clothing and made a picnic of it, eating off the coffee table.

“Westworld or The Handmaid’s Tale,” Flick said, pointing the remote at the TV.

“You want to watch TV?”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but you’ve started coming home earlier and I am in need of a distraction, so Westworld or The Handmaid’s Tale.”

He’d seen neither, heard the raves about both. She ate the last pork dumpling and they said “Westworld” together.