Stepping forward, I reach out and take her hand. She gasps and flinches as though nothing could have surprised her more.
Her touch is like electricity, sparking into me. I squeeze down harder. I’m sure she can feel it, too, if the way her breathing hitches is any indication.
Something is flaring between us, hard to define, an experience only we can feel.
“Do you want to know something?” I say huskily.
She looks up, biting her lip in the most captivating way. “Yeah.”
“When I imagined what my mystery text girl looked like, it was you. You look exactly how I hoped you would.”
She yanks her hand away, half turning, but something stops her. “Why would you say something like that?”
I can’t help it.
I reach out, touch her shoulder and softly spin her back to me. I have to hold back not to pull her right up against me, so she can feel how hungry she makes me.
My cock is aching and throbbing, the same way it has been this whole time, making me crazed with the compulsion to flood her young body with my seed.
“I mean it,” I growl, moving closer. “So don’t start making snide comments about yourself. You’re beautiful, Fiona.”
She stares up at me, expression unreadable.
CHAPTER TEN
Fiona
I’m in a swirling mess of emotion, feeling like I’m caught in a trap.
But if this is a trap, I don’t want to escape.
My mind spins as I try to work out why he’d say this, why he’d touch me. My fingers burn with the remembered pressure of his hand. My shoulder pulses with the proximity.
Felix Franklin just called me beautiful.
Tears try to spring into my eyes, rising hotly as my dream clashes with reality. I almost reach up and touch him, but my hands won’t work.
My lips won’t work. I don’t know what to say.
“I’m taking you out,” he goes on, his voice gruff and intense, becoming even huskier the more he speaks. “Let me show you how beautiful you are, Fiona.”
“Do you mean it?” I say, finally finding my voice.
He nods firmly. “I swear, you’re everything I imagined. If I was a superstitious man, I’d call it a miracle.”
“You haven’t even asked how I got your number.”
I don’t know where this comes from. One part of me wants to sink gratefully into accepting his words, wants to believe him, wants to allow the heat to bloom inside of me and infuse me.
Maybe if he thinks I’m beautiful, I could too.
But another part warns me to be cautious. There’s so much that could go wrong if I show him how eager I am.
I can’t ruin this when it’s only just started.
Except…what if this is the punishment?
He calls me beautiful, leads me on a so-called date, and then, bam, a bunch of his work buddies jump out, and they all start laughing at me.
“Fiona?” he says.
I blink, realizing he’s been talking as my thoughts spiraled into conjecture.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
He looks at me in that strange fashion. He’s been doing the same ever since we met. His eyes are getting glassy and severe, and his jaw is tight.
It’s like he can’t decide whether he wants to kiss me or fire me, but he doesn’t want to kiss me.
But no, can I say that?
He touched me. That’s more than I ever thought he’d do.
Is kissing really such a massive leap after that?
“I asked what you were thinking,” he says after a pause.
“It doesn’t matter. Did you mean it about the date?”
My attempt at changing the subject doesn’t work. He shakes his head, taking a step forward, looking down at me with the corner of his lip just twitched, more like the suggestion of a smile rather than an actual smile.
“What were you thinking?” he asks again. “And don’t tell me nothing because I saw it.”
“Saw it?” I giggle reflexively. “How does that work?”
Then the impossible happens. His hand is on me again, this time cradling my cheek. I’m sure he must be able to feel my heart beating up through my neck, into my face, into his hand.
He must be able to sense how close this brings me…close to melting, close to screaming.
“Your face tells me everything I need to know, mystery girl,” he says, smirking fully now. “Except when it goes blank. But right then, you were obsessing about something. I’d put my life’s savings on it.”
I almost reach up and touch his hand. But I feel paralyzed, my arms locked in place.
His touch is warm, blazing against my skin, sending sensations writhing through me. I shiver under the tingling pressure.
“I was thinking this could be a mean joke,” I snap, unsure where my dark tone comes from.
Heck, maybe I’m just angry because I don’t have the courage to follow my desire, to reach up and lay my hand atop his.
“You want to lure me on a date so you can make fun of me.”