He Loves Me Not (The Hawthornes of New York 1)

I do, but I’m not about to admit that I have a sweet tooth that is never satisfied. “Sometimes.”

“Lucky,” she quips.

“Very,” I counter. “I’m having lunch with the most beautiful woman in this city.”

She holds my gaze. “You’re charming as fuck, but you know that, don’t you?”

Fuck.

The word conjures up a mental image of her beneath me as I take her in long, slow strokes.

I shake it off with a chuckle. “Charming as fuck?”

“You know it.” She taps her palm on the table.

“I know that I’ll never lie to you,” I say with confidence. “I’m about to have a meal with the most striking woman I’ve ever seen.”

Her eyes lock on mine. “You’re nice to look at too.”

I tug on the front of my T-shirt. “Even dressed like this?”

She nods. “I’m pretending that doesn’t exist.”

A chuckle escapes me as I slide the single daisy I brought across the table. “This exists.”

She scoops the stem into her palm before lifting it to her nose to inhale its scent. “Thank you. Will I need it to help me make a decision today?”

I adjust my ass in the chair so I can lean forward. “What decision might that be?”

I want to hear her say that the need to get naked with me is just as strong for her as it is for me.

“Whether I should have a BLT or a cheeseburger.”

I reach to cover her hand with mine. “Save the flower. I’ll order both, and we can share.”

Her gaze drops to our hands. She doesn’t move to pull away, so I scoop her hand into mine.

“I’m glad you came, Bianca.”

She lifts her chin to look at me. She takes a second to study my face. “Me too.”

I take that as a positive sign. She showed up. She’s smiling, and the day is young.

I stand by what I said. At this moment in time, I’m the luckiest man in this city.

Chapter 17

Bianca

I hold tightly to the stem of the daisy as I walk out of Crispy Biscuit with Roman on my heel. I tried to pay for our lunch, but he insisted on covering it.

It was chivalrous and welcomed.

Kieran and I split the cost of one too many meals down the middle at his urging.

“Thank you again for lunch, Roman.”

“It was my pleasure,” he says as he holds the door to the diner open for two women rushing inside.

They both stop to admire his smile.

The taller, blonder one moves a step closer to him. “What do you recommend for lunch?”

He defers to me with a raised brow, so I answer. “The cheeseburger is the best.”

Both of the women laugh in unison. The blonde pipes up again. “No burgers for us. We live on salads.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I offer with a straight face.

A hearty chuckle escapes Roman.

The women say something to each other before they disappear into the diner.

Roman lets the door handle slip from his grasp as it closes behind them. “I couldn’t survive on salads alone either.”

“I like food,” I admit. “I really like good food.”

He falls in step beside me as we make our way down the crowded sidewalk. “What else do you really like?”

“Daisies.” I wave the flower in the air. “Did you figure that out when you were stalking my socials?”

He glances at me. “You post a hell of a lot of pictures of daisies.”

I bring the flower to my nose to take another whiff. “Each one is a little different, so I try and capture that.”

He smiles. “That makes sense.”

“What do you really like?” I ask.

He scoots around an approaching couple holding hands. “You.”

I half-expected that to be his answer. “You don’t know me.”

“I know that I like you,” he admits. “My stance on how I feel about you hasn’t changed, Bianca.”

We round the corner headed nowhere in particular. “You’re talking about what you said at Rolly’s Pub, aren’t you?”

He nods. “I want to take you to bed.”

I take a quick look at the people around us, but everyone is so focused on where they’re going that they don’t notice us. “You believe that’s where we’re headed?”

“Now?” He laughs. “If you’re down for that, I’m ready, willing, and able.”

I stop to face him. “You want to have sex with me now? As in right now?”

He pivots, so he’s looking right at me. “Let me make it crystal clear. I want to fuck you. I’ve wanted that since we met.”

Heat pools between my legs as my common sense battles with desire. I step closer to him to lower my voice. “Are you always this direct with women?”

“I’m always honest.”

I can’t complain about that, so I don’t. “Is that our endgame, Roman? We go somewhere, fuck each other, and part ways?”

He leans so close to me that I can feel his breath skirt over the skin of my neck. “You’re making me unbearably hard, Bianca.”