The Husband Game

Then again, I suppose I’m about to find out.

2

As we settle into an off-campus coffee shop—which Charlie insisted on lugging my easel all the way over to, because, as he put it, “it’s miles better than that swill they serve the students back there”—I tense up, expecting a grilling. Or at least for him to ask what I was doing on campus today, what my job is or why I was painting in the middle of a frigid fall day. Something.

Instead, after we order our drinks—a latte for me and a black coffee for him—Charlie settles into a small table near the fireplace and gazes into my eyes, his face the very picture of sincerity. “Favorite rom com trope?” he asks.

“What?” I burst into laughter, totally thrown by the topic.

He shrugs one shoulder. It isn’t at all the type of thing I expect a muscular jock like him to bring up. But he seems at ease with himself, comfortable enough in his—admittedly very obvious—masculinity to ask a cheesy question like that. “You can tell a lot about a person by the types of media they consume,” he says.

I wonder yet again if he’s a professor. But I resist the urge to ask, because that would prompt questions about me and my background in return, I’m sure. “Okay, let me think…” I tug my lower lip under my teeth as I say that. And unless I’m much mistaking things, Charlie’s gaze drops right on cue to follow the motion. The whole walk over here, I couldn’t get a read on him. Was he flirting or just being polite? He carried my stuff and cracked jokes. But he never drifted closer to me, didn’t try to accidentally brush his arm against mine or anything.

I can’t figure him out. From a distance, I’d peg him as the athletic type, a hotheaded alpha. But once I started talking to him, I no longer felt so sure.

Either way, now that we’re seated across from one another, I can tell he’s definitely checking me out. His gaze practically leaves singe marks along my body, at every point where it drops. Mostly, though, he just stares straight into my eyes, waiting for my response.

I know the answer, of course. But it’s embarrassing. Still, he asked. And he bought my coffee, too. The least I can offer him is some modicum of honesty. “Um… I really like enemies-to-lovers stories, actually.”

He laughs. “So you like a bit of fighting?”

“I prefer to call it passion,” I reply.

“Are they actually enemies in those stories, or just people who don’t like each other and get forced to work together?” he muses. “I mean, you don’t have like, two spies trying to kill one another often.”

“Speak for yourself; Mr. and Mrs. Smith is one of my favorite rom coms,” I reply, which makes us both laugh this time. His knee nudges against mine, and I know that was on purpose. I shift my chair a little, inching it closer to his, at least as far as I can without being too obvious about it. “So what about you, Charlie?”

“What about me, Lila?” His eyes spark where they catch mine, and my breath hitches. His leg returns, presses harder against mine now, so neither of us can mistake the pressure. Even through our jeans, his skin feels hot enough to burn.

And I want more of that.

I lean toward him, almost without thinking about it, and he mirrors me, reaching over to set his cup of coffee down. “What are your favorite tropes?” I ask, my voice only slightly catching on the words, a fact of which I’m proud.

His grin widens, like he knows exactly what’s throwing me off. And damn him, he probably does. I’m sure he has this effect on girls all the time. Those searing gray eyes of his bore into mine, and it’s all I can do not to picture the way they’d look as he kissed his way down my body. Or how those warm, strong, calloused hands of his would feel running over my skin, so rough on my soft body.

My breath hitches again, and Charlie chuckles softly. “That’s not how this game works,” he says, his voice so low and gruff that it makes me practically vibrate out of my chair.

Christ. I can’t even imagine what he sounds like dirty talking in the bedroom.

Actually, I can. That’s the problem. I suck in a deep breath of air and pray to the gods of flirting that I don’t start sweating bullets right here and now. “What game?”

“The question game,” he replies, as if that should be obvious. “I asked you one. Now you have to ask me your own question. Something you think will tell you a lot about me.”

“Who says I don’t ask guys that same question all the time?” I fire back, arching an eyebrow.