Page 11 of Smith

I shouldn’t be thinking about Smith as anything more than a man who’d been sent by my father’s friend to look into a potential issue. Therefore I certainly shouldn’t’ve been hoping for more. But the man made it damn near impossible not to hope for something more.

Are we gonna continue to tempt fate with this back and forth?

I really,reallywanted to tempt fate with Smith.

CHAPTER THREE

There I was standing with Aria on her porch waiting for her to unlock her front door, with my gut in a tight ball of defeat.

My fuck-up had put Aria in danger.

Story of my life where a woman’s concerned—always making the wrong decision.

Her situation had escalated before we’d been able to figure out what the situation actually was. Instead of getting a jump start and looking into the old owners of the Grasonville house where the letters were being sent I’d pissed away my weekend watching Aria’s YouTube channel. Which I told myself was research when in reality I just wanted to see her even if that was only on a screen.

Huge screw up.

As soon as she unlocked and pushed the door open, I expected her to enter. Instead, she whirled on me.

“I’m sorry and thank you,” she said in a whoosh of breath while waving me inside. “I could’ve handled that better. And I was until it hit me I was really being followed, then I kinda panicked.”

I’d seen plenty of men and women panic over the years. Aria needing me to stay on the phone with her didn’t touch thesurface of panic. She’d handled the situation exactly as I needed her to.

“You kept your cool,” I reminded her.

“Yeah, because you stayed on the phone with me until we pulled into my driveway.”

That hour and a half on the phone with her had proven to be problematic. I’d already liked the look of her and the limited time I’d spent with her had me playing mental gymnastics—she was off-limits, however I’d come up with a plethora of reasons why she wasn’t. Getting to know her during the phone call only made my determination not to touch the woman dissolve further. I was for sure going to fuck her. But unlike any woman in a decade and a half I was also going to get to know her better.

“No, Aria, you kept your cool. That’s all that matters.”

“Right,” she mumbled, not sounding convinced. “Since I’ve ruined your Sunday the least I could do is offer to make you dinner for your trouble, but I haven’t been to the store so we’ll have to settle on Libbey’s unless you don’t like the best seafood on the Eastern shore. Then we can go to Rams Head Shore House.”

I liked that she didn’t ask. I also liked that she was straightforward and didn’t play coy.

“Libbey’s. Rams Head puts jalapenos in their crab dip.”

We hadn’t even made it out of her living room and she was already smiling at me in a way that was so damn cute I had to fight against kissing it off her lips.

“You don’t like spicy?”

“No, I love spicy, just not in my crab dip that should only be spiced up with Old Bay.”

That smile got bigger.

“I can’t say you’re wrong about that.”

“Of course you can’t because I’m right.”

“Libbey’s it is then,” she asserted. “Let me toss my bag in my room and change, then we can go. Unless you want a beer or…something before we leave.”

Or something.

I could think of a lot of ‘or somethings’ I’d like to do before we left. And with Aria’s eyes on me telling me without words how she’d like for this to play out, I felt my dick stir, indicating his preference. Which meant it was time to go to Libbey’s where eatingherinstead of my meal would be frowned upon. Because if we stayed any longer, that was precisely what I was going to do before I did other things besides.

Regrettably I told her, “Go do what you need to do. I’ll wait here.”

As expected, Aria wasn’t put off by my gentle denial. She knew exactly what her offer would bring and she found it amusing.

---