Page 21 of Breaking the Sinner

Cobra’s eyes narrowed. “Are you serious?”

She shrugged. “Asking me out on a coffee date doesn’t mean that you like coffee.”

“I like coffee.”

She tilted her head back up toward the menu, absorbing the swirly fonts and the ostentatious drink options. She’d kill two birds with one stone today:Meet someone for a crazy coffeeandGo on a date with a man. Maybe three, if she ended it with a toe-curling make out session.

She leaned closer to Cobra and asked in a stage whisper, “What are you getting?”

He scrubbed at his jaw. “I have no idea.”

“Ooh! How about this? I pick for you, you pick for me?” She smiled up at him, batting her eyelashes. A jolt of excitement coursed through her, the same way it did when she and her sister would play this game for picking out fabrics at the craft store.

Cobra looked down at her, a sexy smirk wringing his lips. “You sure about that?”

She nodded.

His gaze slid back to the menu. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Okay. I know what you’re getting.”

She swallowed a gasp and reassessed the menu. The options were somehow clearer when the destination was Cobra’s lips. “Okay. I’m ready too.”

Cobra stepped up to the counter, his broad shoulders stretching the thin fabric of his T-shirt tight. She blinked a few times. It didn’t seem real. Was this what a date was like? This was…somehow easy. Yet totally strange and new. Did he always look so hot? What did men even do to look better if they didn’t wear makeup? And whydidn’tmen wear makeup?

“Gen.”

She blinked, realizing it was her turn to order. She’d missed his order entirely.

“I’ll have the Cinnamon Mocha Latte Wowee,” she said past dry lips. “But, it’s for him. I mean, I’m ordering it, but he’s gonna drink it.”

Cobra licked the corner of his mouth, his onyx eyes glinting. “Are you serious?”

“What?”

He shook his head, knocking her with his shoulder. “That’s what I ordered for you.”

Warmth trickled through her. When Cobra took out his wallet, she realized the time had come to pay. She fumbled to get her money.

“No, Red.” Cobra shoved dollar bills at the cashier before she could even unsnap her wallet. “I got it.”

She waited for him to pay the cashier before they both wandered down to the coffee pick-up area at the end of the long counter. “Thanks. That was nice of you. You didn’t have to pay for me.”

“But it’s a date. I asked you out.”

His words made something spark and burst into flames inside her. If he ever uttered actually sexy words to her, she might die entirely. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

Their drinks were called, and Cobra scooped up both. He wandered over to a pair of overstuffed leather chairs looking out at a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking a courtyard lined with rose bushes.

Gen settled into the leather chair, unable to look away from Cobra. When he handed her the drink, their fingers brushed. Her low belly cinched tight. A warning.

“Have you ever been on a date before?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Oh.” She ran her finger over the white plastic lid of her coffee cup. “Well, why not? It’s normal, right?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not so normal if neither of us have done it.”

“According to the movies I’ve been watching recently, we’re supposed to kiss and fall in love after the date,” she said matter-of-factly. The crazy coffee concoction steamed in her hands. The heat made her bold. “But something will prevent us from being with each other, like a tornado or your sudden terminal illness.”

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