Page 84 of Just a Heartbeat Away

“Huh.” Via felt terribly naive. She’d gone home from a bar with two men in her life. One of them had been Evan. She wondered now how many of these subtle moves those men had employed on her. “I don’t know. I think a woman knows exactly what’s going on in a situation like that. Men aren’t slick. If he’s putting the moves on her, she’ll know. And that?” She pointed back toward the bar. “Wasn’t a move.”

“Some men are slick.”

“You?” She raised her eyebrows at him. Her look said skeptical, but her brain said,Flirt with me more, you gigantic, gorgeous man!

Seb shrugged. “I mean, you’re pretty much sitting in my chair right now, aren’t you?”

Via looked down in surprise and realized that...yeah. Somehow while they were talking, he had shifted enough, and so had she, that she’d leaned all the way toward him. She was sitting on approximately one eighth of one corner of her own chair and the toe of one of her heels was about half an inch from the toe of that unlaced boot of his.

She straightened up immediately, her eyes going wide and her cheeks going pink.

He chuckled, but his eyes searched her face, checking to make sure it was okay that he’d just done that.

She dipped her chin to him. She was flustered, but not exactly put out. “Hats off.”

He studied her face for another second. “Now, if I wasn’t subtle, I could have done the same thing by crowding you.” He demonstrated by flinging an arm over the back of her chair and pushing his wide-stanced legs into her space. Via felt the blank circles of other people’s faces turn to look at them, but she almost,almostdidn’t care.

He leaned back and stopped crowding her. As soon as the heat from his body was gone, mild embarrassment rushed into its place. He was more than flirting with her. He was showing her exactly how he’d seduce her. Except without actually seducing her. It was confusing. And hot. Via wished like hell that their colleagues would all simultaneously decide to go home and watchJeopardy!

“Or I could have dragged your chair over or slid an arm around your waist and put you in my lap.” He was compiling this list casually, apparently unaware that Via was sort of melting into a pile of vibrating honey in the chair next to him. “But all of that is way too aggressive in my opinion. I’m not trying to intimidate you into feeling me. I want you to want it, you know?”

The proverbial you. He’s using the PROVERBIAL YOU.She bullied herself into believing it. Because otherwise, he’d just point-blank told her that he wanted her to want him, and that didn’t happen in real life, in this bar, on happy hour Friday with a bunch of their colleagues talking shop three feet away.

Via surreptitiously let out a long, slow breath and took a sip of her beer. She tried to look casual. “Right. I guess that makes sense.”

“Maybe I’m rusty,” he told her, his eyes like bright lights on the side of her face.

“You’re not,” she answered too quickly. If he hadn’t heard the mild tremor in her voice, he was as thick as a brick wall.

When she looked over, she knew a different man would be smugly grinning at her, knowing he’d gotten under her skin, given her a thrill. But not Seb Dorner. Nope. He was just looking at her, serious as could be. That plain-handsome face, all wide and open and blunt. All of it set off by his dark haircut and...she noticed, a clean shave. He really did look nice tonight. Like he was dressed up for a date. She wondered when exactly he’d decided to come to happy hour. Was it while he was getting dressed that morning?

“I wish I could stay,” Seb told her and those honest eyes of his told the whole story. No subtext. No lines. Just the truth. “But I got a kid needs tucking in at home.”

Can I come?

She sucked her lips into her mouth along with the words. “Understandable. It was nice that you came out, though.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe I’ll try to do it more often.”

Seb tipped his glass, one swallow left, toward Via’s and they cheers-ed. Her breath caught and her eyes snapped away because was that...? Did he...? Yes, she was almost positive that he’d laid his pinky over hers for just the hottest little second when they’d clinked glasses.

But he was up and pulling his coat on, saying his goodbyes all around. He’d been gone from the bar all of three minutes when she felt that familiar buzz in her pocket.

He wasn’t around to see her nerd out over his texts so she didn’t bother stopping herself from whipping her phone out of her pocket in a flash.

Should have asked at the bar, but you’re gonna take a cab home, right?

Now that her body wasn’t tense and spotlighted and tingling like hell from his mere presence, Via could once again pay attention to the gravity-hungry dense cloud of feeling in her chest. It grew another inch and sucked the whole bar into its ravenous force field. She lovedeverythingright now.

He was concerned about how she’d get home. What a flipping gentleman.

Grace always walks me home. We’re only a few blocks from each other.

The text reply came almost instantly.Grace is lucky.

Another buzzed through a few seconds later.Have a good night, Miss DeRosa. You made mine.

She thought of about thirty different ways to reply but all of them, all of them, said way too much. Put every single one of her cards on the table. In the end, she just went with the ever solidYou, too.He could go ahead and interpret it in whatever way he wanted.

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