Page 13 of Lucius

He paused for a moment, then said, “No, why?”

“Well, I was…maybe not done hanging out with you if you’re free.”

“I’m very free,” he said, his voice dropping a little lower. “In fact, I was going to ask if you’d like to go out to dinner with me tonight.”

A date too? Holy crap.

“I’d love to.”

“Great, there’s an awesome little steak house not too far from here. It’s casual. I can pick you up, unless you’d like to just hang with me until dinnertime?”

The chance to hang with him for a few more hours andthengo on a date? Hell yes.

“I’d love to hang out with you.”

He leaned over slightly and smiled down at her. “I’m not done spending time with you either, Sidney.”

She loved how he said her name. Like it was his favorite word.

Hers was currently Lucius.

They stood like that, inches apart and neither moving, for what felt like an eternity. Then he leaned back and gestured to the Jeep. “We can go get a snack and hang out while you work on your sketches,” he said. “You’ll also get a souvenir photo album that we can pick up at the security office in an hour or so.”

“Sounds good to me.”

She tucked her sketchbook into her bag and followed him to the Jeep. In minutes, they were on their way back to the front of the tour, where he turned off the engine and left the keys in the vehicle. After taking out the memory card from the camera, he offered her his hand and said, “I need to drop this off at the security office and then we can hit up the ice cream stand, or the candy shop or the kiosk that sells popcorn if you’re in the mood for that.”

“I did want the ice cream earlier, but now I think that popcorn sounds perfect.”

She took his hand, loving how warm he was and how much she liked touching him, even something small like holding his hand.

She’d never been so affected by a guy before, but she liked it.

She liked him.

She couldn’t believe she’d taken a chance on coming to the park for the tour and to sketch animals and ended up meeting an amazing guy.

Could he be her Mr. Right?

He sure seemed like it.

If only she could kiss him and find out if he was a good kisser. Because that mattered. But she was sure judging by his full lips that she’d love kissing him. And doing other things.

As her mind strayed to other, sexier thoughts, she had to stop her train of thought before it got too far off the rails and focus on Lucius, who was telling her about when he’d moved to New Jersey and started working for the park.

“I’m glad you came to New Jersey,” she said as they reached the security office.

“Trust me, sweetheart, I am too.”

Lucius didn’t like leavingSidney, but he had some stuff to attend to.

He left her on a bench outside the security office and said, “I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be here,” she said, taking her sketchbook out of the crossbody bag and pulling a pencil from its leather roll.

He paused and looked at her. So freaking gorgeous.

His lion was already falling for her.

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