Page 90 of Cream and Punishment
His eyes flicked over me in earnest to gauge my reaction, and his voice was tentative when he spoke. “Can we sit?”
I only nodded, since my voice fled the premises the second our hands connected.
He led me to the couch, where we sat facing each other. There was minimal groaning from me, which, considering how my body felt like I’d been flattened under a cosmic rolling pin after paintballing yesterday, was quite the accomplishment, thank you very much.
With a small smile, Max passed the bodice-ripping book to me.
What the nuts and cheese? Did I read him wrong and weweren’tgoing to have the talk about the-kiss-that-shall-not-be-named? This seemed like an exceptionally weird time for some light reading.
He laughed and gestured toward the book. “It’s to give you something to fidget with. I’ve noticed you need an outlet for your energy whenever you’re nervous, and based on the way you looked like I was leading you to your death on the way over, I’d say this qualifies as one of those times.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or touched. Or terrified because he could read me easier than the book my fingers were already nervously tapping against. What all had I given away about my feelings for him?
“Thank you,” I finally managed to squeak out.
His smile slowly faded into a frown so profound his dimples popped. His brow wrinkled in concern, and he clasped his hands tightly in his lap. “Dekker, I owe you both an apology and an explanation for running out like I did Wednesday night.”
I shook my head, unable to meet his eye. “You don’t owe me anything, Max. It’s fine. I was the one—”
“It’s not fine.” He argued, soft yet firm. “It’s not fine, because I know what it looked like, and I can guess how it made you feel. Especially since I didn’t leave for the reasons you might be assuming.”
I huffed softly and fanned the book’s pages with my thumb. “You mean when you told me you regretted kissing me?”
“I don’t regret kissing you.” He chuckled, a low, husky sound that sent a zip of electricity across my skin. “As much as I panicked at the time, I don’t think I could ever regret something like that.”
My brow furrowed. That wasn’t at all what it had sounded like to me. And how else was I supposed to interpret what he said? For a brain so proficient in jumping to a thousand different conclusions all at once, it was unusually silent on this matter.
“Dekker, you terrified me.” At my gobsmacked look, he bit back a smile. “I’d never feltso muchall at once before, and it scared the crap out of me.” He shifted position and rested his arm across the back of the couch, his smile hesitant. Sheepish, almost. “I’d never…wantedsomeone so badly, and certainly not on so many levels. Between that and my stupid dating sabbatical, it was a lot of consequences to think about at the same time, and with you within three feet of me,thinkingwasn’t going to happen.”
I blinked twice, so hard I hoped I could force a reboot for my brain. While his words made sense on their own, putting them together the way he did—talking aboutmethat way—did not compute. He wantedme—the human equivalent of a feral platypus in an apron?Hewantedme?
Error 404. Logic not found.
“I think I ran, like, five miles just trying to cool down and think things through,” he admitted, grimacing. “And then I had to catch my flight and… yeah. Not my finest moment.”
“It’s not like I have any room to judge in that arena,” I teased, hesitant to let the flurry tornadoing in my chest grow into anything concrete. “I feel like I haven’t had a fine moment the entire time we’ve been neighbors.”
He snorted a laugh, so explosive and unexpected that I finally understood why he enjoyed my own. “If that’s the case, I don’t think I’d stand a chance against you in your finest moments.”
I hadn’t the foggiest idea what that was supposed to mean, since having a day where I wasn’t awkward wouldn’t suddenly make me six feet tall and able to bench-press a horse, but it was kind of him to think so. “Thanks? I think.”
He cocked his head, his smile nearly as soft as his eyes. “Do you remember the day we met?”
“How could I forget?”
Believe me, I’ve tried. It sure would’ve made the last year a lot less stressful if I’d succeeded.
“It’s actually one of my favorite days.”
“What?” I blurted, so taken aback I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to filter my reaction. “How on earth could that be one of your favorite days? Your fiancée broke your heart because of me.”
He watched me for a few seconds, the only sounds the rumble of his fridge’s ice dispenser and muted voices and footsteps as other tenants passed by his door. It was unnerving, honestly, the way he could look at me and see my soul.
Finally, he asked, “Did you hearallof what Vicky said when she broke up with me?”
I shrugged one shoulder. While my ears had heard everything, I’d been so preoccupied with trying to escape the room and freaking out about what was going down that precious little truly registered. At least, not enough to remember now. “Most of it.”
“She said that, in all our years as a couple, she’d never once looked at me the way you looked at me. We’d never laughed and joked the way you and I did.” He took a bracing breath, his powerful rib cage expanding with the motion. “She’d developed feelings for a coworker, even though she hadn’t intended to. It started off completely platonic. But she realized what she saw between you and me that day was what she and that coworker had. And she wanted that for the rest of her life.”
