Page 63 of Just Come Over
Zora said, “I don’t... I don’t need them.” She was having trouble talking. She was having troublebreathing.She wasn’t going to do this. Not possible. She also considered saying that pressed strawberries and buffalo milk didn’t sound nearly as lovely as, say, chocolate torte with salted-caramel drizzle, but she didn’t, because that was how this moment felt. Like rich dark chocolate and warm salted caramel, melting on your tongue.
“Could you bring me the check, please?” Rhys asked. “Or better yet...” He reached into his back pocket, which involved some straining of the shirt over his chest that the waiter eyed as much as Zora did, then pulled out a credit card and handed it over. “I’ve got a car waiting,” he told the bloke. “So—quick as you can. And if you have a back door...”
The waiter looked around, then said, “Oh. Of course,” and took off.
“What?” Zora asked, looking around herself.
“Somebody gearing up to come over for a chat,” Rhys said. “Telling me we shouldn’t have lost, and what I’d better do in Aussie to keep it from happening again.”
“Oh,” she said. “Going out must be awkward.”
He smiled, the hard planes of his face easing with it, though his eyes still burned. “Not in France, so you could say that I’m just not used to it anymore. And it’s not something you can resent, not when it comes along with the thing you’ve wanted most in your life. But I don’t want any of it tonight. I want to go out the back door and get in the car with you. If that’s what you want.”
“That’s...” She cleared her throat. “That’s what I want.”
This time, Rhys didn’t open the front passenger door. Instead, he opened the back door, and when she slid in, he slid in after her.
She thought,Touch me. Please. Now.
The driver turned the key, then looked at them in the rearview mirror and said, “Fasten your seatbelt, please.”
Oh. Zora almost laughed, and then she didn’t.
One red light after another, the car gliding through quiet Monday-night streets, then merging onto the motorway, and Rhys still didn’t say anything. He didn’t even touch her hand.
Did she have this all wrong? Was it the most massive case of wishful thinking in the history of time? Or, possibly, just alcohol-induced lust? Food-induced, music-induced, hopelessly-spoiled-induced, soaked-undies-induced lust? She’d tumbled into bed with somebody the first time out exactly once in her life, and she’d been drinking too much then, too. That had been Dylan, and look howthathad turned out.
Rhys had quoted the Song of bloodySolomonto her. Like he’d meant it, too. What was he doing that for, if he didn’t want to touch her?
She shot a look at him. He was leaning a little forward, his hands on his knees. Looking like he was on the bench in the sixtieth minute, and the team was down by ten. Like he was waiting to get the call, knowing he couldn’t go in until then, but with every hard muscle tensed in anticipation of the moment when he’d finally run onto the field, make that first contact, and start earning the win.
He turned his head and looked at her. They were on the motorway, it was dark in the back of the car, and she couldn’t see the expression on his face.
“Wait,” he said.
She shivered. Same as before, all the way down her body, and he was still watching.
Titirangi, now. Around the roundabout and down her road. One street. Two. Three. She unzipped her purse and took out her keys, then tugged the zip closed. It wouldn’t go. Her hands were shaking. She left it open.
The car pulled into the driveway, and Rhys said, “Thanks.”
“No worries,” the man behind the wheel said. “Good night.”
She got out on her side, and heard thethunkof the door as Rhys got out on his. The stripe of light washed across her as the car reversed. The engine noise faded, and the light was gone, and she kept walking.
A hand on her arm, stopping her, turning her. Then his hand was at the back of her neck, his other one was underneath her, and he was lifting her with one arm and taking her mouth.
It wasn’t anything like the first time. It was hunger. It was greed. His mouth slanting over hers, his tongue licking into her, the taste of chocolate and spice swirling into her head.Pinot Noir,she thought fuzzily, but then she couldn’t think at all, because she was almost off her feet, he was bending her back over his arm, his hand was in her hair, tugging her head back, and his other hand was around her upper thigh. It was so big and so warm, and his fingers gripped her hard.
That hand, that mouth were all she could think about. All she could feel.
Another of those full-body shudders, and he lifted his mouth from hers and said, “Keys.”
She couldn’t remember. Then she realized that they were in her hand, digging into him, probably, where she’d been gripping his back. She held them up, and he took them from her, took her hand, and headed up the walk.
When he had the key in the lock, she put a palm against the door and said, “Rhys. Wait.”
She didn’t want to say it. She’d never wanted anything less. But it was the last chance, and the smoke alarm was shrieking.
