Page 63 of We Met Like This
“Sure, will you pick one out for me? Your favorite.”
“I don’t have a favorite,” I said, which was mostly true. I couldn’t pick. I liked lots of books for lots of different reasons but some did rise to the top. The problem was the top was always changing. “Do you like romance?” I stepped up beside him, examining my books along with him, our shoulders bumping as I did.
“I’ve never read a romance.”
I crinkled my nose. “Deal-breaker.”
“Above or below theDirty Dancingrequirement?”
I smiled. “I mean, if I say, ‘I had the time of my life,’ I need someone to be ready and willing to respond with, ‘and I owe it all to you.’”
He closed one eye in thought. “I take it that’s aDirty Dancingreference?”
I let out a fake sigh. “All my hopes and dreams going up in flames.”
We shuffled a few more steps forward.
“Do you meet a lot of men who read romance?” He angled toward me, his breath mingling with mine now.
“No, it’s why I’m still single,” I said.
His lip curved into a crooked smirk. “Understandable.”
I continued along the shelves, him following until I came to a stop on one I thought would be tame enough not to scare him, but spicy enough to give him ideas. Ideas of what he could do to me if…Stop, Margot.I pulled it out and presented it to him.
“Is this the kind of book you wanted me to read out loud?” He took it from me and opened to one of my colorful tabs near the middle.
I nodded. “Yes, actually.”
His eyes scanned the page and his eyebrows rose higher and higher as he read.
“What’s it say?” I teased, knowing exactly what the pink tabs marked in my books. They weren’t the red tabs, but they were good.
He took a resolute breath, then surprisingly cleared his throat and read aloud, “‘His finger drew circles around her sweat-slicked navel and he longed for a salty taste of her. She whimpered, goose bumps forming under his touch. He wasn’t sure he could last another second without his mouth, his tongue, on her. Her top covered her breasts, but just barely, and the evidence that she wanted him just as much was visible through the thin material.’”
I want to throw you on this table and taste every inch of you.Oliver had said those words to me earlier and now the words coming out of his mouth were reminding me of them. The throbbing between my legs wasn’t helping either. I wanted to forget everything we had just agreed to about friendship and abstinence.
Oliver stopped and closed the book. “I get the gist.”
I took a breath, my head light, my legs weak. “I wasn’t lying when I said that you should narrate books for a living.” We were close. So close I could feel the heat from his body on my bare arms. Had we inched closer during his reading? His eyes were stormy when he looked at me, like he was trying to hold back. I wished he wouldn’t, but he seemed to have all the willpower in the world.
I tapped his chest. “It’s good we’re just friends, Oliver. Because I think you might be too nice for me. I could wreck you.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, they were even more intense. And his voice was husky when he said, “Maybe it would be good for me.”
The bathroom door shut across the hall and I jumped.
Oliver seemed to snap out of his daze as well. “I better go,” he said. “If I’ve proved my ass is stickless, that is.”
“You havedefinitelyproved that.”
“Coffee tomorrow?” He jerked his head toward the hall, reminding me that Sloane had invited him.
“Yes, that would be… yes. We go to Java. Do you know it?”
“Yes, I’ve been there.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow.” I play punched his shoulder, not sure why. Every word out of my mouth sounded the opposite of sincere right now.
