Page 39 of Just a Friend for the Lion
Locked.
The next?
Click.
Jackpot.
The little lounge inside is the kind of fancy I’ve only seen in Hallmark movies: plush velvet furniture, throw pillows shaped like crowns, half-empty champagne flutes scattered across mirrored side tables.
The lights are low, the walls lined in books, and there’s a faint scent of something floral and expensive hanging in the air. But it’s the view that does it.
Double glass doors lead out to a narrow wrought iron balcony overlooking the Hudson River. Moonlight glistens on the surface like spilled glitter, and the cool Autumn air rushes to greet me like an old friend.
I step out and grip the railing with both hands,sucking in a lungful of chilly night air like it’s my first breath in days.
God.
What am I doing?
I came here to meet someone.
Someone fun.
Someone available.
Someone who wouldn’t take one look at me and run for the hills.
Despite all that, here I am, hiding on a balcony and thinking about that grumpy excuse for a would-be mate.
Carter is everything I told myself I wasn’t looking for.
Big. Broody. Breathtaking.
The kind of man who doesn’t say much but makes you feel everything with one look.
And those eyes?
Golden. Wicked. Wild.
Tonight, they were locked on me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to this plane of existence.
And that look he gave me before I walked away? It was the kind of look that shatters common sense and sends panties directly into the afterlife.
And stupid me? Ifelt it.
In my chest. In my thighs. In every inch of skin that still craves his touch.
Get it together, MJ.
I press my forehead to the cold railing, trying to cool the fire in my blood and the even hotter mess in my brain.
Am I manifesting this? Reading too much into things?
Assuming feelings that aren’t there just because he looked at me like I was the only oxygen in his atmosphere?
Because that’s a dangerous thing to do—guess what someone else wants.
Especially when they’ve told you—explicitly—that they’re not ready.
