Page 67 of Clean Hack
“Why?” she asked hanging onto my every word.
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly while I thought about the answer. It wasn’t that I was stalling, afraid to open up to her. Maybe I just didn’t really have an answer that wouldn’t frighten her away.
“Maybe I’ve been lonely. I never wanted to admit that out loud. But I never had anyone waiting for me to get back to somewhere before. It kind of changes things a little now. Like my perception of my place. It no longer seems like just somewhere for me to crash and eat. And maybe even put my feet up for a few days.”
“And now it feels different?”
Was that hope I heard in her voice. The thought brought a smile to my face.
“Yeah, sweetness,” I said looking her straight in the eye. “It does.”
That was the moment the waiter dropped off two piping hot plates to our table. Maybe it was a good thing he broke the intense moment, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to tell her how I felt at some point.
We dug in. I loved the way little moans escaped her every time she took a bite and her eyes practically rolled into the back of her head.
“Oh my God, this is so good,” she said after she savored a few bites.
“Here, try this,” I said as I cut her a piece of the perfectly tender chicken and held it out to her. She didn’t hesitate to wrap her luscious lips around my fork. It was sexy as hell and even more so because she wasn’t trying to be.
“Oh, wow. It’s so…” She leaned closer and practically whispered the next word as her face scrunched up in the cutest way. “Moist.”
“It is. So moist,” I said repeating the word. And there was that cringe again. I laughed, I couldn’t stop it. “Not a fan of the word?”
“No. It’s likeewevery time.”
She got quiet on me for a long moment. I could tell there was something going on in her head and I desperately wanted to know what it was.
“Luce, talk to me,” I said reaching my hand across the table and tilting her chin so she would look at me.
“Okay, this is so embarrassing.” She took in a deep breath. “I’ve never been on, like, a date before.”
“Really? Well, I hope I’m making it memorable. If I’m not, let me know. I’ll try harder. I can come up with some good ideas.” I was trying to joke to put her at ease.
But if I really let myself think about it, I was honored to be the one sitting here with her. I was thrilled that I was the man to give her this first date experience. And let’s not even try and act like this wasn’t one. It definitely was, and that had been my thoughts behind it when I’d said I was taking her out. In my mind, it was the first because there would be many more.
“No,” she whispered and there were tears in her eyes. “It’s perfect, Derrick. Everything about you is perfect. And I know that sounds so weird and, God, clingy. I sound clingy. And crazy. I know. But I can’t help but feel like you are everything my soul has been waiting for. Oh, I’ve said too much.”
Her face was bright red and her bottom lip got caught between her teeth like she was trying to stop herself from talking.
“I feel the same way,” I said to ease her misery. “I know at some point we are going to have to figure out where to go from here. But I can tell you that I don’t want to let you go.”
“And I don’t want you to. Are we crazy?”
“I don’t think so. I think we were meant to find one another. I mean, we’ve been at this game for a long time now. Something was bound to break, don’t you think? Was I always just a job-type thing to you?”
“No,” she rushed to say.
“I thought about you,” I admitted before she could say anything else. “Not in a creepy sexual way. After a while, I found myself growing more curious about you. I wanted to know things. Hell, I just wanted to hear your true voice.”
“I thought about you too. And I knew you were curious. I could tell that you wanted to ask things for so long. Then when you did, I freaked out.” She shook her head at herself. “So, where do we go from here? I kind of…need to go back to my place and at least get some things. I have like no clothes.”
I put some cash in the billfold that the waiter had slyly dropped off a bit ago not wanting to interrupt our conversation. Or so I guessed.
“We get out of here,” I said as I stood and reached for her hand. Then I pulled her in tight to my body and put my lips next to her ear. “I take you home and kiss every inch of this sweet body.”
A shiver wracked her body and I smiled. We said our goodbyes to Mr. Corsetti because it would have been rude not to. He went as far as to tell Lucy he hoped to see her again. I sent him a smile telling him that he definitely would.
“Derrick,” she whispered out with a pant as we frantically shoved ourselves over the threshold to my place. We were already on each other, our lips tangled with desperate need.
