Page 61 of Spoiler Alert
Apparently science people enjoyed puns too. Good to know. “Nice.”
In the sunshine, her hair resembled a flame, and Marcus couldn’t resist huddling closer to the heat. He shifted until they sat hip to hip on the wooden bench. As she watched him, brown eyes intent behind her glasses, he stroked his thumb along her plush lower lip to tease free those clinging crystals.
Her neck arched, just a little.
Without breaking eye contact, he licked the sugar from his thumb, and she took a shuddering breath.
No. He wasn’t going to kiss her actual mouth for the first time on a park bench in public, not where everyone could see and document the occasion. Again.
After a fraught moment, he managed to look away. Clearing his throat, he fumbled with the paper menu he’d grabbed inside the shop and took his time reading aloud the description of the item she’d just finished.
“The coco—” He sighed. “Shit, this one is hard. Okay, let me try it again.The cocroffinut—”
She clapped. “Well done.”
“Save your applause until we find out whether I can do it twice.” One syllable at a time. “The cocroffinut, the world’s first and most delicious coffee/croissant/muffin/doughnut hybrid, contains the caffeine equivalent of four espressos.”
Sheglanced down at the empty box on her lap. “Damn. Four espressos?”
He reread the description. “Yup. Well, that would explain your newfound sensitivity to orbiting electrons.”
Getting to her feet, she rolled her eyes. “Hipsters, man. Hipsters.”
He grinned up at her. “You said it was delicious.”
“It was,” she agreed, gathering their trash. “I also thought the glazed doughnut we shared at our last place, the one the size of my head, was delicious, and it cost approximately one-tenth as much as the croco—”
“Cocro—” he corrected automatically.
“—muffinut or whatever the hell I just finished eating. It also didn’t leave me in possible need of a defibrillator.” Once she’d thrown their trash in the nearest recycling and waste bins, she laid a palm over her chest. “I think my heart is doing the jitterbug in there, even though I actually have no idea what the jitterbug entails.”
He sat straighter. “If you need to see a doctor, I can take you.”
“Nah. I’m just being overly dramatic, probably because of all the caffeine.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t mind me.”
Whew. He’d really prefer their third date not necessitate medical intervention, if at all possible. Especially since he had hopes for the evening.
High hopes.Turgidhopes, to use one of TopMeAeneas’s favorite adjectives.
“Being a drama queen is my job, lady. Hands off.” Leaning back again, he rested his arms along the top of the bench. “Speaking of my job, I actually learned how to jitterbug for a historical miniseries. I could show you.”
Lindy Hope, the inspirational—if entirely fictional—story of how swing dancing turned the tide of one World War II battle, hadn’texactly broken viewing-audience records, but at least he’d gotten some decent moves and a decent paycheck out of it.
“Why don’t we walk while you tell me more?” She held out a hand. “I’m too caffeinated to sit still.”
He accepted her hand and got to his feet, interlacing their fingers as they headed toward the water. “Um... what do you want to know?”
Normally, he’d steer the topic toward hair care or workouts, or mention only the most superficial things he’d learned over the years. Before showing up at their first doughnut shack a couple of hours ago, though, he’d already disposed of that particular shield.
She was meeting him as he really was today, like it or not.
The possibility that she mightnotlike it had his own heart skittering a bit. As did the possibility that he was tossing his reputation into the garbage alongside their cocroffinut detritus, because if she ever revealed him as a faker to the world before he was ready, before he could explain—
She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. He trusted her that far, and he trusted his own ability to do sufficient damage control if she proved him naive.
His fanfic alter ego, though... no amount of PR and damage control could stop the knowledge of that from destroying his career.
Eventually, maybe he could tell her he was Book!AeneasWouldNever.
