Page 52 of The Craving

“Thanks for the compliment, but still, I’m too old for you.” He looks like someone just kicked his dog.

“Who cares how old I am? Is there some rule you follow? Oh God, don’t tell me you are one of those obnoxious men who has a checklist for women. Let me guess…” I hold my index finger to my chin, really dramatizing my answer. “She needs to be beautiful, tall, thin, with blonde or brown hair. A wealthy socialite who can fit into all the popular circles you move in. She doesn’t talk back, she’s polite, and she never spits any fluid from her mouth onto you!” As I was running through the list, I could see him getting angry at me for making fun of him, until I got to the last part, which has the desired effect of making him laugh.

“You don’t take yourself too seriously, do you?” he asks, relaxing a little more into how he is lying next to me, his foot now playing with mine.

“No, not really. There are many things I am serious about, but you have to let go of the things you can’t change. Like this,” I say, waving my hand between us. “No matter what we thought, from that moment you growled at me on the train, we were bound to end up here. You can’t deny there was a crazy amount of chemistry buzzing between us.” I can see him thinking, but he is not about to deny it.

“As much as I want to disagree, you’re probably right. Because believe me, as much as I tried to resist you, you kept pushing me. I might be a good guy, but no mortal man could resist you naked and wet,” he says, winking at me, and I know he didn’t mean just wet from the bath, the dirty bastard.

I want to ask him why he was resisting me, but I know. I don’t fit his mold, but something I didn’t know was one of the things in his list was age, and obviously, I’m not in his range of acceptance. I can’t change that, so no point fixating on it.

“Okay, my turn. Tell me one thing about you, not your age because I don’t care about that,” I add to put him back in his place a bit.

“Noted. I’m not sure what to tell you because most of my life has been well-documented on the internet now, and if you were smart or at least cared about your own safety, you would have googled me before you got on the plane.” There is a sadness about how much his life is public knowledge.

“Elouise made sure I did, but to be honest, it was because she was yelling at me for not doing it before my presentation.”

“Your friend sounds like a smart woman.”

“Does that mean you think I’m not?” I ask, pretending to be upset at the revelation.

“Tori, I don’t have the energy to fight now, so don’t even think about starting to scream at me.”

“I’m offended you think I would do that.” His hand on my waist squeezes a little tighter, making me giggle from my ticklish spot there. “Anyway, come on, it’s still your turn. Tell me something about Nicholas Darby that is not on the internet.”

“He’s recently discovered he likes redheads,” he says, leaning over and kissing me on the top of the head, which is kind of sweet.

“I think I already know that one, so it doesn’t count. Try again.” His smirk tells me how little he likes to share things about himself.

“Hmmm, okay. I hate the color purple.”

“Random, but okay, I’ll ask the question, why?”

“I don’t really know, I just don’t. You will never see me wearing a purple shirt or tie, and there is never any purple decor in my hotels.” His face is beginning to relax a little more.

“And you don’t think that would have been a smart thing to include in your rebranding brief? Far out, some clients are so annoying.” I roll my eyes at him which has him laughing at me. He might be right, we might even get to the end of this week as friends… or maybe a little more.

“What else?” I ask, wanting to keep him talking.

“Nope, it’s your turn.” Ughh, I hate talking about myself as much as he does.

“I have a fear of spiders.” My skin crawls even saying it out loud.

Laughter bursts from Nic. “Nice try, I think I know that about you now. Something else.” He pulls me closer, seeing the discomfort the whole talk of spiders is making me. As I lift my head and lay it on his shoulder, he brings his arm around me tightly across my back, our bodies wrapped together again.

I wonder if I should tell him something, but I figure I have nothing to lose. “I didn’t quite tell you everything when I told you I had never been to Rome or Italy. The truth is, I have never traveled anywhere out of Britain. Never been on a plane and certainly never stayed in a five-star hotel like this one, and probably won’t again.”

“Wow, so the first plane you step onto is a private jet. That’s going to be hard to come back down to normal travel.” His hand is rubbing up and down my back ever so gently. It’s so soothing that the exhaustion of the day suddenly starts to hit me.

“You think? But that’s okay, I’m sure I’ll cope. It’s my dream to travel the world. See every place on my bucket list.”

“That’s quite an expensive dream.” His hand stills on my back.

“I know, but I will work along the way and just keep moving to another country.” I think of all the places that are on my list.

“Who will you travel with?” he asks, his voice a little more forceful than it has been since earlier today.

“No one. I don’t need someone to hold my hand. I’ll do it on my own. I don’t have anything holding me here.” Of course, I have my family and Elouise, but no one else important.

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