Page 36 of Until Hanna

“I am.” His fingers cup the back of my head, tangling in my hair as his eyes roam over my face. “Still so fucking pretty.” His lips meet mine one more time, and I’m not sure if it’s the throwaway comment or the kiss that makes my insides warm.

“Is that all you brought?” I look at his bag as he lets me go and takes my hand, tangling his fingers with mine.

“I don’t need much.”

“Apparently.” I begin to lead him through the station and stop outside the grocery store inside. “I have the basics at home. Is there anything you want to pick up for tonight or for breakfast in the morning?”

“Did you eat?”

“Not yet. I figured we could do takeaway this evening.”

“Then I’m good for now.” His hand squeezes mine, and we start to head up the stairs that lead to the main road.

“Have you been to London?” I ask as we wait for the light to turn green so we can cross the busy street.

“A few times, but I’ve always stayed near The Eye.”

“Such a tourist,” I joke as we maneuver around a huge crowd of people who have gathered outside a corner pub for an after-work beer.

“You can show me what I’ve been missing out on by not staying with the regular folks.”

“Traffic.” I glance up at him. “Really, that’s the only difference between here and there is all the traffic around the main tourist spots. But if you go about three blocks over, you’ll get that same experience. I love this city, but even going a couple of miles will take you about forty-five minutes by car, which sucks when the trains are down or running on weird schedules.”

“Do you drive here?”

“No, I have rented a car to go out of the city a couple of times, but it’s not worth it in my opinion to own a car here, when you have the tube and the buses,” I say, pulling my keys out of my pocket when we reach my building. Which isn’t actually a building—it’s an old house that is attached to dozens of other old houses. Letting us in the main door, I hold open the glass doors, and once inside, we head past the stairs for the upper floors.

“My landlord, Mrs. Lewis, lives upstairs. She’s awesome. She also has an apartment on the third floor that she rents out as a short-term rental.” I use the three keys to open my door and let us in, kicking off my slides. As usual, Mizzy is there to greet me from her perch on the side table, and as usual, she takes one look at me and dismisses me completely. Then she looks at Walker and blinks before she stands, stretching her front paws out while waving her tail like she’s preening for him.

“You have a cat?” He runs his fingers between her ears, then down her back, and she bends into his touch while I stare at her in disbelief.

I look up at him. “I was going to tell you that she doesn’t like anyone, including me, but apparently that would have been a lie.” I frown when she starts to purr. I never hear her purr. “Normally, she waits here when I leave, but I’ve convinced myself that it’s not out of concern for me. She just wants to make sure I make it back so someone will be around to feed her.”

“She’s cute.” He rubs between her ears once more, and she hops down and circles his feet before looking up at me and flipping her tail, then wanders off.

“Why do I feel like she just threw down some kind of weird challenge?”

“Looked that way.”

“Right?” I shake my head and lead him through the doorway on the left at the end of the hall. “This is the kitchen and living room. This place was furnished when I rented it, so none of this is mine.” I wave my hand out to encompass a very formal-looking gray couch with its fancy gold pillows, and two white, round swivel chairs, that all sit around a glass coffee table, with a TV across from them. There’s a fireplace on the wall between the living room and kitchen, where there is a glass dining table with seating for eight, a crystal chandelier over its center, then leather-back bar stools at the high island in the kitchen.

“It’s nice.”

“I will warn you: all the furniture is just for looks. Unless you’re lying down on that couch, you’ll slide right off of it, and the chairs are just as bad. I think I’ve tipped over in them a dozen times. And the dining chairs have taken out more than one toe, so be careful when you’re walking from the kitchen to the living room barefoot.”

“Noted.” He smiles, and I turn back around and walk across the hall to my room, which unlike the rest of the house is all me. A king-size bed with my fluffy duvet and million pillows, along with my reading chair, where I spend a lot of time. “You can put your bag in here.” I open one of the built-in closet doors that reach the ten-foot ceilings and take up an entire wall. “Do you want to—”

I gasp when I’m suddenly knocked off my feet and my back hits the bed, his big body coming down on top of mine, with his knee settling between my legs.

Eyes sliding closed, I bite back a moan when he shoves his face into the crook of my neck, licking me there before taking a deep breath. “Christ, I even missed your smell.”

Latching onto his bicep with my fingers, I hook my leg over the back of his to hold onto him. Even if I’m too scared to admit it out loud, I missed this, his weight, the scent of him, the way he seems to silently demand that there never be an inch of space between us. When he pulls back and rests his elbow in the bed next to my head, my lashes flutter open to find his gaze roaming over my face as his hand cups my jaw.

“You got a text while I was on the train here,” he says, and my muscles bunch. I told Star I didn’t have my phone, but I don’t know if she remembered me telling her.

“From?”

“Benjamin.” His finger smooths across my cheek. “Since he apologized for screwing up with you and asked if you’d be willing to meet up to talk to him, I’m going to guess that he’s an ex.”

---