I’m out of the shop and through the courtyard at a quick walk, lifting the neck of my wife-beater to wipe the sweat off my face. With the shirt in front of my face, I’m momentarily blinded as I walk, and so I don’t see him. I feel him, though. Or rather, I feel the icy plastic of a water bottle against the back of my neck.
Instinct takes over; I’m not the type of chick you want to startle, given the kinds of neighborhoods I grew up in. I pivot and shove, and my hands meet a solid, heavy, hot mass of man, sending him stumbling backward a couple steps.
“Fuck, man, I was just trying to cool you off.” He’s laughing, though, not angry.
I’m a tall girl. Strong. And I’ve had to defend myself more than once, so I know I can push pretty damn hard. But this guy? He barely moved. Like, two steps, if that. After a shove that hard, most men would have gone flying.
And yet, despite my reaction, he’s laughing, shuffling toward me as if approaching a dangerous dog, the water bottle extended. “Here. Take it. I won’t hurt you, I swear,” he says, using a low, soothing voice. “Take it. It’s all right. Take it.”
I shake my head and huff out a laugh, wanting to be irritated, but he’s too fucking gorgeous, and also funny. He’s massive. Only a few inches taller than me, making him maybe six-three or -four, but his body is…solid, sheer muscle. Which makes sense, since Adam Trenton is the biggest action star since The Rock—big in terms of muscle mass and stature as well as fame and popularity.
I take the water bottle, twist the top off, and take a long swig. So cold, so good. I can feel him watching me as I drink, and I pause to glare at him. “What?”
He just shrugs and shakes his head. “Nothing.”
I finish the water in two more long swallows. “Thanks,” I say lifting the bottle in gesture.
“No problem.” Awkward silence. “So. Dinner?” He pulls out the box of Ryba’s fudge. “I’ve got dark chocolate, chocolate peanut butter, and chocolate with nuts of some kind.”
“Walnuts,” I tell him.
“Walnuts?” He seems puzzled. Is he not good at keeping up with conversation?
I point at the fudge. “The nuts in the fudge. They’re walnuts.” I draw out and emphasize the word so it drips in sarcasm.
“Oh. Right. Yeah, I knew that.” He peers at me as if assessing something about me. “You look like a dark chocolate girl.”
God, if only he knew. I steal another glance at him as he breaks the dark chocolate fudge into huge slices. He has dark skin, as if his heritage is from the South Pacific or somewhere like that, naturally dark, and tanned even darker by the sun. His eyes, though, the pale, pale green, throw me off. I’m not sure what his heritage is, but I’ll take his brand of dark chocolate any day.
Not that anything of the sort will be happening. Not with him and certainly not with me. He’s A-list Hollywood. He probably has Natalie Portman’s phone number in his cell or something. And I’m nobody. Less than nobody. A garbage collector.
A distraction for him, if that.
My thoughts have soured the moment.
But then he hands me a hunk of fudge, and obviously I can’t turn that down.
“You still haven’t told me your name.” His voice is close.
Too close. I look up, and he’s leaning against a lamppost, mere inches from me. His voice is like the purr of a lion. He has a piece of fudge stuck to his lip, right at the corner, and he doesn’t notice. He takes three more bites, and still doesn’t notice, and then wipes his hands and his mouth, and somehow misses the bit of chocolate. I want to reach out with my thumb and wipe it way, maybe even lick it off my thumb.
What the hell am I thinking?
But my hand clearly doesn’t have any common sense or restraint, because I’m touching his mouth, his actual real mouth and I’m wiping the dark spot away. He’s frozen, tensed, and both of us are watching my hand and wondering what I’m doing.
It only gets crazier.
I feel something huge and rough wrap around my wrist, look down, and realize that he has my hand pinioned in his, and even though I don’t exactly have dainty little hands, his are paws, actual paws. The spread of his hand from pinky to thumb could easily engulf both of my hands together, and his palms are callused, his fingers gentle on my wrist but implacably powerful.
“I’m sorry, I—I’m not sure why I did that,” I admit, realizing he has to be pissed that I would touch him like that. “You just had something—” I’m not sure where I’m going with that, so I stop talking abruptly.
He doesn’t respond, his leaf-hued eyes boring into mine, bright and intense and inscrutable. I can’t fathom what he’s thinking. Can’t even begin to wonder.
And then, absurdly, he brings my hand toward his face. My hand is splayed out, fingers spread apart. He twists my hand so my thumb is pointing toward his mouth.
No.
No way he’s going to—
Yep. He is.
My heart actually literally and totally stops beating, just freezes solid in my chest, and my lungs seize, and his mouth is hot and wet and warm around my thumb, his tongue sliding over the pad of my thumb, licking the chocolate away. His eyes never leave mine, and now I have to breathe, have to suck in a gasping breath, and his eyes flick down to my tits, which, admittedly, are fairly prominent at the moment, even in my sports bra and tank top. But his gaze doesn’t linger, just notices and appreciates and returns to my eyes, and my thumb is still in his mouth. He’s pulling it out, his lips wrapping around my knuckle and then my thumb is free.
And he still has my wrist in his hand, not letting go, just holding, gently but firmly.
I swallow hard, blink, and then jerk my hand free. I step away from him before I combust, or do something utterly idiotic, like agree to whatever he’s about to ask me.
“Have real dinner with me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
I stare at him. “Um. Not sure you’re getting how this yes and no thing works.”
He just grins at me. No, it’s not a grin. It’s…a smolder.
I remember sitting in the living room of my last foster home in Southfield, visiting with my favorite foster-sister. She insisted that I watch Tangled with her, so I did, and the main character, Flynn Ryder, has this moment where he goes, “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice.” Then he looks at Rapunzel with this meaningful look in his eyes and says, “Here comes…the smolder.” And he does this cute little grin that’s obviously meant to be knock-em-dead sexy.