It did this by capturing a lock of my hair then twirling it around his finger.
I forced myself to breathe and do it steadily so he wouldn’t hear me hyperventilating.
Okay, that felt nice.
Okay, did male friends of females twirl hair around their fingers?
No.
They couldn’t.
Could they?
Afraid to move so I didn’t lose his fingers playing with my hair, I slid my eyes to the side. I couldn’t see him fully but I could see he had his attention on the TV.
Okay, now, what did that mean?
I had to know. I couldn’t sit there a moment longer and not know.
“Joker?” I called and immediately cleared my throat because it came out croaky.
“Yeah, baby?” he asked distractedly.
But I froze.
Okay, male friends did not call females baby. Not the warm, intimate, albeit distracted, way he just said it.
I felt a tug on my hair and that tug, no matter how light, shot straight over my scalp, sizzled down my neck, and exploded at the heart of me.
“Carrie?”
Slowly, I turned my head and saw him looking at me.
He looked relaxed. He looked comfortable. He looked at home.
He looked amazing.
“What you need, Butterfly?” he muttered.
I knew what I needed.
I didn’t tell him.
Not verbally.
I dropped my feet, twisted, planted a hand in the couch and launched myself into his arms.
Those arms closed around me, and right before my mouth would hit his, fear saturated me when he seemed to be coming up out of the couch like he intended to push me away.
But he wasn’t.
He was coming toward me so he could skate his arm down my back, over my bottom, to hook around the backs of my knees. He curled his other arm around my back as he dragged me across his lap then dropped to his side, taking me to my back in the couch.
And it was his mouth that hit mine.
The second I had it, I wasted no time. I opened my lips in invitation and drove my fingers in his hair.
It was thick, springy, thrilling.
His tongue swept into my mouth.
I had it back.
Thank God, I had him back.
I held his head to me as I pressed up and he kept kissing me.
He shifted so my thighs were no longer draped over his lap, stretching out beside me and also on me.
And he kept kissing me.
I rolled into him, pressing my body the length of his, keeping a hand firm in his hair so he wouldn’t leave me as I trailed the other hand down his back.
And he kept kissing me.
He yanked my shirt from my jeans and dove right in, his rough calluses grating up my skin, causing shivers to erupt along their path, a path that took him up my side.
I pressed closer.
Joker kept kissing me.
Then up my ribs.
I held tighter.
Joker kept kissing me.
To under my breast.
I went still.
Joker swept his thumb along skin, the very tip a whisper against the curve of the underside of my breast.
I whimpered.
A cell phone rang.
Joker broke the kiss but didn’t pull away.
He shoved his face in my neck.
I didn’t even try to hold back my whispered plea.
“No, no, no.”
“Shit, shit, fuck,” he growled.
“Joker?” I called tremulously.
He lifted his head and I held him even tighter as he shifted his hand out of my shirt and reached to his back pocket for his phone.
I was holding him tighter because I liked him on me. I liked what we’d been doing. And I didn’t want him to let me go or what we’d been doing to stop.
But mostly, I was holding him tighter because he was looking me in the eyes and his were not blunt steel.
They were a sheet of blazing molten steel.
“Hang tight, Carrie,” he murmured before he turned his head, looked at the phone, and clenched his jaw. I heard a beep, the phone was at his ear, and he said, “Bad fuckin’ timing.”
I closed my eyes.
But I didn’t let him go.
I opened them when he said, “I didn’t forget. But I got two hours before I gotta be there.”
I watched. He listened.
Then he grunted, “Fuckin’ Valenzuela.”
Valenzuela?
“Yeah. I’m at Carrie’s. It’ll take me twenty.” Pause and then, “Carissa.” Another pause before, “Right. Later.”
I heard a beep and he looked at me.
“You have to go,” I said quietly.
“Have to bein’ the operative words.”
Wow, that was sweet.
I smiled.
His eyes dropped to my mouth and he made a sound like a groan.
That made me quit smiling and blurt, “What’s happening here, Joker?”
His eyes came back to mine. “You like Mexican?”
My head jerked on the couch.
“Uh… yes.”
“You work tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Day shift.”
“Right, what’s happenin’ here is, tomorrow, Travis is in a high chair at Las Delicias while I feed you the best burritos chicharrones in Denver.”
I melted underneath him.
A date.
He was asking me (and Travis!) out on a date.
I could wear my tube top!
Suddenly, I stopped melting.
“Chicharrones are essentially fried hunks of bacon fat,” I shared.
“So?”
“Well,” I proceeded cautiously and a little mortifyingly, “I haven’t lost the last of the baby fifteen.”
“And I like it,” he announced.
I blinked.
“So in an effort to keep it as I like it, you get chicharrones,” he finished.
I loved chicharrones.
I mean, they were essentially bacon and everything even minutely bacon was amazing.
I loved it more he liked me as just me.
“Okay,” I agreed, beginning to melt again. But the melting stopped when I remembered. “Oh no. After work I have to go meet my new attorney.”
“Burritos after I take you to meet your attorney.”
After he took me.
I smiled.
His eyes again dropped to my mouth.
Then his lips did and he kissed me, sweet but brief.
He lifted his head and said in a way I knew he didn’t want to say it, “Gotta go, Butterfly.”
My reply came out the same way. “Okay, Joker.”
He knifed off me but did it grabbing my hand and yanking me up with him so I was on my feet.
He didn’t let go of my hand as he pulled me to the stool. Only then did he release me so he could nab his jacket and shrug it on.