“How you came to New York.”
“I don’t know. I suppose it made sense. I was making millions, and I wanted to exponentially grow. I played with stocks, and real estate was big for me. There’s no more expensive real estate in the country than Manhattan. Might as well do something before I die,” he teases me.
I frown and slap his arm playfully. “You’re not nice.”
“I’ve never been nice. Isn’t that why you never went for me, bit?”
Flushing the color of sundried tomatoes, I look away and change the subject. “I was afraid you were…well, someone crucial,” I say, and his eyes are laughing as he stares down at me.
“I don’t regret that I waited,” I blurt out.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do. Otherwise all this…I’d be missing out on all this. Tonight.”
“You’re enjoying tonight?”
“You have no idea,” I admit, sliding my hand up his wrist and then back down, into his.
“I’m sorry about your mom. I can tell you still miss her. It makes me want to…hug you.”
“Huh?” he asks, puzzled about what I mean.
Impulsively, I reach out, and Christos lets me press his face to my chest and envelop him in a hug. He turns his head, between my breasts, and leaves it there, shaking. Oh God, is he crying? I peer down. He’s laughing.
The bastard is laughing.
“I can get used to this,” he mumbles, sliding his hands around my waist.
“You pervert. I’m trying to give you the hug I wanted to give you every time I thought of your mom sick and dying and you taking care of her, juggling school and a job, all at once.”
We’re smiling when we straighten.
“It’s okay. I mean, it hurts, but it’s okay.” He stops smiling and his eyes are a little shadowed and tender as he looks down at me. “You’re sweet. Smart, funny. Unique. I think the one who needs a hug is you.”
“Why?”
“You’re like a four-year-old, why? Because I say so?” he smirks.
He grabs me by the back of the neck and pulls me into his arms. Seriously, being enveloped by these thick arms feels too good.
I love how playful he is being with me right now. How easy it is to talk to him. To tell him things.
We head to his apartment with his hand still on the back of my neck, pressing me to his side. I’m warm all over by the time we head inside and grab wine and snacks.
“So when did you get the idea for House of Sass?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. I settle down on one of the couches while he drops a few inches away on the same couch and pours wine for us. “I guess a few years after my parents died, after my Aunt Cecile died, and I dropped out of college. I’m drawn to things you can physically touch. I didn’t consider getting into the tech side of the business until you asked me to make it bigger.”
He hands me a glass of wine. “Tech has been big for years, and I see it continuing to be.”
“I really like the fact that we’ll have both—a physical store but a virtual advisor. I suppose I was anti-tech for a time simply because I read a study which predicted that, in our future, many of our experiences would be virtual, and what’s the fun in that? I mean, a virtual kiss is not like a real one, you’re kissing air.”
“That’d be a business I’d go for, a virtual experience where you can smell the person you love, touch them, or at least trick your brain into thinking you’re with them.”
“But you aren’t and you will always know that you aren’t,” I contradict.
He sets down his wine glass. I can tell by the mischievous gleam and the challenging lift of his eyebrow he sends my way that he’s up to something. He lifts the lid of a small ivory-encrusted box on the coffee table, and extracts something silver. “Let’s try it out. Close your eyes.”
“What?”
He waits—obviously expecting me to hop to do his bidding. I’m tempted to ignore him, except there’s that glint in his eye of pure mischief and I want to know what is causing it. So I close my eyes, smiling, and feel the barest brush over my cheeks. “Am I touching you or not?” he rasps.
“What?” The flutters in my heart caused by the touch on my cheek is proving too distracting.
“Is this my touch, or is it the tip of this pen?” he asks again.
I inhale, keeping my eyes shut as I concentrate on the feeling. His scent is too close; I can’t concentrate really. He smells like my high school years, like my most secret wishes, and like a dream. Inhaling one good whiff, I exhale it reluctantly. “It’s your finger,” I finally say.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because!” I cry in exasperation. “You’re the selfish, possessive type, you wouldn’t give a pen the pleasure of doing something you want to do.”
Amusement laces his voice as I try to open my eyes, and he runs the tips of two fingers over my eyelids to urge them back shut. Close to my ear, he says, “Newsflash, little bit. The pen has no feelings or pleasure, whereas I do, I’ll give you that. Which finger?”
“I don’t know. Don’t mindfuck me.” I exhale exasperatedly, my eyes still closed as I try to concentrate on the feeling. “It’s your pinky.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Positive?”
“Yes. Wait…it’s your middle finger.”
“Open your eyes.”
I look down and spot his pinky, then feel my stomach burn with wanting him to keep touching me, and to hide my reaction, I laugh.
“Your instinct was spot on,” he says.
“Then I blew it. Now me.” I reach out for the pen. “Okay, so close your eyes.”
He does.
I look at him, trying to determine where to touch him and with what. I pause and just look at him. I can’t take the heavy feeling I get in my chest, like there’s a giant pressing his foot on my ribcage.
God, he’s so gorgeous. I’m just having the time of my life with him tonight. It was always easy to talk to him, I always craved his company, but it was hard to endure it without feeling all these same things I’m feeling now.
I’m older now, a little less scared of them, a little more curious about them to fear leaping in…so here I am, gazing at his chiseled face, his strong features, his nose, his forehead, and his full plump lips, and even the blond tips of his eyelashes resting against his cheekbones.
I lean over, and press my thumb to his lips—like he did once—and then I press my lips to my thumb and ease my thumb downward so that my lips are touching, intimately pressing, against his full, perfect mouth.
So yeah, I kiss him—a peck on his mouth, feeling happy, carefree, light.
Maybe high on the enjoyable evening.
As I ease back, he opens his eyes. So do I.
He clenches his jaw, cups my face, and opens my mouth, tilting my head to kiss me harder.
“I need to pee,” I say, and I giggle-groan when I realize I said that out loud.
I leap to my feet in my urgency.
He chuckles and shakes his head, his eyes raking me, head to toe.