Page 32 of Find Me

I shrug. “You’re easy to talk to.”

“Some might disagree,” he counters. “Actually, I think most people would disagree given my… occupation.”

I smile. “Speaking of your occupation, what was going on with you and Mike today?”

“I think you know the answer to that, love.”

I roll my eyes. “Let me guess, you can’t tell me?”

He nods in response, looking around the quiet bar and signaling to the server to bring another round of drinks, which quickly arrive at our table.

“So, don’t you have anything better to do with the rest of your night, besides stalking girls and trading life stories?” I ask as I take a sip of my new drink, the ice clinking around the glass loudly.

He smiles mischievously as he looks me up and down slowly, and my skin prickles in response.

“There’s one other way I’d like to spend my night, but I think both of our mouths would be a little too occupied for much conversation.” He purrs.

I can feel my cheeks blushing the deepest shade of red, as heat gathers within me, and I resist my urge to cross my legs.

“You’re so pretty when you blush,” he whispers.

I rack my brain for a thread common sense, for some little voice to tell me that the only right thing to do is to get up and leave before this goes any further, and that sitting here feeling turned on rather than shocked at everything he just said must mean I’m borderline unhinged, and in need of some serious help.

But my mind remains silent, as the air between us thickens with a charge of electricity I can’t quite explain. All I know is, it’s this energy that makes me want to know him, want to be closer, need to be closer. Whatever this is between us, I have a feeling that it is about to make everything a lot more complicated, and something tells me I am about to fall hard for the guy from the wrong side of the tracks.

I look at him, unsure of what else to say at the thought of his mouth doing anything except for talking.

So I lift my glass from the wooden table, and “Cheers” is all I say before shooting it back.

CHAPTER 15

‡

I slip my key into the lock, pushing my body weight against the heavy wooden door and unceremoniously stumbling into my apartment, Jax not far behind me.

My apartment is dark and I walk to the closest lamp, flicking the switch to turn it on, the glow immediately brightening the open space.

“Two for two,” he says, and I turn just in time to see a roguish smile on his lips.

“What?”

“Two for two—getting you back to your apartment after you’ve been drinking.”

I huff a laugh, the alcohol making me feel light and carefree. “What a knight in shining armor you are, Mr. Turner.”

“Always for you,” he says, a hint of seriousness in his tone.

He gazes around my apartment, his eyes stopping on a pile of paintings stacked under a window, and the floorboards groan under his steps as he moves towards them, picking up the one on top.

He looks from the painting to me. “You had specks of paint in your hair the first time we met. You were so colorful, shining so brightly that you caught everyone’s attention.”

He lifts up the next piece in the pile, darker than the first, with blacks and grays painted with bold lines.

“This isn’t the same style as the others.”

I move to stand beside him, all too aware of how close his body is beside mine, and look at the painting in his hands.

“It’s not my typical style,” I confirm. “I don’t really know what I was aiming for with this one, but it just felt right in the moment.”

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