Page 36 of Playing With Danger

“Nothing.”

I knew he was watching me from across the room. I felt his best-friend-bullshit-meter laser focused on me as I was shoving a stack of plates into the cabinet.

“It didn’t feel like nothing the two times he was here,” Hayden noted.

It didn’t feel like nothing the third time Valentine was in the apartment and Hayden wasn’t and he laid the single best kiss of my life on me. If that wasn’t enough, just hearing Valentine tell me we had to leave before his face was buried in my pussy had made my vaginal walls clench. And when he told me if I wasn’t careful he’d fuck the smirk off my lips, I nearly orgasmed. What I hadn’t done was wipe the smirk off my face in hopes he’d make good on his threat.

Sadly, he didn’t.

After I dealt with a work call that had interrupted us, we’d gone and grabbed bagels and a coffee and he asked me more about my mother.

“I told you, he came over and dealt with She-Devil. We shared a coffee, he brought me home, walked me to the door, and that was it.”

Now nothing.

It had been a week, and except for a bunch of text messages and a few phone calls, I hadn’t seen him.

Incidentally I hadn’t heard from my mother at all in that week, either, but I had heard from Nathan telling me that my mother loved me dearly and was just worried about me as it’s a mother’s right. I should give it some time and let him know when I was ready to come over and have dinner.

In other words, he wanted to try to play peacekeeper on this latest issue even though it hadn’t worked during our most recent dinner, the one which had led to my mother ambushing me. Or all the other dinners besides. He was too good of a guy to give up, and whatever it was that he saw in my mother—and God knows he had to look really deep to find it—made him love her. And by extension me. It was weird—not him loving me, because we got along great—him and my mother. That was weird and strange and I never got it and likely never would.

“You think I don’t know when you’re lying?”

I glanced across the room and scowled in mock affront.

“I’m insulted,” I lied.

“No, you’re not. You know I’m right.”

Of course he was, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

“He’s your friend. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I have.”

At that I perked up and put down the silverware basket on the counter.

“You asked him?”

Why was my voice pitched so high and why did my stomach just erupt with butterflies?

“You really suck at this,” Hayden returned with a knowing smirk.

Which of course made me think about Valentine’s sexy threat, yet again. I seriously needed to start dating—stat. Or at least find a good diversion to distract me from thinking about Valentine every five seconds.

“Whatever, Hayden, just tell me what he said.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“He said there was nothing going on, the two of you were just friends.”

Damn. That hurt way more than it should’ve.

“Told you.”

I went back to shoving the silverware into the proper slots in the drawer. Hayden let the topic drop and went back to doing whatever he was doing on his phone. The silence only allowed my mind to wander to all sorts of places it shouldn’t go.

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