Page 40 of Speak of the Devil

Nodding, I move inside, feeling more comfortable than I should in her bedroom. “Ah, that makes more sense.”

“What do you mean by more sense?” She seems to know the answer already by how she rolls her eyes. Falling back with her arms wide, she releases a long breath as if she can finally breatheafter the long day. “Am I ever going to live Maggie’s comments down?”

Doing what I shouldn’t, I sit next to her on the bed . . . in the dimly lit room . . . wanting so much to lie next to her. I find myself breathing easier too. The day of traveling has weighed down on me and made me drowsy. The head injury doesn’t help.

The calming colors of the bedding and walls, the scent of her swirling in the air, the beat of her heart and mine mingling between us.

She hooks a finger in one of my back belt loops, and a gentle pull has me lying down next to her. I turn to find her eyes already finding mine, my breath deepening, hers wading through the shallows. The tips of her fingers run lightly over the injury, and she shifts, coming toward me.

My lips part when hers do. I caress her cheek, my gaze locked onto her mouth. And then she kisses me on the forehead. It’s the most intimate thing I’ve ever felt. Her breaths are jagged, and her eyes shift away. With one hand on the bed, the other rests on her chest as if she’s keeping her heart inside.

Sitting up, she catches her breath, and without looking back, she whispers, “We should order food.”

When I sit up next to her, my heart still beats hard, but now my chest feels tight. I try swallowing down the mistake I just made and stand to leave the room. “Sounds good.”

13

Cate

He pusheshis plate away from the edge of the coffee table and falls back on the couch with a groan. “I feel miserable.” Only some sparse rice remains. He can eat, but I’m not surprised, considering the man in front of me seems nearly twice my height.

I’m still surprised he’s here, though. Shane Faris sitting in my living room full of food we ordered together was not something I imagined when I started my day. But here he is, scrunched up on my couch that fits perfectly in this space, yet he’s too tall to be comfortable for long. His presence takes up even more space than his large frame.

Seeing him was exhilarating, and he made the effort to see me after landing. But the bedroom incident . . . Every time I start to give a little, to yield some of the protection of my heart, I see him separate from the image I perceived and the one he gives off. I stumble past attraction into the feelings I’m developing for him. That connection I once felt has reignited, and that scares me. But then that damn phone buzzes again.

Never thinking I was the jealous type, I’m not sure I could handle his infamy with the ladies. The mayhem of his life would crash into this little life I’ve built. And when it’s over, I’d be the one stuck cleaning up the wreckage to my heart while he moves on to someone else.

I touch my lips, still staring at him.

It would have been nice to share one kiss.Just to know what I’m missing.

Too late now.

“Me too. Why’d you let me eat that much?” I join in the misery, rubbing my stomach as if that will ease how stuffed I feel or the regret of what happened in the bedroom. Kicking my legs out, I prop my feet on the table in front of me.

“I wasn’t coming between you and that last eggroll.” Holding his hands up, he chuckles. “I need these babies.”

“Ha.” I try to giggle, but it kind of hurts to mix laughter with that much food in my belly and the remorse weighing me down. “Make it go away.”

“Think about something else. Where do you go for your happy place?”

“Physically? Hawaii. When I’m getting a pap smear? I also take a trip to Hawaii in my thoughts.”

“Hawaii and a pap smear are quite the image.” His eyes are hard to read while staring at me indifferently. “That’s a lot of information.”

“Too much?” I ask, rolling my head to the side, too lazy to turn it. “I forget that other people don’t talk about medical procedures so openly.”

“I can handle you.”

His referring tomeover thetopichas me reevaluating everything.

Does he want to kiss me? Or was that all me in the bedroom?

Why did he come to see me the same day he returned to LA?

He agreed to come over and let me feed him when he has all those text girls to tend to.

I’m so confused. He makes my heart and head twist the logic to what I want it to be instead of what it is, what we are, and maybe all we should be. Friends.

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