Page 58 of Love or Leave

"You know… Get practice."

Cara saw his body freeze and his jaw drop, then his head bend slightly forward, as if he was trying hard to process how pathetic she was.

"Practice?" he asked.

She nodded but refused to elaborate. He was smart enough to get what she was saying. And standing in front of him in her underwear had already made her feel way too vulnerable.

"Uh," he stumbled around slightly, with a general sort of awkwardness.

Fuck. This was going south. Fast.

"I know you want Fran." Cara hoped to do some damage control and salvage this. "And I want to see where things go with Jalen. I was just hoping, since you're technically single, that we could… Well, that I might learn how to be better…"

She wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Why had she said all that? She should have just said “don't worry, all is good” and taken off his pants.

She chanced a look at his face, expecting him to be wincing in second-hand embarrassment for her, but he had drawn his eyebrows together and fixed his gaze on the floor.

He was deep, deep in thought.

"Ugh," she said. "I made everything awkward. We can just forget about this and go to sleep."

He stared at her for a long moment before finally speaking. "You want to see where things go with Jalen?"

Her eyebrows shot up. He was hesitating because of Jalen?

"We've only been on one date. It's not official or serious or anything."

He gave a solemn nod. Maybe he didn't want her there at all anymore. She'd clearly misread something. She didn't expect him to be offended.

She felt pain in her palms and realized she'd been clutching her fists so tightly in anxiety that her nails had dug into her palms.

"Do you want me to go?"

"No."

He said it so fast, Cara got a surge of renewed hope that he wasn't going to kick her out of the room. But then he fell silent again.

Ugh.

"I just feel comfortable around you," she went on, in another attempt at damage control. "And I want this, and I thought you wanted this too and we're both technically single… Can you please say something?"

Antonio looked at her and smirked but stayed silent.

She rolled her eyes and suppressed a laugh. "Seriously, I'm feeling very… exposed right now."

He moved closer to her and wrapped his big, warm arms around her protectively. She dropped her cheek to his chest.

"I want to be with you," he said. "More than anything. But my head is everywhere right now."

"Same," she said, her voice muffled in his deliciously scented shirt.

"Okay," he said, his hands moving up her back and into her hair. His fingertips grazed her scalp and she groaned.

She waited for him to say more, but nothing came. Finally, she lifted her face off his chest and looked into his eyes. "Elaborate, please."

He bent to kiss her lips, and when his tongue touched hers, her body grew feverish. He bent lower, his hands going under her thighs, then picked her up without breaking the kiss.

All the air left her lungs as her feet lifted off the floor. He turned and placed her on the edge of the mattress.

---