Page 63 of Made for You
After a beat, she cleared her throat. “Well, I’m glad we got that out there. Moving truck comes in three weeks, and until then, I’m off to meet my boyfriend.”
I was nodding, accepting this information. Three weeks until the truck, and then—wait.“You have a boyfriend!? Who is he? When can I meet him?”
She’d already grabbed her book and keys and was cackling on the way to the garage door. “Have a good day!” she sang as she exited, door slamming behind her.
I blinked around the room, wondering what other little bombs she might’ve dropped on her way to see her boyfriend, then slumped back against the bright couch with a full-feeling sigh. Never underestimate Rosie Renwick.
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
Bruce
Nikki’s gorgeous eyes flicked to the side to find mine as she filled a coffee cup. I shouldn’t be standing this close, but I couldn’t stop it.
I hadn’t seen her in three days. I’d thought we’d snag a minute on Sunday, but we’d settled for a quick phone call thanks to a small fire I’d had to put out with work, and then I’d been out of the office Monday and Tuesday supervising security system installs in the ritziest neighborhood in Silverton known as The Ridge. Normally, Wilder did that, but he was on another op, so it fell to me. I’d planned to attend the all-hands, which we’d bumped to today thanks to so much going on.
So when I’d seen her get up and come to refresh her coffee after the meeting, I’d been drawn here. Never even made the decision to rise from my desk or zombie-walk in here—I just appeared.
“You have got to stop looking at me like that,” she said, biting her lip in the way that mademewant to do the same.
Although really, she didn’t have to do anything to make me want to kiss her. That was my current perpetual state.
“Like what?” I asked, my voice almost gritty.
A breath whooshed out of her. “Like I’m a three-course meal and you’re a man who hasn’t eaten in a week.”
I chuckled low. “It’s a really bad idea to eat a big meal after that long without food, trust me.”
Wide eyes turned to me, her mug now properly doctored and cupped in her hands. “Please tell me you’ve never gone a week without eating.”
I shrugged like that particular week in my life was something small and not a time that’d taken a few therapy sessions to process and still sometimes made me wake up with a stomach ache. “Let’s say I never miss a meal now.”
She blinked, absorbing that information. “Okay. Wrong simile, then.”
My smile stretched wide. It was a stupid thing to feel a little trill in my chest at her vocabulary, the book nerd in me reveling in her word choice. But that kid who’d given up his dream of going to college and getting a degree in English would never not appreciate a woman who knew her metaphors and similes.
“What’s that smile for?” Her head tilted to one side in that way she had.
I chuckled at myself, but fessed up. “I was thinking how much I like that you know it was a simile, not a metaphor. The lit nerd in me is preening on your behalf.”
She grinned but shook her head like I was a weirdo. And fair enough, I was.
“I suppose I knew you attend book club. Is that enough to qualify you as a lit nerd?” She stepped closer and spoke low like this was all clandestine. “Or is there more?”
The dip of her waist practically called to me, my fingers itching to rest there and feel her through the thin material of her white shirt, but I kept my hands to myself like a good boy. “There is more…”
Our eyes locked, and if we’d been anywhere other than the break room at work, I would’ve taken her in my arms and kissed her until we both forgot our names. Alas, the lure of her hadn’t completely wiped my awareness of reality, and so I just gulped her in at this distance, only a few inches away and lit by fluorescent lights above casting her in an eerie glow that somehow made her hair look almost orange today.
“Tell me,” she said, a whisper.
There were so many things I wanted to tell her, but I’d heard steps at the far end of the hallway and this moment between us would be over in a heartbeat. I dipped my head, lips millimeters from her ear. “Have dinner with me.”
“Tonight?”
“Hey, guys. Anyone else eating out for lunch today? I’m going to try the new sandwich place if you want to join me in a bit.” Kenny grabbed a mug from the cabinet and banged around.
Nikki and I had jumped apart when he’d started talking as though standing close and talking low was a crime. It wasn’t, and I thoroughly disliked the feeling we’d apparently both had that said we needed to jump apart like we’d done something wrong. But we were just getting started. It felt like—itwas—so much more than that, and yet I knew we needed to go slow.
“I’m all set, Kenny. Thanks.” I raised a hand in a weird wave thing that I’d probably catch grief for later.
