Page 79 of Hang the Moon
He ran a hand through his hair, wincing when his fingers snagged in the strands. It had dried since he’d fallen in the lake, but it stuck up oddly.Adorably.“Me too. Thanks for being my date.”
Annie opened the door and reached down to the floorboard for her purse.
“Oh, hold on.” He turned, fishing around in the backseat before swiveling and facing her. “Here.”
He pressed a small cardboard box into her hands.Breathe Right Nasal Strips.
She frowned.
He scratched his jaw. “I noticed you snore the other night when we crashed at the hotel. And I didn’t know if you knew, but I saw these.”
“And you thought of me?”
“That’s not weird, is it?” His eyes widened. “Ah shit, that’s weird.”
Without a doubt, it was the weirdest present anyone had ever given her.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t welcome.
It was weird and wonderful and welcome because it meant he had been thinking of her. As far as gestures went, it was so strangely touching that saying thank you seemed woefully insufficient.
So she stretched across the console and kissed him instead.
For one heart-stopping moment, Brendon didn’t move. His lips remained listless until she drew back, gut churning with disappointment and mortification that she’d read the moment so ridiculously wrong. Something about her lips leaving hismust’ve brought him online, because his hand reached up and cradled her jaw, his fingers tickling the skin beneath her ear.
His tongue dragged against her bottom lip and she melted, distantly recognizing the moan that filled his tiny car as her own. Want overrode everything, making it impossible for her to churn up even an ounce of embarrassment when he captured her lip between his teeth and nipped.
Her fingers knotted in his collar. She pushed him back an inch and held him there. “Walk me up.”
Without taking his eyes off her, Brendon reached down, releasing his seat belt. He searched blindly for the handle and as soon as the door was open, he climbed out, quickly circling the nonexistent nose of his car to help her up onto the curb. His thumb brushed the back of her knuckles and she shivered, mysteriously too hot and too cold at the same time. Her nipples pebbled against the silk bodice of her borrowed dress, and the AC inside the lobby of Darcy’s apartment didn’t lessen her predicament.
She was determined to get her mouth on Brendon as soon as they were in the elevator, but fate saw fit to throw a wrench in her plans. An older woman she recognized from Darcy’s floor stuck her cane between the doors before they could touch, sending them rebounding open. She joined them, smiling, none the wiser to the fact that Annie wanted to press Brendon up against the glass paneling and have her wicked way with him ASAP, possible security cameras be damned.
“Nice weather we’re having,” the older woman, Mrs.... —shoot, Darcy had told Annie her name—said. “Lovely, lovely weather. I think I saw a rainbow earlier.”
Brendon’s fingers strangled her hand and his teeth sank into his bottom lip as he did an all-around shitty job of stifling his laughter. “Great weather, Mrs. Clarence. How’s Princess?”
Annie scrunched her nose and mouthed, “Princess?”
His lips twitched. “Cat.”
Mrs. Clarence prattled on about her Persian longhair, but most of it went in one ear and out the other. Brendon’s thumb continued to swipe against the back of her hand, rhythmic as a metronome, and it drove her insane, making her breath come out in short, sharp gasps she struggled to soften.
His hands were maddening. She felt like some sort of Regency-era heroine, swooning over the way his fingers brushed hers, but it was like the ridges and furrows of his fingerprints were uniquely coded to make her brain fuzz out and her veins flood with heat. When his grip loosened and his thumb swept against the inside of her wrist, she clenched her thighs together.Fuck.
The elevator dinged and opened, spitting them out onto the ninth floor. Mrs. Clarence waved as she opened her door, the first off the hall, and disappeared inside. Annie’s steps quickened as she dragged Brendon after her, on a mission.
Where was the key? Annie could’ve cried as she searched the depths of her purse, coming up empty until—there. She crowed her delight and shoved the key in the door, twisting the knob, stepping over the threshold.
The apartment was dark save for the lights above the bar. Annie peeked down the hall. No light beneath Darcy’s door, either.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t home. She could’ve been sleeping or reading or simply lying in the dark.
They’d have to be quiet.
Something about that made Annie’s breath hitch, then quicken. She liked a challenge.
Brendon shut the door and leaned against it, one hand buried in his pocket, the other raking through his hair.
