Page 119 of One Night Only
I bristle slightly at the non-answer. If he doesn’t want to get into it, I won’t make him. But I’m doing more than my share of soul spilling here and despite all I’ve learned about him, I’m constantly reminded that there’s so much I don’t know. I realize now how little time I’ve actually spent with him. I only met him two months ago. Though back at his office he implied…
“What?” Declan asks. “You’ve got a look on your face I don’t like.”
“I’m just thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I wasthinkinghow the first time I saw you was that night at O’Shea’s. But that according to you, it’s not the first time you saw me.”
He hesitates, looking sheepish for the first time. “Okay,” he sighs. “This is going to sound a little creepy, but I want you to know that it’s not.”
“Reassuring, thanks.”
“In my defense, I’m very good with faces and in my line of work you get to know the regulars, even just to glance at. And I got to know your face because I may or may not have had a crush on you. Again, in a non-creepy way.”
“So you just what? Stared at me from afar?”
“You never gave me a chance to do anything more,” he says. “You were always with someone. Your friends or a date. You have a type, you know that?”
“Which is what?” I ask. “Devastatingly handsome?”
“They make you laugh.”
I tense as he looks at me.
“One night,thenight, I decided to take my shot. I finished up and went over to talk to you, old-school style. And thankfully, from my research and my watching—”
“Your stalking.”
“—I knew just what to do.”
Make me laugh. And he did. I remember now. How he teased me. How he told me stories.
“So, you can see after weeks of waiting for my chance with you, I wasn’t exactly thrilled when you kicked me out of your bed the next morning.” There’s a joking edge to his tone, but I feel deadly serious. “After all that planning.” He tsks.
“You should have told me.”
“I wanted to appear cool and detached.”
But he never appeared that way. Infuriating maybe, though even when he annoyed me I found myself drawn to him. And now the more time I spend with him, the more I see him. His warmth for his friends, his passion for his business…his interest in me. He’d been clear about that from the start, even when I pushed him away.
Trust me.
I want to. God, I really want to.
I shift in the chair, looking at him again. I can’t stop looking at him. Every time I force myself to glance away it’s likezingstraight back. Like he’s tugging a string connected right to my brain. And other parts of me.
One thing is clear, whatever he planned to happen tonight, he’s taking his sweet time with it.
“Do you have any tattoos?” he asks before laughing again as I glare at him. “What?”
“You know I don’t. You’ve seen me naked.”
“It was dark,” he says innocently.
“You enjoy this, don’t you? Bugging the hell out of me.”
“We’re just talking.”
