Page 102 of Change My Mind
And I’d lost my upper hand once again.
Fuck.
This was going to be a long dinner.
Sixty-One
ELI
Addie was trying to kill me.
Which was a natural progression of the week we had. Neither of us had managed to get to the other one to break so far, but there had been a number of close calls.
Last night had been the worst of it. Or so I thought until she made me zip her up into a deep red jumpsuit that moulded to her body in a way that felt illegal. I had wanted to pull the whole thing off and throw her onto the bed. But I wasn’t going to be the one to break the rule.
She would never let me live it down.
But I think I could’ve lived with that because at least if I devoured her before we went to dinner, I wouldn’t feel so fucking tense sitting opposite her while we tried to have a nice meal.
And given the way Addie was looking at me, it seemed like we were in the same boat.
“You have got to stop looking at me like that,” I said lowly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, thecorners of her mouth tilting up into a smirk that looked deadly in the low light of the restaurant.
I wanted to kiss it off her face and fuck up her lipstick in the process.
“What are you thinking of ordering?” I asked to distract myself.
Addie’s dark gaze ran over my face and chest, exposed by the dark blue shirt that I had hardly buttoned up—because if she was going to fight dirty, so was I—before she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she reopened them, she looked less hungry for me. But only just.
“I’ll be honest, I haven’t actually looked.”
“You mean, you didn’t spend all afternoon studying the menu so you could be prepared?” I teased.
“No, I spent the afternoon teaching. Then, when I got home, I got distracted trying to think of ways to get you to break and forgot to check,” she replied bluntly.
“I knew that thing with the zip was on purpose,” I muttered loudly enough for her to hear.
“No, I genuinely needed your help with that. I mean, I had other options I could have worn, and I didn’t need to only be pulling it on the moment you walked into the room, but I can’t do the zip up unassisted. It’s weirdly stiff, and I can’t get the grip right.” The smirk was back.
I looked up at the ceiling and tried to find my resolve, so I didn’t suggest another bathroom rendezvous.
When I looked back at Addie, her eyes looked like the densest of forests. “The sight of your nipple almost had me, I won’t lie.”
She rolled her eyes. “And yet, the rule remains unbroken.”
“If I didn’t break it last night when I walked intomyroom to find you humping a pillow and saying my name, which, let’s be real, is what started this whole thing between us, thenthere was no way that I was going to break over a bit of silver through a puckered nipple.”
Addie shifted in her chair as she clenched her jaw and glanced down at the menu.
“I’m probably going to have the pappardelle and am willing to share some kind of garlic bread situation with you. How was lunch service?” Addie’s voice was a little breathless.
“It was fine. No dramas. How was teaching the youths of today?”
“I had to pretend that I care about the Henry plays.”
“Why do you hate them?”
