Page 33 of Must Love Hockey
“Excuse me, sir?” I hear myself say through the gap in the partition. “Can you take us to East Nineteenth Street instead?”
“East Nineteenth and…?”
“Foster,” James says immediately. It comes out a little like “Fostah,” the edges of his Brooklyn accent breaking through.
“You got it.”
James smooths my hair away from my face. “You sure?” he whispers.
“Yes,” I insist. “I’m just, um, not good at this.”
The grin he gives me is so very James—wicked and sweet at the same time. “At what, exactly?”
“Um… Dating.”And seduction. Flirting. Everything.
“You’re doing just fine,” he whispers. Those brown eyes flash, and then somehow we’re kissing again.
Only now that I’m seated in his lap, it’s more of a full-body experience. Like a very exciting amusement park ride, where anything might happen—such as his tongue in my mouth and his hand squeezing my bottom. His thumb brushing over my nipple, sensitive despite several layers of fabric in the way.
My arousal is swift and all-consuming, in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I’m basically one lit match shy of an open flame by the time the cab comes to a halt. I find myself placed gently onto the seat, while James pays the cabbie.
Cool air hits my heated face as I exit the taxi on wobbly knees. James follows me, telling the cabbie to keep the change.
“Thanks, man. You have fun tonight.” The driver’s voice is amused, and I feel a wave of embarrassment at having gotten carried away in the back of a taxi at two in the morning.
Who even am I right now?
James shuts the door without comment, parks a hand at the small of my back, and leads me around the corner, onto Nineteenth Street. I’ve seen these streets before, since we’re only about ten blocks from my own apartment building.
Midwood is just on the other side of Mapleton from Bensonhurst, where I live, but this block looks completely different from my own. Instead of apartment buildings, there are stately, old, three-story Victorian-era homes, with driveways between them and lawns in front and back. I always marveled at these houses as a little girl. They looked like the homes I saw on television.
“Nice neighborhood,” I say as we walk past a couple houses on the silent street.
“I rent from my aunt,” he explains. “The cost is super low, and I’m invited for dinner every Sunday that I’m in town. Although I do mow the lawn.”
“Seems like a great deal. Is your aunt a good cook?”
“The best. Sunday dinner is a big feast. I’m sad to miss it when we’re traveling.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders. “We’re just over here.”
The driveway where we turn leads to the rear of a wide house painted a dark color. Blue, I think. There’s a bay window in front and porches that stretch the width of both the first and second floors.
As we head toward the garage, an exterior set of stairs comes into view. “It’s a bit of a climb,” he says, stepping aside to let me go first.
Gripping the wooden railing, I climb the first few stairs. James follows, his heavier tread making the wood creak.
It’s the middle of the night, and I’m climbing a secluded staircase to a man’s room. Nobody knows where I am. At all. There are probably scary movies that begin like this.
And yet the thumping of my heart is one hundred percent nervous anticipation, not true fear. I feel safe with this man, if a little overwhelmed by him.
On the landing, he pulls a heavy set of keys from his pocket and uses one to open the door. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
We enter the apartment, and he quickly walks to the corner of the room to turn on a lamp. I see a large space with slanting ceilings and cute dormer windows. One half is taken up by the spacious attic bedroom of my girlhood dreams, although it’s finished with a manly grey flannel comforter on the big four-poster bed. The other half is a small living area with a sofa, a coffee table, and the kind of tiny, barely functional kitchen that you can only find in the five boroughs of New York City.
“I kind of love it,” I say stupidly. “And you’re a very tidy man, James.”
He chuckles. “This is what it looks like when you’re almost never home.” He removes my coat as smoothly as a Bridgerton valet and hangs it on a coat rack beside the door.
The man is seriously tidy, even if he can’t take a compliment. I watch him hang up his own coat and set his shoes on a rack against the wall.
