Page 28 of Lover Forbidden
Assuming it hadn’t actually left. Just relocated to another position.
Standing over the blonde, Dev had to be amazed by her. Somehow, she managed to suck him in again: What the hell business of his was it where she went. Stay here, go home… head to the North-fucking-Pole to join an elf colony. Who gave a shit.
Yet here he was, worried about what was going to happen to her if he took off and left her here.
“You got a car nearby?” he heard himself ask as he put his phone into his parka.
“Yes, sure. I mean, yes.”
Interesting dichotomy, the beauty with this shy hesitancy thing, which did not seem like an act. Usually the two didn’t go together, because blondes who wore shimmering dresses and came with cell phone entourages didn’t operate in a world where insecurity was any kind of hallmark.
“Where’s your ride.” When she paused, he shook his head. “Why is this so hard? I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary. I was going to call an Uber.”
“Okay. I’ll wait until it shows up.” He cocked a brow. “What kind of man would I be if I left a lady out here all alone.”
Her blue-and-green stare shifted back to that alley next to the club, and he copycatted her glance again, wondering what she was focused on. There was nothing that he could see.
“You must live close by,” she said.
“Couple blocks over.” When there was just the cold breeze between them, he found himself compelled to make small talk—which was akin to him volunteering for a manicure. “I couldn’t find my phone and fired up my iPad. Find My Phone led me back… to you.”
“Fate with a technology twist,” she murmured.
“Is that what this is.”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
Dev took a step back. But he knew he wasn’t leaving—and that was the problem. “Where did you say you were parked?”
“I’m calling an Uber, remember?”
“So where’s your phone. Better get ordering.”
Fuck. After so many years of living his own life, minding his own business, and staying away from drama, this blonde with her glittering dress and those mismatched eyes makes an unwilling hero out of him—and pickpockets half his brain in the process.
“You should also go home,” she said softly. “It’s not safe for anybody out here in the dark and the cold.”
“Don’t worry about me.” He resisted the urge to curl up a twin set of biceps. “People tend to get out of my way instead of in it.”
“I believe that.”
As she looked him up and down in that charmingly diffident fashion, he felt something wake up between his legs and cursed under his breath.
Man,noneof this was on his bingo card.
She swiped her hand across her face, clearing a drift of hair from her lips. “But you never can be too careful—”
“So how about that Uber. Is it coming?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll take care of it—”
“You don’t have to—”
Dev cut her off with a brisk shake of the head, and then never got into that app faster. As he entered the coordinates of where they were standing, he was very aware of how she was looking around and trying to hide it, and when he was finished, he reminded himself that she was not his responsibility—
