Page 99 of IRL: In Real Life
“Maybe.”
He stood there one beat too long after opening the door, looking at me like he wanted another answer and had already decided he did not trust himself with it.
Then his hand landed at my waist, broad and warm and just possessive enough to make everything under that dress wake up harder.
I got into the truck before I embarrassed myself in the driveway.
The drive to his place wasn’t long, which was probably for the best. There was not much room left between us tonight for anything too casual. Music moved low through the speakers, something soft and grown that let the silence stay alive. He drove with one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting near the console, and even that did something to me.
His fingers.
His forearm.
The easy strength in the way he moved.
Every time the city lights crossed his face, I caught some new detail I had not taken in properly before. The shape of his mouth. The seriousness in his eyes when he wasn’t smiling. The little crease between his brows when he was trying to behave.
I looked out at the city for a second just to breathe.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“So are you.”
He smiled without looking away from the road. “That make you nervous?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The one word sat warm between us.
By the time he pulled into the garage, my body had already decided this night was not ending halfway.
He came around to get my door before I could reach for the handle.
Of course he did.
That hand found my waist again when I stepped down from the truck, and the contact stayed long enough to let me feel how deliberate he was being. He didn’t rush me. Didn’t crowd me. Just guided me toward the elevator like he had already made up his mind that I was safe with him there.
Upstairs, when the doors opened and we stepped into his place, everything in me went still for half a second.
His condo smelled like warmth before anything else.
Not just fragrance. Warmth.
Something rich and masculine with a little smoke in it, a little sweetness under that, and the faintest trace of whatever he used on his skin. The city spread wide through the windows in gold and navy and glass. Music moved softly somewhere in the background. Candles glowed low from the console and the dining table. Dark wood. Leather. Cream upholstery. Black accents. Nothing loud. Nothing trying too hard.
The whole place held itself the way he did.
Solid.
Sure.
Intentional.
And there, right in the middle of his dining table, was a glass vase full of stargazers.
I stopped.
