Page 63 of IRL: In Real Life
That stayed with me all the way to the downstairs bathroom even as I was thinking I wanted this man to seeallof me, dammit.
I slipped inside long enough to freshen up. Gloss. Powder. Perfume at my wrists, behind my knees, and a little at my throat. I smoothed both hands down over the denim and looked at myself in the mirror.
I had not dressed for Micah.
That was the truth.
I had dressed for summer. For the holiday. For myself.
But suddenly I was very aware that I looked like a woman a man might have trouble letting leave twice in one week.
When I came back outside, the yard was louder, the sky darker, and fireworks were starting to split open over the neighborhood in red and gold flashes above the trees.
My father looked up from his chair near the grill and stared for one second too long.
Then he smiled.
“Drive safe.”
That was all.
My mother kissed my cheek. Aunt Denise said nothing, which meant everything. Shay grinned like a woman with no shame at all.
I got out of there before anybody could start acting new.
The Velvet Roomsat just off Penn Avenue behind a smoked-glass door and a bronze plaque too understated for the amount of money they charged for bourbon. I had been there before, usually with Kendra or a few other women when we wanted good drinks, low light, and music old enough to mean something. No harsh LEDs. No bottle girls doing too much. Just amber light, velvet booths, dark wood, a backlit bar glowing gold, and a room full of people who looked like they had dressed for the possibility of being remembered.
Tonight the DJ had the room sitting somewhere between the late nineties and early two-thousands. Faith had just given way to Donell Jones, the beat low and warm enough to get under a woman’s skin without asking permission.
I paused inside the door for one second and let my eyes adjust.
Then I saw him.
Micah sat in a corner booth with one arm stretched along the back, drink in front of him untouched enough to tell me he had been waiting. White tee. Dark denim. A fresh pair of Military Blue Jordan 4s planted flat beneath the table like he had settled in with no intention of leaving soon.
The shirt fit across his chest and shoulders in a way that felt almost disrespectful in public, the cotton pulled just enough over muscle to let a woman know what was under itwithout making it seem like he had tried. His forearms rested bare against the booth, brown and sculpted, veins moving low beneath the skin. His hands were big. Bigger than they had looked the night we met. Fingers long. Palms the kind a woman could imagine on her waist, her thigh, the back of her neck, and get herself into trouble too early in the evening.
When he turned fully toward me, the diamond stud in his left ear caught the light.
His gaze moved over me once, controlled and full enough to make heat start low and spread. My dress suddenly felt more aware of his eyes than it had in the car. The denim hugged me close through my waist and ass, the silver studs along the seams catching little bits of light whenever I moved. The hem sat high on my thighs already, and with him looking at me like that, I became too conscious of exactly how much leg I had brought into the room.
I crossed the lounge toward him, and his gaze stayed on me the whole way.
“That look on your face is already a problem,” I said when I reached the booth.
Micah stood before he answered, unfolding from the seat with a smooth kind of ease that reminded me exactly how tall he was. Close, he was worse. Broader. Warmer. Too much man for me to pretend I had come in there casual.
“Good to see you too, Talia.”
He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him because apparently my common sense had decided to wait in the car. His fingers closed around mine, firm and warm, then he drew me in for a brief hug that should not have done half of what it did.
But it did.
His chest met mine for one second. His hand touched my back. His scent moved over me, warm spice, expensive cologne, and skin, the kind of quiet masculinity that did not announceitself until it was already in your breathing. It hazed my senses before I could prepare for it, and the feel of him, solid and close and careful with all that restraint, sent heat spreading through me so fast I almost got mad.
By the time he eased back, I needed the booth more than I wanted to admit.
Micah seemed to know it too, because he kept my hand in his just long enough to help me slide into the seat before he sat across from me.
