Page 65 of Revenge Puck

His mouth twitches. “If you’re having second thoughts, I totally get it. We’re good.”

I swallow when he pushes off the doorframe and swaggers toward me, not fully closing the distance, butenoughthat I can see the faint bruising from a gash on his chin.

“Do I scare you?” he asks, and it’s not cocky.

He looks concerned.

“Not at all.” I gulp. “I’m a bit thrown off by…”

I gesture around the hallway. The mahogany crown molding. The expensive painting hanging next to his door. The fact that he has his own elevator. “This.”

His gaze flicks to the elevator still waiting patiently behind me.

“So, you were going to bolt?”

I give a feeble nod. “Maybe?”

A corner of his mouth tips up into an amused smile. “Juliette. It’s an apartment, not a brothel.” His eyes rake lower, landing on the pink container in my hands. “Are those for me?”

“Yes,” I whisper, embarrassment rippling through my entire body. “I brought baked goods to a man who looks like he busts beer bottles open with his teeth.”

His eyes crinkle at the corners. “You think I don’t want your cookies?”

“I think you probably have lobster and blue crabs in your freezer. And drink aged wine that requires decanting.”

His grin widens and, for several seconds, all I can do is stare at his teeth.

Because it’s not the polite mask of control he’s been wearing since he opened the door; this face is different. Uninhibited. It starts slowly on one side of his mouth, like he’s trying to hold it back, then spreads fully—lifting his cheeks, softening the hard planes of his face.

A small dimple appears in his left cheek.

A DIMPLE.

I did not know that existed.

Holy crap. He looks so much younger when he smiles. Warmer. Devastatingly handsome…

This is not the broody, emotionally unattainable guy I’d been constructing in my head and daydreaming about. This is a man with laugh lines. A man who looks like he might actuallyenjoystuff. Like he might tease and grin and charm things without thinking them through.

I feel it down to my toes: this stupid, giddy, dizzying shift in my chest.

Oh.

That’s what Aaron looks like when he’s happy.

“Wine that requires decanting?” He laughs. “I’ll have you know, I ate cereal for dinner. Out of the box. Over the sink.”

“You’re lying.”

He holds up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

I glance over my shoulder.

“Juliette,” he says quietly. “Stay.”

He steps aside, spreading the open door, giving me a wide berth to enter, warm light spilling farther into the hallway, soft and inviting.

“Come in,” he mumbles. “Before you overthink this and climb back into the elevator.”