Fight or Flight(26)
His beautiful gaze bored into me with a thoroughness that made me tense. “Looks like I owe you again.”
I shook my head. “We’re not going to be around each other long enough for you to pay up.”
Hearing the sincerity in my words, Caleb finally nodded. “Your loss.”
Despite the niggling voice in my head that told me I was an idiot for not taking him up on his offer for another go-around of guilt-free best-sex-ever, I stared determinedly at my e-reader.
Minutes of silence stretched between us as Caleb got his laptop back out and started to work. I couldn’t concentrate on my book. I started to stew over the fact that I couldn’t deny I did feel a sense of longing for this guy. Did I really need to like him to have sex with him? Really? Wasn’t sex just sex?
I glanced at his hands typing away on his laptop and flushed, remembering how skillful those fingers were. I could feel myself giving in.
Just as I opened my mouth to tell him so, he spoke first. “Stop worrying yourself over there. Like you said, there’s plenty of beautiful women in Boston. I won’t go lonely.”
Arghh!
My fingers bit around my e-reader to the point I was afraid I might crack the screen. He was horrible.
Just horrible!
And I had had sex with him.
“I hope it falls off,” I muttered.
“What?”
I gave him a blinding smile. “I hope they fall all over you.”
“You said, ‘I hope it falls off.’ ”
“Did I?” I shrugged innocently. “Slip of the tongue.”
“Aye, if I remember correctly you’re good at that too.”
I glowered at him, scowling harder as I felt the seat shake with his laughter.
Bastard. Scot.
Eight
So … what you’re telling me is that you had sex for the first time in seven years with a hot stranger who talks like a guy out of Outlander?” Harper asked.
Hiding a smile at the shock on her face, I nodded casually.
She leaned forward from her curled-up position on my couch to say, “Are you kidding around or not? Because I’m starting to think not.”
“I’m not kidding around.”
“You slept with a hot Scottish stranger at O’Hare?”
“Yup.”
Harper broke out into a massive grin. “You know you were pretty much my hero before this, but you just upped the hero worship by a hundred and ten percent.”
“Because I slept with a stranger?”
“Uh, correction—you had sex with a kilted Highlander.”
I burst into laughter. “They don’t all go around wearing kilts and swords, you know. I’m guessing most of them stopped doing that about a few hundred years ago.”
“You know what I mean!” she cried, bouncing up off the couch and making my heart leap into my throat at the way her wine sloshed around in her glass. “Just when people think they have you figured out … boom! You do something completely out of character.” She raised her glass precariously again and rolled her eyes at me when she noticed my wince. “Which is a nice vacation from coaster girl.” She placed the wineglass down on a coaster and took her seat again.
I sighed. “What is so wrong about not wanting to leave ring marks on my furniture?”
“I could say something dirty to that but I’m going to refrain.”
“Talk about shocking,” I teased.
Harper rolled her light gray-blue eyes again and shook her head. “I can’t believe you had a one-night stand.”
“Not just any one-night stand. An epic one-night stand.” I could admit that to my best friend. We told each other everything. People were often surprised by my friendship with Harper. I was thirty years old, slightly conservative, reserved with most people, well educated and, yes, I could admit it, a bit overly organized. Nothing in my apartment was out of place … or on me either. Even lounging at home with Harper, I wore yoga pants and an off-the-shoulder blouse. Makeup on and hair done. I didn’t own a pair of jeans.
Harper, on the other hand, was twenty-six years old, and had very short platinum blond hair that was cut close at the sides and left long on top so she could style it. Some days she styled it into a sharp, messy quiff, other days in a softer one with a retro vibe. The cut did not at all detract from my friend’s femininity—it just gave her an edge. She had soft features—pert nose, full lips, wide eyes, and long lashes. Then there were her dimples. Every time she laughed or smiled, these adorable dimples flashed in her cheeks. Harper was multifaceted in many ways. Looks-wise, when she was straight-faced and staring at you with those soulful big eyes, she was downright beautiful and striking with her daring haircut. But when she smiled, she was absolutely cute as a button.
In her right ear were multiple piercings. As a pastry chef in one of Boston’s best restaurants, she wore only studs and tiny hoops. Three close-to-the-skin hoops on the bottom and then five studs up along the cuff of her ear, each a different-colored stone that winked and sparkled when the light caught it. In her left ear was only a hoop and a stud.
Right now, on her day off, she wore gold rings on nearly all her fingers, some that sat below the knuckle and others above.
I thought of Harper as a glamorous punk. She liked edgy, but she liked her edginess to glitter and sparkle. Today she wore skinny jeans that were ripped at the knees, biker boots, and a cropped T-shirt covered in rose gold sequins that reflected light everywhere she turned.