Well Played (Well Met #2)(47)

“Anastasia,” I corrected him. A smile danced around the corners of his mouth.

“Anastasia.” My full name was a soft breath, and utterly delicious when he said it out loud. “Everything I said . . . every email, every text. Those were all me. I promise. I know it was . . .” He swallowed, and I tried to not watch the movement of his throat with any interest. “I know it was a pretty big lie, but I swear it was the only one.”

“Promise?” I asked, and he nodded. “No more lies?” I searched his eyes and saw nothing but honesty in them.

“No more lies,” he echoed. “I promise. If I could take it all back, I would, believe me. I’d figure out a way to do it right instead.”

“No,” I said. Despite the past few days, I wouldn’t want to take back our words. The way he’d made me feel. That terrible day he’d gotten me through.

Besides, when I’d reminded him that my name was Anastasia, I’d already decided to forgive him, hadn’t I?

So after another search of his eyes, I nodded slowly. “Okay.” My breath escaped my body with that one word, and with it went the tension, the doubt I’d been feeling.

“Okay . . . okay, what?” His expression was guarded, as if he didn’t dare to hope.

“Maybe we could . . . I don’t know. Start over or something?”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows shot up and a genuine smile blossomed across his face, crinkling the edges of his eyes. “I think I’d like that.”

“Me too.” My breath stalled in my lungs in a way that had nothing to do with my corset as his hand came up to touch the side of my face, tracing my cheekbone with his fingertips. His touch felt better than anything I could have imagined. I reached up to lay a hand on his shoulder, warm under his T-shirt. He caught his breath, and his hand curled under my chin, tipping my face up to his.

“Anastasia.” His voice was hushed, my name reverent. “I’d really, really like to kiss you. Would that . . .” He swallowed hard and bent down a fraction. “Would that be . . .”

“Okay.” I rose slowly up onto my toes, smiling.

“Okay.” The word was said against my mouth as his lips finally met mine: a kiss that was months in the making.

His kiss was a soft brush of lips and a rough scratch of stubble, almost over before it began, and I stretched up farther on my toes to keep his mouth right there where I wanted it.

Daniel made it clear from the start that he was nothing like Dex. If Dex had kissed me out in the open at Faire like that . . . well, he never would have kissed me in public like that, first of all. The closest we’d ever come to any kind of PDA was outside the door of his hotel room, and we were in his room and up against the wall within thirty seconds. Everything with him had been down and dirty and in the dark, and there was a part of me back then that had really responded to that.

But Daniel was different. He wasn’t down and dirty. His kisses were sweet, closed-mouthed, and achingly conscious of the fact that we were in public. If someone had walked by or thrown us a second glance, he would have stepped away from me immediately. But no one did, and after a few moments of soft, exploratory kisses that made my toes curl in my boots, he pulled away, just far enough to brush my cheek with his mouth.

“Why don’t you come by tonight, after you’re done here?”

“Oh.” My heart sank, and in an instant the promise in those kisses melted away like a sugar cube in the rain. Of course. There was the down and dirty. He knew the arrangement I’d had with Dex for the past couple summers, and now he was looking for his turn. I didn’t like the way that made me feel. Cheap. Like I was being passed around from one cousin to the other. No, I didn’t like that at all.

It must have shown on my face, because Daniel’s eyes went wide and he looked chastened. “Stacey.” He moved toward me again, his hand cupping my elbow. It was a comforting touch, though I didn’t want it to be. I should have wanted to brush him away, not lean into him. “I’m not my cousin.” He caught my chin again and ducked down, catching my eyes with his. “Look at me. I need you to understand that.”

“I do,” I said, but I didn’t sound convincing even to myself.

“No,” he said, “you don’t. But you will. Please, come over tonight. Room 212. Okay?”

I didn’t want to be a cheap hookup to Daniel. But he’d just given me the sweetest kisses of my life, which deserved to be taken into account. Which was why I ultimately nodded. “Room 212. Okay.”





Fourteen




I almost talked myself out of it.

I went home after Faire and took a long, hot shower. I dried my hair and snuggled with Benedick for a few minutes. I put on a cute dress. I took it off and pulled on yoga pants and a T-shirt. I put on makeup. I took it off. I was stalling.

My phone remained silent, something I wasn’t used to these days. I’d grown used to those nightly check-ins from Dex . . . no, from Daniel. When I’d gotten home from the bar last night I’d changed Dex’s name in my phone to Daniel’s, but I was still working on reordering my thinking when it came to this whole mess. But he didn’t send any texts. He didn’t ask if I was coming or not. He was giving me space, as he’d said this afternoon.

But I wasn’t sure if I wanted that space. I wasn’t sure what I wanted next with him. As I checked my phone for the fourth time since I’d gotten home, I realized that I missed him. I wanted to hear from him. And he was waiting, more patiently than I could have ever expected, for me to take what we’d had all these months off-line and into real life.