Brutally Beautiful(54)

“Hey,” I said, sliding over in the booth to make room for him.

“Hey,” he mumbled back, smoky grey eyes blazing at me through thick dark lashes. Leaning in slowly towards me, he tentatively brushed his hand against my forearm. Bringing his face closer to mine, he whispered, “Stunning.”

Holding steady eye contact with him, my breath faltered, and what felt like a goddamn inferno surged through my body, slapping me in between my legs with such a forceful heat that I suddenly believed in self-combustion.

“Okay, ladies and gents. This next round is on me. What is everyone having?” Fran shouted out across the table. “Kade, my man. You have to try the sauce, it’s outstanding.”

Everyone ordered a beer, but Fran came back five minutes later with a beer for everyone and a glass of red wine for me, and a glass of red for him.

“Please tell me you did not just get me a wine on purpose,” I said.

Fran winked at me from across the table, “It’s a wonderful year. Have a sip.”

“Oh, my God, I’m about to lose it,” I muttered, and before I could say anything else, Fran interrupted me with more of his tactful conversation skills.

“So, Kade. It must be very gratifying to be such an accomplished and famous writer. You must have a plethora of women adoring you and throwing themselves at you. I bet you chew them up and spit them out, eh?” Fran asked, clearly trying to alert me to his presumptions about Kade’s promiscuity. I knew, because he smirked at me after his pointed asinine question.

“Not if they taste good,” Kade deadpanned, and then he slid his beer over to me, grabbed my glass of wine, and took a sip. “Most of them don’t taste very well, mind you, but, once in a while…Once in a while, you find someone that you taste and it changes the way the rest of them do, and no one seems as sweet or delicious.” His eyes locked on mine.

Fran was speechless, for once. And Kade? Kade was sitting next to me, stealing the air from my lungs with his closeness and his words, and I just burst out laughing. You know, one of those nervous, psychotic sounding laughs that end with a snort. Bree fell into a fit of giggles next, followed by some chuckles from Dylan and Kade.

Fran looked around at the people who seemed to be staring at us, and his cheeks reddened, “Lainey, try to control yourself. People are looking over here.”

“Oh, my God, Francis, stop.” I downed the rest of my beer. “That beer was delicious, Kade, thank you. I think I want a cup of coffee now,” I laughed.

“Lainey, we’re at a bar, stop with the coffee. You’ve probably had more than enough caffeine today. I’ll get you another glass of wine. No more caffeine; I watch your hands tremble enough. And you don’t even like beer. It’s like you don’t know what’s good for you.”

“Francis,” I threatened, “if you don’t stop this inappropriate compulsion with my eating and drinking habits, I believe I might cause you great bodily harm with some form of male testicular torture,” I said, laughing hard.

He scoffed. A little snort followed by a smirk and that nasty crinkle of his nose, which was always plastered on his face. “Are you premenstrual right now?” he asked in a low whisper, as if it were an appropriate question. “An over-emotional female prone to exaggeration does not suit your personality type. This sort of change in your personality is what I’ve been trying to explain to you. It’s from too much caffeine.”

“That is the most arrogant, condescending, male chauvinistic and patronizing mansplaining bullshit I have ever heard,” I said.