Coming Home(16)

And when she turned her back to him, he couldn’t stop himself.

“Hey, Leah?”

She stopped, cocking her head over her shoulder.

“Since we’re here, did you want to grab lunch?”

Stupid. So f*cking stupid.

She turned to face him, but her expression was hesitant. Almost startled.

“Oh. I, um…I don’t really…I mean…”

“If you’re hungry,” he offered. “Since we both made the drive.”

She started chewing on the corner of her lip, glancing around as if looking for a way out of the situation.

Leave it alone, *.

“So, are you hungry?” he asked, ignoring the voice in his head.

She pressed her lips together as she shrugged slightly. “A little.”

He took a step back and opened the door, gesturing for her to enter, and Leah looked at the entrance, still wavering.

“Did you know they have tiramisu cheesecake here?”

She swiped the hair out of her eyes, looking back at him.

“Godiva too,” he said. “And Reese’s.”

Her posture relaxed a bit as the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.

“No dice?” he asked. “How about lemon-raspberry? Caramel apple? Just tell me what’s gonna get you in here.”

She laughed then, looking down as she shook her head. Danny watched her shoulders rise as she took a deep breath, and then she lifted her head and walked toward him.

“Just so you know, you had me at Godiva,” she said, continuing past him into the restaurant.

Danny chuckled as he followed her inside and approached the hostess, and she led them to a small table up against the far window. He leaned over, pulling the chair out for Leah before he walked around to his side.

“Thanks,” she said softly, removing her jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair.

As Danny removed his own coat, his eyes instantly dropped to take her in. He felt like such a scumbag, but he couldn’t help it. Everything had happened so fast back at Gram’s that day, so he hadn’t really noticed—although looking at her now, he couldn’t understand how he’d overlooked it.

She had one of the most incredible bodies he’d ever seen.

She wore a fitted sweater that reached her hips with some type of stretchy black pants that emphasized the tone of her legs. Slim waist. Phenomenal chest. She was long and lean, with gorgeous, feminine curves in all the right places.

And a pair of knee-high boots.

Jesus.

He forced his eyes back up to her face, realizing what a creep he must have looked like.

Her eyes were on his chest before they flitted up to his face and then away, and he tried to hide his self-satisfied smirk as he sat across from her.

A waitress approached their table before he could say anything, handing them a set of menus and taking their drink order. As soon as she left, Leah opened her menu and looked down, scanning the pages as she chewed on the side of her lip. He could see her body moving slightly as she tapped her foot restlessly under the table.

She was uncomfortable.

Danny would have chalked it up to his insensitive ogling, except he knew she hadn’t caught him. Besides, she’d seemed uneasy long before that, from the moment he asked her to join him.

He had no business being there with her. It was an asinine decision, any way he looked at it. But the damage had already been done. So now, he wanted to make the best of it.

Even if it would never go beyond this afternoon.

“So,” Danny said, flipping open his menu, and Leah glanced up at him.