Foreplay (The Ivy Chronicles #1)(65)

“You did.” I nodded. “So. Thanks, again.”

He looked left and right, as if searching for something to talk about. “You hungry? Want a burger or something?”

“I could eat.”

“C’mon.” He led me into the back room and shouted over the counter. “Give me a Cyclone Monster and basket of Tijuana fries.”

Someone shouted back from the kitchen, acknowledging his order.

My eyes widened. When he turned back around, I said, “Please tell me that’s not all for me.”

He grinned and my stomach did that crazy little flip-flop. “I’ll share it with you.”

We sat at one of the tables toward the back. On the same bench, our shoulders brushing. It was uncomfortable being this close to him, not knowing what was okay. Touching, kissing, which we had done so much together before, now seemed like something we couldn’t do now. Partly because we were in public. Partly because none of that was real. Me finally—maybe—getting somewhere with Hunter only hammered that home.

“So you’re leaving Wednesday with Hunter?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s a four-hour drive.”

“Well, that will give you some quality time with him.” He stared straight ahead, in the direction of the kitchen. I stared at his profile. A muscle feathered in his jaw.

I nodded. “Yeah, and I’ll be over at his house quite a bit to see Lila. I usually go there after Thanksgiving dinner and hang out. Watch movies. Hunter is usually there unless he makes plans with some of his old friends—”

“He’ll be there,” he cut in.

“Yeah? Why—”

“He’ll be there because you’re there.” Turning, he faced me, his left arm resting along the top of the table. With the wall to my right and the stretch of his bicep and forearm to my left, I felt caged, like he was closing in on me. “And if his sister wants you two to be together—”

I nodded. “She does.”

“Then she’ll be a good sister and a good friend and invent some reason to disappear.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it will happen like that.”

“It will.”

I angled my head and studied him, the dark ring of blue around his eyes a stark contrast to the pale blue of his irises. “He doesn’t see his old friends often. They might make him go out—”

“I’m telling you. He’ll blow them off to be with you.”

My chest tightened at the intense way he looked at me, and I heard myself asking, “Is that what you would do?”

He stared at me and I waited, wondering why his answer mattered so much.

“I wouldn’t have waited this long for you. I would have already showed up at your dorm the minute I decided I wanted you. I wouldn’t leave until I convinced you that you were mine.”

“Oh.” My skin shivered, imagining this scenario. Reece at my door. Determined. Sexy. Saying things, doing things, to convince me I was his. “Maybe he hasn’t decided that he wants me then.”

“He has. I saw his face at Gino’s. He’s already gone for you.”

Suddenly I realized that we had moved into each other, not touching but so close our breaths mingled.

“Fuck,” he rasped and closed that tiny distance, kissing me like it had been forever and not just a week. But this week had felt like forever. I missed this. Missed him. He buried a hand in my hair and hauled me closer, our chests mashed together. His mouth devoured mine and I kissed him back just as greedily.

“Here you go.”

I jumped and pulled away. Two baskets of heart attack dropped onto the table before us. The fry cook was already marching away, apparently unfazed by our public makeout.

My chest rose and fell like I had just run a marathon. Reece’s eyes were that bright pale blue I was coming to recognize as a sign that he was hot for me. I glanced from the food to him, part of me hoping that he would say forget the food and haul me upstairs with him.

My body didn’t even feel like it belonged to me anymore. It was one pulsing ball of nerves, throbbing and aching and yearning desperately for all this foreplay to just reach its most natural conclusion.

It was as though my body lived and breathed for this. For him. I wanted the ache satisfied. But I wouldn’t be the one to say the words. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t go that far. And there was always the fear, the desperate need to choose the safe path.

All of which meant nothing would happen. Nothing more than kisses and fondling that made me want to pull my hair out in frustration.

Reece slapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Let’s dig in.”

Oh yeah. Food.

I picked up a cheese-coated fry.

He grabbed a clump of three. Tilting his head back, he dropped them into his open mouth. I watched him in awe as his strong jaw chewed. “Mmmm.”

“How can you look the way you look and eat like this?”

He grinned crookedly and leaned close, the warmth of his body reaching out to wrap around me. “And how do I look?”

I crumpled up a napkin and threw it at him. “Oh, shut it. You know you’re hot. Your body is insane.”

Grinning in smug satisfaction, he picked up another clump of fries. “I just like to hear you say that. You’re not easy to impress.”