Playing It Safe(35)

I’m blasted with cool air as soon as I enter the restaurant. Then it takes me a few seconds to get my bearings since I’m blanketed in near darkness. Even with the overpowering 1970s decor like red vinyl upholstered chairs and the heavily lacquered bar, the place has a sensual feel due to the scattered lit votive candles. The cozy bar has a few customers already, but not enough that I can’t spot Alex sitting at the corner waiting for me. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth when he sees me. He stands up when I finally reach him, like a real gentleman and shit. He’s wearing a dark charcoal-gray suit with a black dress shirt and no tie, and it makes him look sexy as sin.


He brushes his lips innocently against my cheek and pulls out a barstool for me. “You’re late.”

“No I’m not. You’re early,” I say, trying to sound cool.

With a trace of anxiety still gnawing inside of me, I sit down beside him. He slides back onto his stool with the grace of a caged panther as the bartender approaches us. Without asking, he orders for me.

“What if I didn’t want to drink a glass of wine?” I ask.

He grins. “I’ve known you long enough to know that that’s what you would’ve ordered.”

“What if I wanted a martini instead?”

“Do you?” he asks with a full-on smile.

My face immediately betrays me without having to answer him. Don’t you hate when that happens? And now he can tell I had no interest in ordering a martini and he was one hundred percent right about the glass of wine. But the smugness in his eyes makes me do the ol’ cut your nose to spite your face thing. One of my most treasured habits but definitely not one of my best ones either.

“Yes, I’d like a martini,” I say.

Alex’s eyes roam over me for a second before he lifts up his hand and beckons me with his finger.

“Um, I’m right here. Why do I need to get any closer?” I ask.

“Kicking and screaming until the bitter end, huh?” he mumbles under his breath.

“What does that—”

“It means, Julia,” he says while smoothly leaning forward and bringing his mouth to my ear, “that you’re going to make this very difficult on me, aren’t you?”

Alex’s voice is so quiet, and his proximity rattles me. I take a gulp, and he chuckles. I think the bastard thinks he’s got me under his spell. I am, but he doesn’t need to be all cocky and self-assured about it. So what do I do? I decide to even the playing field a little. Because if not, I’ll be jumping on top of this bar and spreading my legs faster than I can say, “Kicking and screaming, my ass.”

“I think we need some ground rules,” I say.

He draws back, looking like what I said amused him. I reach for my wineglass, and he raises an eyebrow, acknowledging the fact that I’m drinking exactly what I said I didn’t want. So what if he was right? I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it out loud. I’m stubborn to the core and to the bitter end. So his depiction of kicking and screaming really isn’t that much of a stretch.

Alex gives a flash of his dimples before taking a long pull from his beer bottle. “What kind of ground rules?”

I turn in my seat to fully face him. “The kind where we know each other’s boundaries so that we don’t make each other uncomfortable.”

“You’re not making me uncomfortable. Am I making you uncomfortable, Julia?” he asks softly.

“Not exactly.”

He’s not, kind of. It’s more the memory of being in his arms and grinding against him the other day that’s throwing me for a loop.

“Okay, so name your ground rules.”

I tap my fingernail against the rim of my wineglass while thinking. “First things first. You stay in your dance space and I’ll stay in mine for the time being. Second, and more importantly, this isn’t a date.”

He laughs. “That’s it? Those are the ground rules?”

“For now, yes,” I say and take a sip of my wine. “But I reserve the right to add on if necessary.”

“Fine,” he replies with a grin.

“Great. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can concentrate on getting to know each other better.”

Alex puts down his beer bottle and leans back, looking more casual and comfortable than I do or feel. My fingers give an involuntary twitch while I watch him rake a hand through his hair because I’m dying to touch him somewhere, anywhere. I would even settle for a graze of his knee against mine. I’m that desperate and seriously questioning why I brought up these stupid ground rules to begin with when all I want is to mount him like a saddled horse.

“Go ahead and fire away then,” he says in a charming tone. “I’m at your complete mercy.”

“Seriously?” I ask a little apprehensively.

“You said you wanted to get to know me better, so yes, seriously, go ahead and ask anything you’d like. I’m an open book.”

“Okay.” I smile and pick up my wineglass. Leaning back in my chair, I try to mimic his relaxed and cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor, but I feel like it just makes me look like a grade-A jackass. So I cross my legs and let my foot dangle in between us to give off that “I haven’t a care in the world” look and say the first thing that comes to mind. “Marisa.”