Sex, Not Love(43)

“I think I overdressed.”

Hunter leaned in and covered my lips with his for a quick hello. “Nope. You’re dressed just right.”

“But you’re wearing a polo and jeans. You said a sexy dress, so I thought that meant the dress code was more formal.”

“I said sexy because that’s what I wanted to see on you. There is no dress code where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?”

“My place. I’m cooking you dinner.”

“I could have worn jeans for that.”

He smirked. “Might want to ask where we’re going in the future, rather than what you should wear. Because my answer’s always going to be sexy dress and heels, even if we’re going to McDonald’s.”

I laughed, stepping aside. “You’re impossible. Come in for a minute. I need to tell Izzy I’m leaving.”

Inside, Izzy had emerged from her bedroom and was hanging on the refrigerator door. She glanced up. “Hi, Hunter.” And went back to staring at the food.

“I made you ravioli.”

“I’m on a diet. Do we have anything low carb?”

“What? A diet? Since when? And better yet, why? You’re a size two.”

“Since this morning.”

I walked to the refrigerator, took out the ravioli and sauce and put it on the counter. “Start your diet tomorrow.” I kissed her cheek. “Mrs. Whitman knows I’m going out. I won’t be home late.”

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

“No one in the apartment while I’m gone.”

Izzy rolled her eyes. “There goes the rager I had planned.”

The nerves the wine had calmed were back in full force once I was on the way to Hunter’s apartment. I stared out the car window, debating whether I was ready to sleep with him. I’d thought we were going out to eat, and since he knows I have to be home early for Izzy, it wasn’t something I’d been worried about. Now dinner was at his house, and I knew all it would take was one kiss and my decision-making skills would be hampered. I needed to make a decision while I was not under the influence of his hard body pressed against mine.

Hunter side-glanced to me and back to the road. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing.”

We stopped at a light, and Hunter turned to me. He didn’t say a word. Instead, his eyes pointed down to where my hands were picking lint off my dress that wasn’t there. Then his gaze met mine.

“Shut up,” I said.

He chuckled, and the light changed, pulling his attention back to the road. I’d thought I’d been granted a reprieve, but a half a block later, he casually said, “We’re not having sex tonight, if that makes you relax a little more.”

Did he just say…

“What?”

“Sex. We’re not having it.”

“Why not?”

“Because tonight I’m making you dinner. We’re going to share a good meal and talk about sex. I want to know what you’re up for and what you’re not. But you have to be home early for Izzy.”

“Isn’t that a tad presumptuous of you? Assuming you’re the one who gets to decide when we have sex. What if I don’t plan on ever having sex with you?”

“I think your wet panties when we kiss says you do plan on having sex with me.”

“My panties are not wet when we kiss.” I totally lied.

“Okay. I’ll check next time to prove you wrong.”

I didn’t put it past him to do exactly that. “Let’s back this conversation up a little. So you’ve decided we aren’t having sex tonight. What if I told you I wanted to have sex? You wouldn’t have sex with me?”

He actually considered my question for a minute, which I found rather amusing. “What I meant was, I wasn’t going to try to have sex with you tonight. But if you try to have it with me, by all means, you’ll be getting fucked.”

I probably should have been offended for a dozen different reasons, but I wasn’t in the slightest. Instead, the ludicrousness of the conversation made me burst out laughing. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I was stressing over us potentially having sex tonight. And now I’m not. So as strange as this conversation was, it actually made me feel better.”

Hunter smiled as he pulled into an underground parking garage. “Glad to help. And trust me, I haven’t even begun to make you feel better yet.”

***

“Wow. This is a sublet?” The apartment Hunter was staying in was really nice. It wasn’t huge, but it was modern, with high ceilings and an open floor plan, so it felt bigger than the square footage—though it was the outside space that elevated the place from really nice to damn spectacular. New York and outside space weren’t normally bedfellows. But this place had a balcony big enough for two lounge chairs, a table that seated six, a barbeque, and a dozen potted plants.

“It’s owned by Khaill-Jergin, the builder I work for. They keep this one and a few others as corporate apartments, mostly for when executives from the London office are in town. I lucked out that one was available.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Hunter slid the sliding glass doors open and held his hand out for me to step through first.