The First Taste (Slip of the Tongue #2) - Jessica Hawkins Page 0,68
he want?”
Her expression eases a little. She takes the cigarette back from me and flicks off ash. “Just the same old shit. He’s sorry. He wants me back. He made a mistake.”
I frown. “Like, definitely?” I ask. “He wants you back?”
“I told him to get lost,” she says. “I might’ve been an idiot to fall for him once, but never again.”
Despite what she’s telling me, I’ve seen women all throughout my life choose men who weren’t good for them, my mother included. I’m not sure if my dad has ever cheated on her, but I wouldn’t put it past him. My mom wouldn’t even leave if he did. “You deserve better.”
She shrugs. “I know.”
As we look at each other, the air between us shifts. My irritation over Reggie dissipates as a more pressing need, and the reason I’m here, resurfaces.
I nod at the eyeglasses pushed up on her head. “You wear those often?” I ask.
“These?” She pulls them down onto her face. “Sometimes. For reading.”
“I like them.”
“How much do you like them?”
I glance over my shoulder, as if someone might hear us. “Come here.”
“No. I told you—we’re through.”
“Come . . . here.”
With a soft sigh, she inches toward me. When we’re close enough, she holds the cigarette to my mouth, and I take a drag.
“You were right,” I say. “After how you trusted me, I should’ve held my ground with Bell.”
She twists her lips, thinking. “You haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“I made those promises the other night thinking I’d get to keep them. Now it feels unfinished between us.” I slide her glasses off her face. “Truth is, I wanted to see you again. I’m here for you.”
I dig my fingers into her perfect bun, and she fights to keep her eyes open. “We had a deal,” she murmurs. “One night.”
“And then we had a second night. Now we’ll have a third.”
“I don’t know, Andrew . . .”
I remove bobby pins and an elastic band from her hair. It falls around her shoulders in waves, a nice change from her normally pin-straight style. I touch the corner of her red mouth, smearing the tiniest bit of lipstick onto my thumb. “I like you put together,” I say gruffly. “So I can undo you.”
She bites into her bottom lip, drawing my eyes to her mouth. “Undo me?” she asks. “Or just do me?”
I nearly growl. “Right here in the stairwell?” I crook my finger into the waistband of her skirt and pull her even closer. “Because I should warn you. I’m a man on edge. I have been ever since the hotel.”
I watch her delicate throat as she swallows, as redness creeps up from under her collar. “Then you shouldn’t have left me there all alone.”
“No. I shouldn’t have.” I mean it even more now that I know what she’d been through earlier that night. “I don’t want him near you.”
“Who?” she asks breathlessly.
“Reggie.”
Her lips part as she pulls back a little. “Reggie?”
“How’d he take it when you said no to getting back together?”
She frowns and looks away. “I don’t want to talk about this. It’s personal.”
“Too bad. I want personal right now. What was his reaction?”
Her shoulders slouch a little, and I slip my hand under her hair, to her neck, to comfort her. “He didn’t like it,” she says. “He isn’t good with rejection. He promises this time will be different.”
Different? I open my mouth to tell her it won’t be, but she cuts me off.
“It won’t be. I know that. He just won’t hear me.”
“Maybe it’d clear out his ears if I kicked his ass.”
She laughs softly. “Where’d you come from? A mob movie?”
I grin. “That’s how we handle things in my part of Jersey.”
She looks hard at me a few seconds, absentmindedly rubbing her collarbone, turning her skin pink. “Maybe I should skip dinner.”
“It’s five on a Friday,” I say. “What could you possibly have to do that’s so important?”
“It’s . . . not about work.”
I know right away what she means, since it’s the first place my mind went when Sadie mentioned inviting Amelia. “Bell,” I say. I sigh up at the ceiling. “I admit, it’s weird. But you and I aren’t dating. So it wouldn’t be like I’m introducing you to her as a . . . it’s not like you’re—”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m not trying to be anyone’s mommy.”
I look down my nose at her, my interest piqued hearing that once-familiar word. I haven’t referred to anyone as mommy since Shana left.