Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
“We met at a bar.”
“Most relationships don’t start in a bar.” She realized what she said and shoved to her feet. “Strike that. I didn’t mean relationship. I just…” Not sure what she was trying to say, she charged on. “Maybe a coffee shop. You’d be behind me in line and say something witty, and I’d laugh and you’d spend the next ten minutes charming me until I gave you my number.”
She was almost afraid to look at him and see his expression. His silence said it all. “That’s stupid, isn’t it?”
“No, not at all. It sounds nice.”
Olivia faced him. “You’re humoring me.”
“Sit down.” He waited for her to obey before he spoke again. “I’m not. It does sound nice.” He carefully leaned back against the headboard. “So I charm your number out of you, huh? I must be pretty charming.”
She shot him a look. “In this scenario, yes.”
Cillian laughed. “Then I’d call you.”
She edged over to sit on the other side of the mattress against the headboard. It was such a silly thing they were doing, but after how intense the rest of the night had been, maybe silly was exactly what they both needed. “A call instead of a text? I must have made an impression.”
“More like I was determined to make the right impression. Texts are lazy, and you can’t get a good read on someone that way. So I’d call.”
She hadn’t spent much time dating…well, ever, really…but even she knew that was different from the norm. “I’d think you were a freak for calling, but I’d answer because I was intrigued.”
“We’d talk for a while, feeling each other out.”
“More like me trying to figure out if you’re a psycho.”
He grinned. “Or that. I’d say all the things a normal guy would say. You’d be reassured that I wasn’t likely to chloroform you and chain you up in my torture-slash-sex dungeon.”
“That’s…comforting.”
“It would be, yes.”
She laughed softly. “We’d set up a date at the end of the call.”
“Somewhere nice and public and nonthreatening.”
“Now you’re getting the idea.” She stared at the ceiling, part of her kind of weirded out at how well the conversation was flowing with him playing along. “Dinner, no movie. Movies are for people who are too intimidated by the thought of first-date conversation that they chicken out.”
“The conversation would be titillating.”
“You think so?” She rolled onto her side to face him, finding that he’d done the same. His bandage was a vivid reminder of why they were there in the first place. Olivia frowned. “How’re you feeling?”
“That’s not part of the game.” He yawned. “So we’d drink pretentious wine that neither one of us liked and order things that we could barely pronounce and, at the end of it, we’d sheepishly admit that we didn’t like either the drinks or the food, and we’d go find a food truck and laugh at ourselves.”
It was an attractive picture he painted. Normal and kind of sweet and something she’d never have the option of doing. She made a face. “Instead, you wander into my bar because your family’s territory encompasses it and we have a quick fuck in the alley.” She should regret it. She knew she should. There were thousands of dating books and columns out there advising women to withhold sex until they had some sort of commitment.
Except she didn’t regret a damn thing.
She’d seen what she wanted and she’d taken it. It might not have been the perfect version of events they were joking about right now, but there had been something empowering about it all the same.
“I like our way.”
She smiled. “I kind of like our way, too. Simpler.”
“Sweetheart, there’s nothing simple about either of us, but it’s pretty of you to say so.”
She glanced at the clock. There were a good two hours left before she could safely leave him. She propped herself up on one elbow and grabbed the remote. “If I remember correctly, there’s a Justified marathon going on right now. That should keep us occupied until morning.”
“An artful dodge.” He stretched carefully. “That’s fine. Retreat. But don’t forget that you already agreed to a date, and I fully plan on holding you to it.”
As if she was in any danger of forgetting.
* * *
Cillian came out of the shower to find Olivia gone. He’d expected as much, though she hadn’t said she was leaving. He sat on the bed and lay down to stare at the ceiling. What a wild night. Getting his ass handed to him had been one thing, but everything that happened after almost made it worthwhile.
She’d said yes.
He sat up so fast the room spun around him, but the queasy feeling in his stomach was nothing to the pounding in his chest. She’d agreed to go out with him. He grinned. Hell if that didn’t add a silver lining to a seriously shitty night.