“Really?” he asked, unable to disguise his disbelief and—face it—a little anger. She turned him into an animal with her sexy dances, but it also drove him crazy that she liked seducing him from a distance. For a few seconds, he thought he’d gone too far with his sarcasm. She looked like someone had just taken a swipe at her.
But then she recovered. She shook her head and laughed raggedly.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s just so weird . . . having this conversation with you, hearing you say that you fantasize about settling down. That you grapple with intimacy issues—”
“Why is it weird? Do you think I’m too stupid to have an existential crisis?”
“No.” She threw him an Eleanor glare. “You’re obviously brilliant. It’s just . . . you’re so different than what I thought you’d be.”
“Am I disappointing you, Eleanor? Because the thing is, it’s pretty hard to actually know someone when your entire idea of them comes from either the Internet or spying on them from the building next door.”
For a few seconds, the silence between them seemed to ring in his ears. Then her eyes flashed fire. She leaned forward.
“Do you think I’m being prejudiced about you? Is that it? Well fine. Because you’ve been doing your fair share of being prejudiced when it comes to me too. I’m not some cold, controlling bitch. I don’t always like things at a distance. I like that you’re struggling with these issues. I mean, I don’t like to see you’re suffering,” she muttered, rolling her eyes in frustration at expressing herself, “but I like you better as a person. You seem more . . . more human.”
“I’m all too human when it comes to you.”
She started, looking as surprised by his comment as he was by saying it. God, she made him nuts sometimes. He reached across the table and snatched her hand. She looked startled at his action. For some reason, all the irritation drained out of him. He shook his head and smiled in disbelief.
“Jesus. When are you going to get used to me holding your hand?”
“I don’t know.” Her annoyance seemed to evaporate as quickly as his had. A smile flickered across her beautiful mouth. “It’s hard to get used to something so . . . so . . . nice.”
He squeezed her hand at that little, potent compliment. She confused the hell out of him. She could be so skittish at times, so bold at others, so edgy, and sometimes . . . so sweet. So giving. “I don’t have all the answers,” he said quietly. “I don’t pretend to. That’s why I was taking this time off and trying to figure things out.”
“That’s why I brought it all up again just now,” she admitted, leaning forward, her expression earnest. “I’m just not saying things right. I want to . . .” She swallowed thickly. “Spend time with you. Very much. But I don’t want to distract you from your mission. I’m starting to feel really selfish, knowing that I am.”
“You’re not. Don’t worry about it. I can take care of myself.”
“Okay,” she said breathlessly.
Their stares held until the waiter arrived, asking if they wanted coffee or dessert. Eleanor shook her head once, never taking her gaze off him. His nerves prickled with awareness of her. Acute anticipation coiled inside him. He handed his credit card to the waiter, eager to be finished with dinner.
Very eager.
“They say fantasy and reality rarely intermingle,” he said gruffly once the waiter was gone.
“What makes you say that?” she asked softly.
“It’s just that in your case, they do. Mingle, I mean.” He saw her pulse leap at her throat and knew she was caught in the same spell as he was. “You’ve basically been a fantasy come to life for me ever since I saw you walk into that coffee house,” he told her bluntly.
“You mean a sexual fantasy?”
He nodded. “When I saw you in that window . . . you made fantasy reality. It was like magic.”
She didn?
?t reply, just stared at him with huge, glistening eyes.
“Is it okay if I’m honest right now?”
She nodded.
“It’s driving me crazy, sitting across this table from you and not being able to touch you more.”
She blinked. “You really do like honesty.”