“What do you mean?”
She exhaled in disgust. “The night doorman told me how you’d been staying out really late almost every night this week. I just thought that eight a.m. might be a little early in the morning for you, given all your late night excursions.”
“Peter told you that?” He grinned lazily. Then a thought seemed to still his flash of humor. “Is that all Peter said?”
“Yes.” Megan shook her head in bewilderment. Did she really just manage to reveal to Christian for the second time in a row that she was keeping tabs on his comings and goings with their doormen?
God, she was pitiful.
She watched as Christian sat down on her couch and nonchalantly picked up a magazine from her coffee table. “I guess I’ll go shower,” she said sharply. Her anger at his insouciance mounted when he glanced up casually.
“I’ll be here.”
She didn’t move. Her rapidly beating heart seemed to falter when she noticed his blue eyes were on her bare legs instead of the magazine he was supposedly reading. His stare slowly moved up to her face. When he lowered the magazine, his gaze on her was warm and sincere. Megan felt some of her anger melt away when she experienced its impact.
“What kind of excursions do you think I’ve been on these past few nights, Megan?”
“I wouldn’t presume to know.”
“But you have presumed, haven’t you?”
“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked in a rapid rush of emotion. Heat flushed her cheeks, but for once, Megan wasn’t aware of her self-consciousness. Her frustration and hurt overpowered it.
Christian set the magazine down carefully. “Did you want me to?”
Angry tears stung her eyes. “What, do you get some kind of perverse pleasure out of making me say ‘yes’? Okay, then. Yes. I would have liked to hear from you. It’s almost been a week since…”
Her voice trailed off and she licked her lower lip nervously.
Christian’s eyes crackled with fire, but his voice was paradoxically calm. “Since I practically attacked you by the elevator? Is that what you were going to say?”
Megan’s mouth fell open in surprise. She hadn’t been prepared for the self-disgust in his voice. She inhaled raggedly. “No. That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say that it’s been almost a week since I made a fool of myself by the elevator.”
Christian sat up straighter. “Honey, you didn’t make a fool of yourself. I’m the one who had promised myself that I wasn’t going to push you until you were ready. And the next thing I knew, I found myself dry-humping you with less restraint than a wild animal would have shown.”
Megan went temporarily speechless at his crude description. For some reason, hearing him say it evoked what it had felt like, how on fire her body had been. She met Christian’s eyes and knew that he was remembering, too. She flushed and looked away under the impact of his hot stare.
“I guess I’d better shower.”
“Okay,” Christian said gruffly.
They didn’t speak again of the days that they hadn’t seen each other for the next several hours as they ate brunch at Nomi. They seemed to have joined in an unspoken pact to avoid anything potentially stressful…to just enjoy each other’s company.
Christian sampled her salmon Benedict and Megan nibbled at his omelet with fresh herbs. He tried to get her to try his sushi, but Megan just laughed and shook her head, insisting that the thought of raw fish for breakfast sounded far from appetizing to her.
She asked Christian about the places he’d traveled, encouraging him to elaborate on some of his favorites. She sipped her coffee and listened to the sound of his deep, resonant voice with contentment. He peppered her with both salient and silly questions, such as where she’d attended college and graduate school, why she’d chosen education as her double major in addition to art, what her top five favorite movies were of all time, and why she wore her hair up when it looked so beautiful spilling around her shoulders.
After Christian had paid the bill and they were riding the elevator down, Megan looked up at him. He was so tall in comparison to her, so strong, so male. His eyes on her were like cool flames. Later, she couldn’t believe she had the nerve to do it. She went to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She pressed her cheek to his chest and closed her eyes. At the moment, it seemed like the most natural thing to do in the world.
He embraced her in return and murmured near her ear.
“Sweet Megan.”
She felt the sting of tears behind her eyelids when she heard the catch in his deep voice.
The elevator opened much too soon for either of them. He took her hand in his and didn’t let go when they got in the backseat of the cab.
“Let’s have dinner together, too,” he said.