Well. There was no need to rehash every dirty detail. I went to the window and started working on the rusty latches. I rarely locked it because it stuck, but I had that morning knowing Bruno would be out with me.
Sebastian strolled around the living room, his hands in his pockets as he passed my TV. He stopped to look at my Nintendo. “You really do play video games?”
“Of course.” Well, as of a couple months ago, so I could fit in with the guys. Up until then, I’d only ever played for fun at Luciano’s.
“Huh.” At my bookcase, he glanced at the spines before moving on.
“Here’s another tip for the article you’re not planning to write,” I said. “Books are a window into the soul. You can learn a lot about your date by what she reads.”
“What does it say if she reads Gauntlet?”
“That I’m doing my job.”
“By giving my competitor money?”
“It was research,” I said. “I don’t have to tell you—know thy enemy.”
He was quiet a few seconds. “What about if she reads Unleashing the Bitch Within?”
My cheeks flushed. How had he even seen that from where he was standing? I finally got the latches unhooked and pushed up the window. “That one’s about dogs.”
“Liar,” he said. “I read the back cover.”
I scoffed. “It’s in the corner of the bottom shelf. You snooped earlier.”
“Like you said, books are a window to the soul. I wanted to make sure I got a complete picture before our date. Good thing I find self-improvement sexy.” Sebastian came over and squatted to inspect the window. “All that work to open it a couple inches?”
“That’s as high as it goes.”
He positioned his palms under the frame and pushed. It didn’t budge.
“Told you,” I said.
Bruno ambled over on his long legs, sniffing the air around us. Sebastian inhaled deeply before trying again, the frame denting his palms as his face reddened. Bruno wagged his tail, sticking his nose out the window as it rose one inch and then another. By the time Sebastian blew out a breath and dropped his hands, he’d opened it enough for Bruno to get his whole head out.
“Wow,” I said. “I didn’t think it opened that far.”
Sebastian sat on the ground, tracing a finger along the white window frame where I’d made notches with dates in colored pencil. “Is this Bruno?” he asked.
“Since I didn’t have him as a puppy, we never really got to do the measurement thing.” I squatted and pointed to the first date. “This was when I got him at three.” I moved my finger a smidge. “Six months later.”
A deep chuckle rumbled from Sebastian’s chest as he touched the frame. “Four,” he said, his finger basically on top of mine. “Four-and-a-half. How old is he?”
“Almost five. I’ll measure again in January.”
“My sister does this with her kids in the laundry room. Do you own this apartment?”
“No, I rent. You?”
“Own, and I still wouldn’t mark up the walls.” He dropped his hand and turned out the window. “I don’t even paint.”
“They’re just white?”
“You say that like it’s more unusual than measuring your full-grown dog on another person’s windowsill.”
I shrugged with a smile. “I don’t plan to move, but if I do, I can paint over it. Life is too short not to be where you are, even if it’s a rental.”
“That’s something my mom would’ve said. We always had the cleanest house on the block, but somehow it was still lived in. I miss that. Home.” The way he said home made me wonder what else he’d lost when his mom had passed. Knowing the truth about his past, and how he’d gotten here, made me feel closer to him than ever. If not because I understood him now, then because I doubted he often shared the way her death had affected him.
A breeze from the window blew hair over my face. He reached out and tucked it behind my ear. “I think I might feel attached to you now, Georgina,” he said and thumbed the corner of my mouth. “Which would make it hard to kill you.”
“So I guess you’d better kiss me instead.”
He glanced at Bruno, who still had his head out the window, then slid his hand around the back of my neck. He pulled my mouth to his, stopping when we were an inch apart. “Stay very still,” Sebastian whispered. “Or you’ll wake the beast.”
“Don’t worry, he can spend hours looking for squirrels, even in the dark.”
“Not that beast,” he said, a hint of gravel in his voice. Slowly, he pressed his lips to mine and inhaled. The night air cooled my skin as his kiss warmed me to my core. He stayed there—testing our chemistry? Savoring the moment? Awaiting my permission? I stilled, not breathing. It was something I’d fantasized about but had never thought would really happen—Sebastian’s hands moving into my hair, my heart speeding with anticipation, our mouths opening to each other.
Chills spread over me, the kind that came with a skipping heart, like witnessing a perfect pitch down the center and the crack of a bat that sent a baseball over the fence. He rounded first base as our tongues met, one hand in my hair as the other grazed my upper thigh.
He hesitated, his palm hot on my skin—and unmoving. If he didn’t steal second soon, I would.
He released me. “Fuck, Georgina.”
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Nothing.” He looked almost pained as he got up and brushed off his pants. “Everything. If this were a normal date, right now’s about when I’d be asking to see your bedroom.”
I stood and pulled my denim jacket more tightly around myself. “If this were a normal date?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t’ve come up. I don’t want to revert to the man in the exposé.”
While Sebastian’s chivalry was appreciated, it wasn’t necessary. From my perspective, it felt as if we’d been on one long date since the moment we’d met. He hadn’t given me a goodnight kiss just now—it’d been an un-goodnight kiss. The kind that started a night, not ended one. “That’s not what this is,” I said. “I want this, and I have for a while. Arguing is our foreplay, and I’m ready for release.”
“Yeah?” he said and finally smiled, dimples and all. “I want to hear more about that.”
“As much as you frustrated me, I’ve been fantasizing about you from the moment you opened your mouth.”
“Then you made it minutes longer than me.”
“So if you think about it . . . we’ve actually waited a very long time for this.”
He flexed his hands as if trying to stay them. “You make a good point.”
I took off my jacket and tossed it on the couch. When the strap of my dress fell over my shoulder, I resisted fixing it. “So, if this was a normal date, what would come next?”
“It’s no secret what would happen, Georgina. Use your imagination.”
“I don’t want to.” I pretended to scratch under my jaw, grazing my fingertips down my neck. “Tell me what you’d do next. After all,” I teased, “how would it look for the article if you forfeited in the final inning?”
“I thought backing off was the right thing to do. I’d assume your advice would be not to sleep with a girl on the first date.”
“My advice is to ask. Don’t assume what pace she wants to go.”
He tracked my hand at my throat, then blinked his gaze to my left shoulder. “What if she just told me her ex treated her like a pushover? What if she felt I was doing the same?”
“Ask her,” I said, noticing the hoarseness of my voice. “Ask.”
“Is staying here tonight treating you the way he did?” He ran a hand through his hair. “I can cool it, Georgina. We can go at any pace you want.”
“I’ve taken it slow with all my exes, Sebastian. It never made a difference. I would say you and I have taken it slow enough.”