Hmm. She’s flirting with me. Interesting.
Very. Fucking. Interesting.
“Nothing specific. It’s more of a try and see kind of thing.”
“Right.” She hasn’t taken her eyes off me.
I’m really liking the direction this is going. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. I have Mia’s interest, and I’m not letting go until I know what it means.
My breathing has picked up, so I take a quick sip of my coffee to cover it, but don’t take my eyes off her.
“But part of that package does mean I’m coming with you tomorrow. I really don’t think it’s safe for you drive out there alone.”
A little frown dimples between her brows, and a fire lights in her eyes. It’s sexy, but I know I’ve pissed her off. I had this going in a good direction, but I just had to open my big mouth and ruin it.
She folds her arms across her chest. It pushes those perfect tits of hers up; tits that I’m trying really hard not to look at.
“Jordan, I drove across seven states alone to get here. I can manage a drive out of town.” She sounds pissed off, and her lip has jutted out. I can’t help but chuckle.
She’s so goddamn adorable. I’m tempted to throw all caution to the wind, and take her face in my hands and kiss those beautiful lips of hers.
“I get it,” I say, covering up a smile. “You can take care of yourself. But just humor me. Remember, I grew up the son of a cop, I know about the bad side of women driving alone long distance. Jeez, just knowing you did that to get here makes me feel like I’m going to break out in hives. And that wouldn’t be pretty. You don’t want to be responsible for making me look ugly, do you? Like the kind of ugly that scares small children.” I pull a face, and she smiles.
I’m playing, because I don’t want to knock the self-confidence and independence she so clearly needs to exert—the confidence that bastard took away from her the instant he laid a finger on her.
But I also can’t let her go there alone.
She looks down at the table and runs her fingertip along the groove. I’ve already gotten familiar with the face she pulls when she’s thinking something over, and she’s wearing that look right now.
She lifts her head, looking at me intently. “I don’t want to be the one responsible for spoiling that nice face of yours, so … okay, you can come.”
“You think I have a nice face?” I tilt my head to the side, grinning.
Of course, I caught that. And of course I want to know the answer. Mia is the only woman I’ve ever had to question as to whether she finds me attractive or not.
She’s so hard to read that it’s impossible to tell what she’s thinking most of the time.
It’s f**king with my head, to say the least.
Her face has gone as red as I expected it would. I’ve never met a girl as shy as she is.
I’ve never met a girl like her, period. She’s so different. Unassuming of anything, mainly herself. She has no clue just how f**king awesome she actually is, but I want her to know. I just wish I knew how to tell her.
“Uh, um, well…” She runs her fingers through her hair, and keeps her eyes fixed on the coffee in front of her. “You have a nice face. You know, as faces go.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I smile. But what I actually feel like doing is breaking into a f**king dance. “You have a nice face too, Mia. Really nice.”
I hear her quick intake of breath, and I notice the flush on her chest. She’s affected by me.
A-fuckin-men!
“Thank you,” she says quietly, biting down on a smile.
“You have a serious problem with that.”
“What?” Her eyes flick up to mine, the warmth instantly dying.
I hold off the frown I feel knowing why she reacts like she does – suspicious of what I say and do. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it. What that ass**le has done to her, how he has broken her confidence … and I don’t even know the half of it. I’m just praying that the black-eye was the whole of it and nothing more.
“Saying thank you. You say it all the time,” I tell her.
“Oh. Good manners … they were drummed into me.” The light heartedness in her voice doesn’t match the look in her eyes.
If I hadn’t been watching closely, I would have missed how her eyes dimmed, but I didn’t, and now it’s stirred an uncomfortable feeling in my gut.
There is more—more than the black-eye from the douchebag ex of hers. And now I’m f**king fuming.
I want to know the rest … need to know so I can help her. But I can’t ask her outright, I don’t want to upset her like I did before, so I’ll just have to wait until she’s ready to tell me.
If ever.
“You don’t need to use good manners around me.” I lighten my voice, trying to bring her back from wherever she’s gone. “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have any.”
She gives a half-smile. “I don’t know, you seem to be pretty well mannered around me.”
I raise my eyebrow. “I cuss. A f**k of a lot.”
She laughs. The sound eases through me.
“You do cuss a lot, but I find it refreshing.”
“My cussing is refreshing? There’s a new one. You’ll have to tell my dad because I’m pretty sure he’d disagree. Apparently, cussing in front of guests is a big no-no,” I say with mock-confusion, lifting my shoulders in a shrug.