Beautiful by Christina Lauren

Author:Christina Lauren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

Eleven

Pippa

A weight was lifted after we agreed to cut the trip short in Connecticut. The idea had been a good one; the reality less so. Instead, we would hop into the van and head up to Vermont early for a little more than a week of quiet in the cabin. Like Niall said: back in our bubble.

It all sounded easy, really. Relaxed, right?

Except we still had one more night in the B&B, and the other two couples were planning to hole up with takeout, and . . . well.

Jensen and I could either go out to eat and risk running into Becky and Cam in this tiny town . . . or simply stay in.

We didn’t discuss it. We didn’t have a plan. We just sort of . . . walked that way, went inside, dropped our things, and gazed at each other.

“So,” he said.

“So.”

After bending to catalog the minibar, he pulled out a half liter of chardonnay, holding it up in question.

“You haven’t grown sick of wine yet?” I asked, laughing.

“I don’t think I would ever grow sick of wine,” he said, reaching for the corkscrew.

There was no need for nervous chatter while he opened the bottle. He was a man used to being watched at the head of the room, to the room quieting when he spoke, to being brought there specifically so that others would hear what he had to say and do as he did. I watched his forearm flex as he turned the corkscrew, the cork gently squeaking its way out of the glass neck.

“What are you thinking, watching me right now?” he asked, looking up only once the cork was free and captured in his wide palm.

“Just . . . watching.”

He nodded as though this answer was enough, and it made me smile a little because it was precisely the kind of answer Mark would give me and I would have needled him for more.

I wondered if this thing we had going was weird to Jensen, tethered as it was in absolutely nothing. No business partnership would come from this fling; no romantic partnership, either. For a man used to spending his effort only on things worth his time, I wondered if, just being here, he had to overwrite some Efficiency Required program, or whether I was like text written on a dry-erase board with the instructions Leave this up until October 28.

I found him truly fascinating.

He came toward me slowly, extending a hotel tumbler half filled with wine. But before I could bring it to my lips, he was there, bending in close, his closed mouth over mine pressing, opening, tasting me.

Somewhere in the last couple of days, the tables had turned. Jensen looked less windblown in his surprised reaction to me and more sure of himself, like he was going after something familiar now and was ready to reestablish control.

Pulling back, he nodded to the glass in my hand and let me sip it before immediately returning, licking the wine from my lips.

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