How to Be Loved by Stacey Wiedower

Author:Stacey Wiedower [Wiedower, Stacey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gemma Halliday Publishing
Published: 2018-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I realize, after making our way back up to the street and getting into his car, that the fact we aren't sharing a taxi gives him more leeway in choosing where we ultimately end up. It's a brilliant move on his part—no driver hovering nearby with the engine running while we share a good-night kiss, no moment of awkwardness in the car beforehand while I contemplate inviting him up…what it would mean, how it would look to the sweet innkeeper who I'm now on a first-name basis with, whether we're moving too fast, whether we should be moving at all, considering I'll be going home in a week and there's absolutely no chance this has a future.

There's little deliberating at all, in fact. As if that should be a surprise—with the way my entire body is humming right now, with the way his fingers are practically searing a brand into the top of my hand where they rest together near the gear shift, if we don't go someplace we can be alone together, I might spontaneously combust.

"I was thinking of taking you to a wine bar close to my apartment," he says, lightly squeezing my hand, which pulses under his touch.

"Just thinking about it? Or doing it?" I say since he's driving in a definitive direction.

"Where do you want to go?" he asks, not looking at me. The question is loaded with all sorts of innuendo that's suddenly more serious than our banter during dinner.

"A wine bar sounds fine with me." I can hear the doubt in my own voice, which is barely louder than the muted techno-pop coming through the car's speakers.

"Or, if you want, I have wine at my apartment." This time he glances over at me, and I can hear that his breathing is sort of shallow and quick, matching mine.

"That sounds nice, too."

He swallows. "My apartment it is, then."

I swear his fingers grow even hotter over mine, or maybe it's just my internal thermometer that's changed. It's reached a new setting I don't believe I've ever experienced before, not with Steve, certainly not with Chase.

I watch the changing scenery blur by and crawl by at intervals, depending on the traffic and the lights. The drive feels interminable, considering we're doing very little talking but his left hand is creeping from my hand, to my wrist, to tracing featherlight trails up my arm, to moving eventually to rest high up on my leg. In so many ways this doesn't even seem safe. I'm relieved when he finally slows the car in the middle of a block and turns into a parking garage, or a car park, as the sign reads.

"What part of town is this?" I ask after he comes around and opens my car door. He clasps my hand and leads me toward an elevator near his parking space.

"Battersea," he says, and I glance up at him, confused.

"Battersea," I repeat. "Isn't this south? You're not very near Islington or Miranda's shop, are you?"

"No, not really.

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