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“Great.” I step back before I do something crazy like suck her neck until I leave a mark.

Fuck me.

Please let her be real.

Her eyes dart away from me and down the hall, and I discover a new shade of Jules—shy and uncertain. “Do you want to come in?”

“Yeah, I’d love to see your place.”

“Okay.” She walks through the thin swinging door that separates the kitchen from the rest of the living area. “Sorry for the mess, I’ve got a shipment of candles going out.”

“You make candles, too?” I call as I walk into her sparsely decorated sitting room.

“My dad taught me. It’s a side hustle. But my kitchen is too small to make more than a couple dozen at a time.”

She waves her arm toward the small sitting room. “This is where I do everything but sleep and cook.”

I glance around her living room. She has one wall entirely covered with photos. Mainly of a much younger her. Some of her with a man I assume is her dad. And interspersed with those are pictures of Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Beyonce, and several of Alison Hinds. “You like music?” I ask when she comes out of the kitchen and joins me in front of the pictures.

“Ilovemusic. And concerts and these women, man—I could watch them perform and never get tired.”

“You sing?”

“I wish,” she sighs and then grins. “But if I could the way I do in my head? Darling, the world would be like Beyoncewho?”

“You’re funny.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

Which only makes it better. We plop onto the couch, and she tucks her legs under her and leans forward to touch the chain of pearls I wear around my wrist. “These are beautiful.”

They were my mother’s, but I don’t want to bring that up again. “So are you. Broken nose and all.” I brush a lock of hair off her shoulder, and her lips part. I want to slip my tongue in there and see if her mouth is as sweet as her finger was. But if I do that, I won’t be able to stop. She leans closer, her eyes dropping to half-mast.

I stand so suddenly she yelps and leans back. “Sorry, I just realized how late it is. I’ve got the flooring people coming at eight in the morning.”

“Oh, okay. Cool. So I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner?”

“Yeah. I’ll text you in the afternoon after I make the reservation. And I’m driving this time.” I lean down to kiss her cheek and then get the hell out of there.

CHAPTER 10

HALF FULL GLASSES

Jules

“It’s been an entire month.We’ve been to dinners, art shows, to the cinema, to fucking Bayswater to shop for curtains. He holds my hand, he opens the door for me, he texts to say good morning. But he hasn’t even tried to kiss me again, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” I drop onto my bed with a frustrated grunt, and my phone flies out of my hands and clatters onto the floor. “Hold on,” I shout and then snag it and hold it back up so Reena can see my face.

But all I see is the top of her dark head bent over her laptop. “Look at me when I’m freaking out.”

She holds up one finger and then goes back to whatever she’s typing. I glare at the screen. “What are you working on that’s more important than this?”

She stops typing and moves her mouse around, finally looking at me. “I’ve got a brief due on Monday. And I told you already, he’s a commitment-phobe.” She widens her eyes as if to say, “What part of that didn’t you understand?”

I shake my head in disagreement, but my stomach sinks at the reminder. “We’ve been on dates, he comes over several times a week. But he’s never invited me over to his place.”

“Really?” She frowns. “Not once?”

“No. He’s doing renovations, but he’s still living there, so it can’t be that bad.” I groan.