Page 2 of The Best Worst Mistake (Off-Limits #2)

My stomach flips end over end while Dax and I grin at each other like a couple of school-age kids about to cause some serious mischief.

His face is six years older, but his eyes are the exact same, crinkling up at the edges, as if not a single day has passed since we stood a few inches apart.

Playful, intense, leaving me with nowhere to hide — even if I wanted to.

As if driven by muscle-memory, my feet rise up to the tips of my toes and I launch myself against his chest, wrapping him into a hug so tight that I manage to surprise myself.

Pressing my cheek into the wide ribcage surrounding his heart — I can tell it’s beating fast, just as fast as mine. Maybe even faster.

He feels warm. Familiar. Safe .

My hug throws him off balance and he takes half a step back before holding me firmly like an anchor, returning an embrace that’s somehow, someway, even tighter than mine.

He laughs into my hair and I close my eyes to soak in the sound — the vibration of it, deliciously intimate, even in a crowded room.

When was the last time I was pressed into someone like this?

It must have been the last time I was hugged by him.

Six whole years ago and yet my body is responding as if it’s been only a few hours instead of two thousand and ninety-something days.

Dax Harper. My whole world slows down. Sights and sounds and smells all fading away until it’s just the beat of our hearts and four arms overlapping, a feeling I haven’t had since he — since we — well, since the day I ghosted him six years ago.

I release him suddenly and take a step back, fully aware of how eager that must have looked, considering I was the one to put all the time and space between us.

“Dax?” I clear my throat. Okay, that came out way too high-pitched and borderline squeaky to get away with being cool, calm, or collected right now.

Rein it in, girl.

I suck in two lungs’ worth of air and exhale as slowly as I can manage without choking on the oxygen leaving my body, doing whatever I can to sound more casual the next time words emerge from me.

“Abby,” he says through a slow smile — all gravelly and smooth and deeply baritone, yet a bit clipped and breathy, somehow all at the same time.

It’s only one word but now that I’m looking at him, it takes me back to the dozens of nights we spent talking in hushed tones about nothing in particular.

Lying in his bed, the world would stop spinning just long enough for me to close my eyes and listen to him deliver the happenings of his day as our pulses quietly slowed back to normal.

We’d lie there while he gave me a humorous rundown of what his plans were once our law school cleared out for Christmas break, or Easter back at home with his parents in L.A.

So many nights I’d promise myself just five more minutes beside him as he dragged his fingertips up and down the softness of my wrist and I listened to his heartbeat.

And then I’d leave, closing the door behind me, never allowing myself to stay long enough to see the sunrise through his cheap university blinds because we weren’t those types of people.

We were the types of people that made ourselves wave goodbye before we could ever be considered more than two humans who simply liked to get lost in each other’s bodies.

Anything more than that was something I couldn’t imagine having, or sticking around for.

But that was so long ago.

Besides, what are the odds?

We grin at each other, playing an old, familiar game with our eyes until we both laugh in disbelief. He drags me back in for a second embrace, but we both pull away faster this time.

“I thought you were in L.A. What are you doing here?” I ask, proud of myself for sounding downright chill this time instead of like a breathy, high-pitched school girl nursing an ancient crush.

“Apparently getting my drink order stolen by the most gorgeous woman at the only coffee shop in the city to be taken over by an angry mob this morning,” he says, nodding toward the crowd of customers.

“Oh, I highly doubt that last part,” I tell him, grinning. “This is New York, after all.”

“You mean there are other mobs storming coffee shops?”

“Are you kidding me?” I lower my voice, as if sharing a secret.

The scent of his cologne makes me even more hungry for him.

“At this very moment, I can guarantee that at least fourteen other coffee shops are getting stormed by under-caffeinated mobs. If you close your eyes and listen hard enough, you can usually hear them chanting.”

The edges of his mouth curve up like a bow — like a present meant only for me.

“Is that right?” he asks.

“Mmm, it is,” I manage to say, stealing a glance at his lips. “I’m rarely wrong.”

“Except for when you chose this coast over the one I’m on,” he says, arching one of his thick brows.

I scoff. “Rookie move.”

He suddenly leans closer, with a smile filling his whole face, sending my heart racing all over again. In my wildest imagination he’s about to kiss me, but it’s only to let someone reach behind him for their order.

I exhale slowly.

“It’s been, what, at least five years?” I ask, taking a step back to put a little more space between us. “Maybe six?”

He looks up to the ceiling, searching his memory for the last time we saw each other, and I take it as my opportunity to soak in his every detail.

The sturdy length of his hands.

The razor-sharp cut of his jaw, clean shaven and smooth.

The taste of his—

No.

His eyes zip back to mine as if he’s just heard my thoughts, and I snap back to the present, blinking innocently.

No, I’m not standing here conjuring up memories of what those hands — your hands — are capable of doing to my body, Dax. Don’t be silly.

“I haven’t seen you since graduation,” he confirms.

We both graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

Wore matching sashes and everything, although there’s only one photo in existence of Dax and I together.

It’s of us standing awkwardly, not touching, in graduation gowns, right outside the university’s enormous auditorium doors.

My best friend Olivia had suggested we take the photo when we crossed paths with Dax after the ceremony was done, insisting — no, hissing into my ear — that I would want photographic evidence of the years we spent together.

More than together, in the most together way possible, while never actually putting a label on it.

He towered above me in that photo, even though I was wearing my first set of sky-high stilettos, the pair Olivia had let me borrow that day.

She had shown up as my only plus-one during the ceremony.

In the photo, Dax is beaming at the camera, his hair longer than it is now and streaked by the midwestern sun that’d started shining earlier than usual that spring.

His hazel eyes squint out toward the cotton-candy-pink sunset behind Olivia and her phone, making us look as though we are both bathed in gold, his eyes more translucent than they’d ever appeared in the dim light of his bedroom.

The only thing that’s changed about him now is his hair. It’s shorter, styled into a more professional cut, but everything else about him could have been clipped straight out of that photograph and pasted into the coffee shop right in front of me.

“So, six years, and some change,” he says.

I shrug, as if I didn’t know the exact count in my head.

“You’re still living on the west coast?” I ask.

“You mean the best coast?” he corrects. His voice just dropped an octave.

“You can’t call it that until you’ve spent some real time on this side of the country,” I tell him, squeezing him gently on that boulder attached to his arm. We’ll call it a shoulder. The same shoulder I used to cling to when he’d be pushing into me from—

No, girl, no.

Stay focused.

I clear my throat, calling upon the skills I’ve perfected to keep my cool after a few years’ worth of experience commanding the attention of a courtroom, conference room, or any room really that needs a top-tier attorney to do an important job.

Even when I’m short of breath and my knees are buckling.

I straighten my spine when another customer reaches around me to grab their order off the counter, bringing us closer together.

“I’m not sure I need to spend more time here to know that my coast is the clear winner,” he says, nodding toward the unruly line.

His eyes dart toward the people piled behind the register, the ones starting to rebel angrily again since Carrie allowed her nephew to return to taking orders while she catches up on a growing number of drinks still needing to be made.

The shop around us has grown more packed and we’re getting crunched together like sardines, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

His eyes fall back to mine, as if daring me to object.

“In defense of New York’s commuter crowd, caffeine withdrawal is real,” I say, tilting my chin defiantly. “Overpowering, I hear.”

“Evidently,” he answers grimly, rubbing his jaw. This conversation is getting so ridiculous that I’m not even sure we’re talking about coffee anymore.

He pulls a stray hair from my shoulder and for the smallest fraction of a second, I feel the heat of his fingers push through the fabric and onto my skin.

Lord help me.

“So, then what are you here for?” I ask. “Your mom’s firm isn’t forcing you to move across the country now, are they?”

I blink away any possible excitement at Dax and I being in the same city again for any substantial length of time.

Successfully controlling everything about my expression — at least until Dax’s face curls up into a smirk.

Then heat rushes down my spine and I can tell his thoughts are right there with me.

“You’d hate that, wouldn’t you?” he asks.

A teacup of anticipation tips over in my stomach, sending fizzy bubbles of hope swirling around like that science model of a tornado that my fourth-grade teacher had us make using a couple of two-liter soda bottles.

Before I can get too ahead of myself, he adds, “I’m just here for a quick work trip. I fly back to L.A. in the morning.”

The faint note of relief I hear in his voice is enough for me to mentally pop each bubble of hope I’d felt rising in my chest with an imaginary pushpin.

Without even thinking, I glance down at his ring finger.

Empty.

So blissfully empty.

But when my eyes meander back up to his, Dax is barely holding in a laugh.

Caught .

So clearly caught.

He holds up his ring finger.

“All you had to do was ask if I was single, Abs.” He wiggles it back and forth.

I roll my eyes and scoff, not once but twice, hoping to distract us both from the thin veil of pink I can feel creeping across my cheeks.

“Don’t act like you’re not equally checking out my status,” I say, holding up my empty left hand, wagging my finger around so he doesn’t have to hide his own curious attempt to look. Although, I wouldn’t mind watching him squirm while he tried.

“I don’t need to look,” he says. “I already saw your profile pop up on Rumble right after we landed.”

“Ah.” I force a tight smile. “How serendipitous.”

He leans his back against the counter, watching me turn red while his lips turn up into the most wicked grin.

“So, unless you’re hiding on the dating apps out of pure disdain for your current boyfriend, then I’d assume you’re single for now, too.”

That cute little flutter inside me grows into a full-blown rabble of butterflies, threatening to beat their wings right out of me.

He’s single.

And sexy and sharp and incredibly handsome.

Fuck.

“Here’s your triple, hon,” Carrie says, passing the to-go cup over the counter ledge between us.

I take it and shoot her a silent look that says we have much to discuss.

“Thanks,” I say, coolly. “I need this more than usual. Brett has been riding my ass like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Mmm, lucky Brett,” Dax mutters, almost too quietly for me to hear, tipping his cup up toward mine in a silent cheers .

I watch him draw the cup up to his lips in slow motion, still stuck on that little quip of his, before it dawns on me that he’s about to drink that nasty green thing I sampled earlier.

I nearly push it out of his hands.

“You don’t have to drink that,” I say, pointing to the rim where my lipstick outlines the hole in the top. “I already had a sip of that before I realized it wasn’t mine. My bad.”

He looks down at the smudge of pink, then brings it back up to his lips and takes a long drag anyway, keeping his eyes fixed on mine before tucking his lips inside his mouth to lick them clean.

He finishes by dragging his bottom lip across his teeth, almost as if he’s scraping off any transferred lipstick.

As if that’s not enough, he tops things off with the most stupidly attractive little smirk, dropping his free hand into the pocket of his trousers to watch me react.

I bite down on my own lip — a poor defense, but the only option I have to keep myself from drooling on the floor after watching that little . . . what was that?

Did he just lick my lipstick off his cup on purpose?

A flash of his tongue swipes across his bottom lip before he breaks into an even wider grin, as if to erase any doubt from my mind.

Um, yes, yes, he really did.

A shade of pink (most likely darker than the lipstick Dax just licked off his cup ) creeps across my skin and I force myself to look away before my reaction gets any more obvious.

“I’ve missed that,” he says, swiping the back of his finger across my cheek, so lightly that I’m not sure if he actually made contact with my skin or I imagined it. “The way you go pink like that.”

Unable to form words, I turn to Carrie for help. She’s still watching us from behind the counter with an amused look on her face.

I widen my eyes at her and, on cue, she springs back to life.

“I, uh, here, let me make you another one of those,” Carrie stumbles through her offer, looking guilt-ridden, like she shouldn’t be watching whatever is unfolding between me and the unbelievably hot guy who ordered the healthy green thing.

She passes off another subtle look that says you’re going to spill all the tea on this later before attempting to grab the old cup out of Dax’s hand.

But he pulls it into his chest.

“Nah,” he says, looking at me, holding the cup tighter. “That’s alright. I prefer this one.”

I exhale all the oxygen I have left in my lungs.

Fuck me.

No, really.

Please.