Page 14 of The Heartbreaker

“I’ll stick with my job that pays like shit becauseno, thank you. Between the super-sad cases and the wild cases, I don’t know how she does it.”

“Whatever her reason is, I’m glad she does. We need people like her.”

“We do.” I quieted for a moment while I finished the last of my soup. “Bet you didn’t think we’d be discussingthattonight.”

“I didn’t anticipate tonight looking anything like this.” His hand landed on top of mine. “But I’m glad it did.”

His eyes were telling a much deeper story.

A story that didn’t just hit me at every angle.

It wrapped around me and squeezed the shit out of me.

“Ridge …”

“Tell me you’re not having fun. Tell me you haven’t laughed your ass off. Tell me I’m nothing like the man you assumed I was.”

I took a deep breath, taking in the blue of his eyes. Why did they have to be so beautiful? “I’m definitely having fun. I’ve most definitely laughed my ass off.”

I tried to force myself to look away, and I couldn’t. There was something drawing me to him, and I didn’t know what it was. His sweetness? His patience? The way he spoke about his daughter? His good looks? All of it?

“And you’re right, I don’t know what I assumed, but this wasn’t it.”

The table we were sitting at was tiny, a high-top that couldn’t have been more than a foot and a half wide, so it was easy for him to lift his hand and put it on my cheek. His thumb stroked my lips the same way he’d done to himself earlier. And each swipe sent a fire through me.

But that fire wasn’t burning; it was igniting, and those tingles were shooting straight through me.

“If you tell me there’s a green onion on my mouth, I might die,” I admitted.

“There isn’t.”

I should have felt relief in hearing that.

But I didn’t.

I was too worked up.

Too turned on.

Too … wet for this man.

My eyes closed for a second as a sensation passed through my body, one that was more intense than any kind of jolt I’d ever experienced before.

“What was that?” he asked when my lids opened. “I felt a shiver move through you.”

My head shook, but his hand stayed. “My way of reminding myself that I need to breathe.”

His chuckle was deep. Sexy. Gritty. But comforting at the same time. “You want me to kiss you. That’s why you’re having a hard time breathing.”

I was sure my face was reddening. “I never said those words.”

“You didn’t have to …”

THREE

Ridge

Iwas a gentleman, but I was also a fucking man. The entire time we’d been sitting at this table, I could sense what was brewing inside of Addy, and I wanted to put out those flames with my tongue. I knew how she was feeling based on the way her stare changed as she looked at me. The way her lips stayed parted and her tongue licked the inside of them, like she was thinking about lapping the edge of my dick. How my words—regardless of what I said—would cause her skin to redden or her body to turn fidgety or for her to go from spoon to chopsticks, spoon to chopsticks, and not take a bite.