another person staying here. That’s all.”
“Ah.” I dug into another pot sticker, which shouldn’t have been so tasty washed down with orange juice, but was. “He didn’t tell me you were staying here, either. In fact, he said…”
Both of us seemed to have come down with a case of bite-your-tongue-itis.
Alex quirked a brow and sat back in his chair. The kitchen was warm, but he was shirtless, and goose bumps dappled his skin. An image of myself leaning across the table to lick his nipples sent a flash of heat through me that didn’t come from the furnace chugging to life beneath our feet.
“What? Tell me.” The man I’d seen last night at the party, the one in my room, was back. His voice melted, gooey caramel on soft ice cream. I wanted to lick it.
“He said,” I told him, carefully not looking at him but at my food, “to stay away from you.”
“Did he?”
I knew my laugh sounded forced, but he didn’t know me. “Yes.”
“Why?”
I licked soy sauce from a finger and caught him looking, his eyes narrowed but not angry. Interested, maybe. Intrigued. “Because Patrick likes to make sure I don’t get into trouble.”
Alex snorted lightly and drank more juice. “He thinks I’m trouble?”
“Aren’t you?” It sounded like flirting. It felt like flirting, but I knew better than to flirt with a man who was into guys. I’d learned my lesson on that a long time ago.
“I guess that depends,” he said. Then, “Yeah. I am.”
We both laughed at that, somehow companionable in our assessment of his character via the conduit of Patrick’s warning. “I thought so. You look like trouble.”
Alex’s fine brown hair had been carefully groomed last night to look like a mess, but now it fell in genuine disarray over his forehead and into his eyes. When he bent to stare at the table, tapping his fingers on it, his hair obscured his face. I wanted to brush it off his forehead.
“Emo bangs,” I said.
He looked up at me then and pushed the hair out of his eyes. “Huh?”
I gestured. “Your hair. Those long bangs, like one of those emo kids who wear skinny jeans and black fingernail polish.”
He laughed again, for real this time, and long. “I guess that’s a sign if nothing else is, huh? Time for a cut?”
“I don’t think so. I like it.” I speared the last pot sticker and held it up to him. “Sure you don’t want it?”
“What the hell.” He plucked it from the fork and ate it from his fingers.
I watched his lips close over his fingertips and suck away the soy sauce. Warmth swirled inside me, which was stupid, but hey, a girl can look even if she can’t touch. We both finished our orange juice at the same time.
Then we sat in silence. Alex might be trouble, but he sure wasn’t chatty. Not that I got a snobby vibe off him or anything, as if he just didn’t want to talk to me. More like he wasn’t sure what to say.
“How do you know Patrick?” It was ask or leave the kitchen for the chilly wilds of upstairs, where I’d have to dress and go into the colder outdoors to head home. Besides, I wanted to know.
“We met in Japan.”
“You work for Quinto and Bates?” That was the law firm where Patrick worked.
He shook his head. “No, I was brought in as a consult with Damsmithon Industries while Patrick was there for the international business meeting.”
“So you’re not a lawyer.” I swirled a finger in the remains of the pot sticker juice in the bottom of the container. I wasn’t hungry anymore, but couldn’t resist the savory tang.
He laughed. “Hell, no. But Patrick and I hit it off, hung out after the meetings. Kept in touch. When I told him I was coming back to the States he said I should stop by to see him.”
All of this didn’t sound like it should go along with the image of Patrick’s face and his warning to me about Alex being trouble. “So…you’re friends?”
“What exactly did Patrick say about me?” Alex’s bangs fell down again, and he didn’t brush them away.
I paused for a second before answering. “Not much, actually.”
Which wasn’t like Patrick at all. He usually had something to say about everybody, and if he didn’t have anything, sometimes he made stuff up. I pondered this while Alex got up and went to the fridge. Patrick had warned me away from Alex, but hadn’t given me details. No gossip. Strange.
Alex brought back the pitcher of juice and a tinfoil-covered plate of cookies that had escaped my notice. He offered them to me first, and don’t think I didn’t notice that he had manners. I didn’t pretend to myself or him that I shouldn’t eat any cookies. It was too late for that. Come January I’d be moaning about the size of my ass, but so would everyone else I knew, whether it was warranted or not.
I picked up a gingerbread man with a huge erect cock. “Hmm. Normally I bite the heads off first, but…”
Alex snorted and picked up one for himself. “Now there’s a dilemma.”
We were still laughing when Patrick came down the back stairs. He wore a silk kimono and a bleary expression. His blond hair stuck up in corkscrews all over the place. He gave us both an imperious look from his spot on the last step.
“We can hear you all the way upstairs.”
“Sorry.” Alex sounded contrite.
I didn’t bother. “Oh, Patrick. C’mon. It’s, like, noon already. Get your lazy ass up and about.”
Patrick yawned broadly and swept past me, then turned to give me a real glare. “You didn’t even make coffee?”
“Your fucking machine is too complicated,” I told him fondly, though of course he knew that, and of course he was still miffed that I hadn’t started it brewing for him.
“I’ll do it,” Alex said, and was up and around the table before either Patrick or I could do more than blink at each other in surprise. “I should’ve thought of it, man. I’m sorry.”
I raised a brow at this sudden leap to obsequiousness, but hell. I didn’t know the guy beyond what? A warning, a karaoke serenade and a drunken blow job in a dark room. He hadn’t quite seemed the servile type to me, but then I was forever being surprised by what I didn’t expect.
“Thank you,” Patrick said a little stiffly. “Alex, this is Olivia Mackey. Olivia, Alex Kennedy. Olivia is an independent contractor with her own graphic design company, and Alex does consulting for several international corporations.”
Coffeepot carafe filled with water in his hand, Alex turned while Patrick made the cocktail party introductions. He and I shared a look
