Meet Cute, Elise Faber [audio ebook reader .TXT] 📗

dip in the middle, probably feeling my pulse galloping in my veins, the rapid thrum-thrum tapping against his fingertips.

But if he did feel it, he didn’t say anything about it.

Instead, his fingers kept moving, and he asked, “Why the smile?”

I scowled.

He chuckled. “You’re beautiful when you glare at me, did you know that?”

“That’s the savior complex coming into play.”

His brows drew together. “What are you talking about?”

I went to shrug, just barely stopped myself in time. “It’s a normal reaction,” I said, making my tone knowing, hoping it would piss him off and get him to back off, because with that soft smile, those gorgeous eyes, the sexy-as-hell body, and the obvious desire on his face, I was so freaking close to doing something incredibly stupid.

Incredibly. Stupid.

With the capitals.

“I’ve seen this before,” I went on. “We save someone, and they attach themselves like a limpet.”

His golden eyes flashed. Good. Or at least, that was what I was telling myself.

“It’s a totally normal reaction. I’ve seen it many times over the years.”

Lie.

I mean, I had seen it.

But not all that often, especially in Darlington, where nothing really ever happened.

Not that this man needed to know that, especially since I could see the pissed-off creeping into his face.

Good, I thought again.

That was exactly what I needed.

He’d get mad and back off and—

He smiled.

My breath froze in my lungs.

Because it was that smile again. The one that made a longing bubble up inside me, made me yearn and ache and wish that the smile could be real and could be for me.

Back to Stupid, with that capital S.

His fingers continued moving and he moved closer, his lips to my ear. “I might believe you,” he whispered hotly. “If I hadn’t wanted you from the moment I saw you kick off your heels.”

My breath wheezed out of me. “What?” I breathed.

A dart of a hot, wet tongue, my nerves exploding with sensation.

Then he straightened. “You feel good enough to sit up now?”

I wasn’t feeling anything—or at least, I wasn’t feeling any pain. What I was feeling was desire and need and trembling thighs and a damp, empty pus—

“I’m good,” I said, putting my elbows beneath me and shoving myself up, thanking desire and pain pills for my increased mobility. I should probably be thanking the oxycodone rather than my attraction to Talbot, but I had a feeling that science and the study of drugs binding with pain receptors was actually far less superior to the power of this smiling Hollywood heartthrob.

He slipped his fingers around my arm—the uninjured one—and helped me sit.

“I really am good,” I said, knowing I was repeating myself. But it was true for two reasons. First, the pain pills had truly kicked in, and second, I had a feeling this man would be able to play my body like an instrument.

One stroke of his finger on my skin, one hot word whispered in my ear, and I was feeling nothing of my exploits from the night before.

“Here,” he murmured, tugging the blankets back and helping me shift my legs so they hung over the edge of the mattress, my bright red toenails barely brushing the plush area rug spread out on the blond-colored floor.

That was when I saw the chair.

Or rather the blanket and pillow sitting in the chair.

Along with his shoes resting beneath the wooden legs.

“You didn’t!” I exclaimed.

Golden eyes on mine. “Didn’t what?”

I nodded toward the chair. “Tell me, you didn’t sleep in that chair all night.”

He hesitated, gaze drifting behind him to said chair then back to mine. “Okay, I didn’t sleep in that chair all night.”

It was the emphasis on all that got me.

“Talbot!” I poked him in the chest.

He caught my finger. “I like it when you call me Tal better.” A nip to the tip, his expression teasing. “Don’t worry about where I slept or didn’t sleep. Did you want a shower before I make you breakfast?”

“My arm . . .”

“My assistant came by this morning and bought this”—he crossed to the bathroom, brought back a bag—“it’s a cast cover, but Dr. Stevens said it’ll work fine for this when I spoke to her this morning.”

He’d run out?

He’d spoken to the doctor?

Aw. Seriously. Really, really aw.

But also, what the fuck? As in, what in the fuck was this man doing? With me? To me? No, with—

No. The prepositions in this didn’t matter.

What did, however, was the reason behind all of it.

“What are you doing, Tal?” I asked, using the shortened name before I could catch myself.

“How do you mean?”

I just lifted my eyebrows and waited. It was my Cop Look. One my brother had once said should be patented because it was so effective at getting people—including him—to spill their guts. It was also one that I’d perfected because I’d received it so often from my dad before he’d died.

But it didn’t appear to have any effect on this man.

He simply wrapped his fingers around my uninjured arm again and tugged me up from the mattress, walking me slowly, but inexorably, across the floor and into the biggest bathroom I’d ever seen in my life.

The. Biggest.

It was like a spa had thrown up in here.

Which probably wasn’t a fair assessment because that implied that it wasn’t tasteful, and this space was incredibly tasteful. It was just . . . there was a shower and a bath, a sauna, a room off to one side with a door that was open revealing a urinal and toilet.

Yes, a urinal.

I wrinkled my nose then focused on the vanities.

Two huge sinks surrounded by marble and sitting atop ornate cabinets.

Plus, all around, there were baskets of towels, tiny, elegant bottles on the countertops, all matching the color scheme of grays and whites. It was plush. It was gorgeous. It was—

I frowned, turned to face him. “Didn’t you say that you were moving?”

He didn’t seem taken aback by my abrupt question. “Yes, I am.”

“But . . . why?”

Talbot stepped a little closer, and I tried to ignore the heat of