The band began to move in formation, and as she watched, they parted and revealed a long black stretch limo, with a man in a gray suit leaning up against it. He held a familiar African violet in a pot, and instead of his normal welcoming smile, there was a wary look on Cade’s face. As if he wasn’t sure what to expect.
At the sight of Kylie, though, the wary look disappeared and his smile blossomed, and her heart gave a happy little skip at the sight of his pleasure. It skipped again when she saw the flower, and at this rate, she was going to pass out from all the heart-skipping if he didn’t stop looking at her with those soulful blue eyes.
He raised a hand and gestured at the band. They immediately stopped playing, the silence making her ears ring. “I figured you wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t show up with a band this time,” he told her. “So I brought them.”
She said nothing. The knot in her throat was too huge.
Her silence made him stand straighter. He put the violet on top of the limo and then stepped toward her. “Can we talk?”
Bad idea, her brain said.
Shut the fuck up, her loins said.
Kylie hesitated. Emotion warred with common sense. In the end, she listened to her loins. “Um, sure.”
“You pick the place. Anywhere you like.” He was now standing so close to her that she could smell his aftershave, and her knees went weak. Why did he have to smell so freaking good?
“Um.” She gestured at Star’s apartment. “In there, I guess.” It was getting increasingly hard to focus with him so near to her. Longing was threatening to take over her brain and dump out all common sense and replace it with pure lust.
Which, honestly, didn’t sound so bad at the moment.
He gestured for her to walk first, and she did, heading back toward the apartment. Her entire body was incredibly aware of his hand moving to rest at the small of her back. It was a simple gesture, and an utterly possessive one, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it if she tried.
As they went into Star’s apartment, though, she cringed at what he must think of it. Cade constantly wore expensive suits, and she’d never seen him in anything more casual than a sports jacket. Every hotel he’d stayed in was pricey and he normally had a suite. Star’s apartment had blacklight posters of mushrooms, beads hanging from doorways, and smelled faintly of incense. Her couch was old and brown and ratty, and Kylie’s blankets were still spread on it from when she’d woken up this morning. God, what must he think of them? She hurried forward and grabbed the pillow and blankets, piling them into her arms and rushing toward Star’s bedroom. “Let me just clear you off a spot.”
She quickly flung the blankets on Star’s bed and returned to the living room, only to see Star holding up one of her rose quartz crystals and dragging it through the air. “You have the prettiest aura,” she told him. “It’s incredible.”
“Thank you,” he said, grinning. “Yours isn’t so bad, either.”
Star beamed at him and pocketed her crystal. “Can I get you something to eat or drink? Kylie and I were just about to drown our sorrows in ice cream.”
“Is that so?” His smile turned to Kylie, and she saw it falter a bit. Just a bit. “Are there a lot of sorrows to drown?”
“Oh, you have no idea—”
“Star,” Kylie barked. “Please.”
Her friend blinked. “Oh. Of course. How silly of me. Mr. Fancy Aura, why don’t you take my ice cream and eat with Kylie? I need to walk down to the store anyhow. I’m fresh out of, uh, packing tape.” She gave him a brilliant smile, grabbed her purse, and then turned to Kylie and gave her an exaggerated wink. “See you in about three hours.”
As Star left the room, Cade turned back to Kylie, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. “Does she need a ride to the store? I hate to think of her walking so far.”
“The store’s around the corner,” Kylie corrected, heading to the kitchen to retrieve the ice cream. “She’s just being a good friend.”
“Ah,” Cade said. “I have a few of those.”
“I bet they’ve never analyzed your aura,” Kylie grumbled as she picked up the two bowls of ice cream from Star’s avocado-colored countertop. God, Star had made the servings absolutely huge. “Um, so this looks like a lot of ice cream but it’s also dinner,” she explained, handing him a bowl.
“Would you like a waffle to go with this?” he asked as he took the bowl. “I know where we can get one.”