He folds his arms and leans over with a displeased expression, but amusement dances in his eyes. “Not really. Only that you have a candy wrapper stuck in your hair. How about you? Anything particularly fascinating about me today?”
“Nope.” I comb my fingers through my hair until I find the plastic wrapper. Balling it up, I stuff it into my pocket, and then drape my coat over the back of my chair.
“Yeah, right.” He smirks. “In fact, you look a little flushed by my presence.”
Just keep calm. Keep calm. “That’s from the cold outside.” I cup my hands onto my iced cheeks to defrost them.
“Sure it is.” He enjoys this—getting under my skin.
“Oh my God.” Aislin gasps. “Gemma, you’re frozen.”
“I got about halfway here and then had to go back to the car because I forgot my phone,” I explain, rubbing my hands together to thaw them. “I think it’s only like two degrees outside.”
Alex measures me up with his head cocked to the side. “You were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.”
“I drive slow when it’s snowing.” I reach inside my pocket to silence an incoming call as my phone begins to ring. “I don’t have four-wheel drive.”
He glances over his shoulder at the window where snowflakes flutter down from the clouded sky. “It’s not that bad out there.”
“It’s completely bad,” I retort, irritated that he’s wiggling his way under my skin again. It’s as if I have no power over my emotions when it comes to him and I’ve only known him for a week. How will things progress the longer I know him? “I could barely see.”
He scrutinizes me. “Then maybe, you should have stayed home.”
“I would love to have stayed home,” I quip. “In the warmth, reading a good book, but you guys insisted we had to do this here.”
His gaze bores into me as he nibbles on his lip. Last night, in my dreams, I’d bitten on that lip several times, along with the blonde stranger’s. “Actually, that was Aislin who insisted. I was perfectly content at the idea of everyone working on this on their own and that way we wouldn’t have to see each other.”
My lungs are twitching to release the scream building up inside them. “Are you always this much of an asshole or do you just save it for me?”
He leans over the table more and our lips are so close they almost touch. His breath is hot against my skin and there is a challenge in his green eyes, as if he’s daring me to argue with him. “I save all of it just for you.”
Aislin snaps her cell phone shut. “Okay, I hate to break up your little moment, but I have to go.” She collects her coat and purse off the back of her chair as she stands up. “There’s an emergency at the… restaurant where I work and I need to go in.”
“What kind of emergency?” Alex questions as he slumps back in his chair.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs and slips her arms through the sleeves of a fur-trimmed coat. She flips her hair out from beneath the collar and hitches the handle of her purse over her shoulder. “I just got a text saying that they need me to come in as soon as possible.”
Alex looks unconvinced. “Bullshit. You’re bailing so you can go out with that dude you met last week.”
Aislin points her finger at him. “Be nice while I’m gone. I mean it. And get some stuff done. You’ve been slacking and letting Gemma and I pick up your workload.” She waves at me. “See you later, Gemma.”
I give her a small wave as she walks toward the exit, pressing buttons on her phone. Alex and I watch her until she disappears out the doors.
When he looks at me again, he seems nervous. His posture’s stiff and he keeps fidgeting with his sleeves; pushing them up and then tugging them back down. “So, I guess it’s just you and me.”
“I guess so,” I mutter as electricity caresses my skin.
Silence stacks around us and I begin to fidget. Each tick of the clock, thump of a book being put on the shelf and each whisper only add to the awkwardness.
Alex begins tapping his pen on the table as if he thinks he’s a drummer. He’s eyeballing the corner of the library where a tall, blond girl, wearing a short skirt is browsing through a row of books. As she bends over to search the bottom shelf, Alex slants his head to the side to get a better view of her ass.
So that’s his type.
The longer I contemplate her being Alex’s type, the more infuriated I grow. The cause behind the manifestation of these feelings is unknown, which makes the situation that much more frustrating. Every time he taps that damn pen, the potency of the sparks surges. They no longer feel like soft kisses, but like little bites from a thousand gnats.
“Can you cut the tapping out?” I ask him, releasing my death grip from the chair. I put my elbows on the desk and press my fingertips to my temples. “It’s hurting my head.”
He tears his gaze away from the blond and the corners of his lips quirk. “Probably not. In fact, it’s very important that I don’t.”
I slouch back in my chair and blow out a frustrated breath. “Why are you such an asshole to me? Did I do something to you that I don’t know about, besides touching you without permission?”
“Kind of.”
“Can you tell me what, then? So I won’t do it again.”