They ordered their drinks—a red wine for her and a scotch for him—and their “guide” left, leaving them staring at each other and the deck of cards sitting in the middle of the table.
“Shall we?” Kinsey asked.
Griff fidgeted with the pink stone ring encircling the linen napkin, not looking up at her. “You don’t have to.”
If he was trying to fool her into thinking he didn’t care, he was failing. There was no missing the way he was looking everywhere but at her, how red the tops of his ears had turned, or the way he was sinking lower and lower in his seat. For all of his bluff and bluster, the man was nervous. And in a heartbeat, it was like being in the kitchen with him again doing dishes. She couldn’t leave him in this awkward space where he wasn’t comfortable and—ridiculous bet aside—where he hadn’t asked to go.
You are such a sucker.
“I know I don’t have to, but it seems like fun.” She picked a card up off the top. “Would you rather be able to control animals (but not humans) with your mind or control electronics with your mind?”
Griff’s head snapped up, his eyes connecting with hers and sending a zing of anticipation down her spine. “How is that a question?”
She flipped the card around and showed him. “I’m not making it up.”
He shook his head. “What I mean is that electronics is the only viable answer.”
That was debatable, but she could at least listen to his hypothesis. “Go on.”
“Electronics are everywhere,” he said, scooting closer to her on the circular booth seat, his apparent excitement at the possibilities making the words tumble out. “Imagine if I could control the nuclear system, all the smart systems in people’s homes, or a car’s operating system? I could wreak havoc. Or it could be benign and simply send you a text right now from your fiancé.”
A guilty heat made her body feel flush. “That couldn’t happen.”
“Why not?” he asked.
Well, number one because Todd from Canada wasn’t real. “For reasons I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “And anyway, you’re wrong. Controlling animals would be better.”
“Why?”
She didn’t mean to, but she slid over a bit on the seat; it just seemed like she needed to be closer to Griff to make her point. “Because how much better would it be to use an ant or a fly to spy rather than to have to figure out how to plant devices? You could send out a swarm of bees or a pissed-off hippopotamus after an enemy.”
He let his head fall back and laughed. It was a rusty sound that seemed to creak out of disuse, but it was a laugh, a real one that had him shaking his head. “That’s more evil of you than I expected.”
“Fine,” she said with a dramatic sigh, playing up her Cruella de Vil attitude. “How about the absolute joy of sending out a flock of sparrows and having them form a heart in the sky to cheer up someone you love?”
He took a card off the deck. “Would you rather be covered in fur or covered in scales?”
They both stared at each other.
“Scales,” they both said at the same time.
And so it went. They debated whether it would be better to be ten minutes late for everything or twenty minutes early over the grilled sea scallops appetizer. While they devoured the buttery, seared-to-perfection goodness, they debated whether they’d rather be the first person to explore a planet or be the inventor of a drug that cures a deadly disease. That led into a question about if they’d rather have whatever you are thinking appear above your head for everyone to see or have absolutely everything you do livestreamed for anyone to see.
“If either of those ever happened, I would curl up into a ball and cry,” Griff said.
There was no disagreement on her part.
“Okay, enough of the cards,” she said after the entree of lamb chops and fingerling potatoes with a hint of mint was delivered. “I want something real.”
Griff did his best deer-in-the-headlights impression, his body tense and his jaw clenched.
Oh, this man, he thought everything was a trap, didn’t he?
Okay, so she could easily throw in some deep philosophical questions here, but she didn’t have it in her to pin him down that way. Instead, when her gaze fell to the swath of blue ink peeking out from underneath his shirt cuff, she took pity on him. “How many tattoos do you have?”
He let out what could only be described as a relieved breath as he sliced his lamb chop. “About twenty. You?”
“None.” Needles? No thank you very much. “Are they all science-related?”
“No.”
She cut a bite of potatoes and waited. Griff didn’t add on anything. Not a word. And it wasn’t that he was ignoring her or cutting her out, going by the way his eyes darkened with something that looked a lot like lust. Then he winked at her, and it was so damn sexy that the fingerling potato on her fork fell right off. Okay, that may have had more to do with the fact that she had a near-full-body shiver of awareness roll through her like an avalanche, but that didn’t change that it was one helluva wink.
“So are you gonna tell me about them?” she inquired, because Montclair’s didn’t seem like the kind of place where she could ask him to strip down so she could look herself.
And touch.
And lick.
And—
Good Lord, Kinsey. Pull it together.
Griff shook his head.
She popped her dropped potato into her mouth and waited in hopes he’d change his mind just to fill the silence. No such luck.
“You’re no fun,” she teased.
He shrugged his broad shoulders and went back to eating.
“Why don’t you talk more?” Too direct? Probably, but it was the question she was dying to know the answer to.
He stilled, the fork halfway to his mouth for half a second, then said, “Not a lot to say.”
“Now that’s a lie.” She reached out without thinking and laid her hand on his, the jolt of attraction as soon as she did burning through her. “You, Griff Beckett, are a man of ideas and no one—not even you—can convince me otherwise.”
“You’re an optimist.” He stroked his thumb across hers, looking down at their hands with a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
She nodded, everything inside her feeling a little bubbly and chaotic, as if someone had shaken up a two-liter of Mountain Dew and taken off the cap. “I believe in happily ever afters, in people finding their way, and that we’re stronger together than apart.”