And I didn’t know what to do with that.
I’d never believed in instant connections. I could never relate when others talked of meeting someone and falling head over heels. To me, that was lust talking, and I’d had my fair share of experiences that scratched that particular itch. They’d been nothing more than desire—a yearning for heat, passion and the urge to find release with something other than my hand.
None of them, not one, had ever felt anything like this.
And yet, I still couldn’t believe that what was happening between us was anything more than the result of a weird bloody day.
Macsen was merely a convenient thing to blame for all of it.
But none of that explained why it seemed to physically hurt to walk away from him.
Here I stand, outside his door, forehead pressed against the cold wood, my hand hovering centimetres from the handle. The narrow barrier between us mocks me, daring me to break it down.
I could ask him if he wants to share a bottle of wine.
Get a grip for God’s sake. What would a man like that want with a nobody like me?
I shake my head at my pathetic thoughts, finally forcing myself to walk away, and with each step into my barren and uninviting flat, I replay every second of the time I’ve spent in his presence.
The way his eyes crinkled at the corners long before his mouth formed a smile. The way he absentmindedly used his thumb to turn the rings on his long, elegant fingers—no signs of cracked nails or callused bumps like mine.
The way he said my name.
A hefty dose of shame laced with anger at myself bubbles under my skin. After the way I treated him, I’m the last person he’s ever likely to want to share a drink with.
And that’s another thing I can’t explain. Why did I react that way?
Seeing him sitting at the bar caught me totally off guard. The instant tug of attraction I felt towards him was uncontrollable. I could do nothing to prevent it, so I feigned gruffness instead. Only it was a performance I was unable to sustain.
Merely being in the same room as Macsen made me want to smile, to laugh, to be giddy with everything I’m not. I wanted to sit with him and ask questions. I wanted to pick at his mind until I knew everything about him. I wanted to touch him and be touched by him. I wanted to know how he tasted. I wanted more than the standard quick fuck or sloppy blowjob in a dark corner that I was used to getting. No connections. No intimacy. No regrets. No disappointments. `
And it scared the shit out of me.
But I obviously wasn’t scared enough. That or I was a bloody twp—a fool—something mother was fond of calling me whenever I did something daft. Because, less than ten minutes later, after rushing downstairs to check that Tal was okay closing down without me, I was outside Macsen’s door with a bottle of wine in my hand and two glasses.
I tell myself I’m merely being a good host when the truth is there’s no way I could sit in my desolate room with him only a few metres away. Alone in my flat, I would find no relief from the maelstrom of emotions raging inside me, not when he’s literally on the other side of my wall.
With one last shaky breath, I place the bottle on the floor at my feet and give his door three light raps with my knuckles.
He could already be asleep. Or taking a shower. This isn’t a great idea. Turn around. Leave him to rest.
Stay. Stay. Stay.
The door sweeps open, and Macsen stands before me with a look on his face that says he’s expecting me.
No, not expecting. Hoping.
I retrieve the bottle at my feet and hold it before me in explanation of my random appearance at his door.
“I was, uh, going to have a glass of wine and figured it always tastes better when you’re not drinking alone.”
His eyes smile before his mouth curves, relief visibly rolling through him as his shoulders relax. Taking a step back, he invites me inside.
“I’d love to share a glass with you.”
Feeling a stranger in my own place, I step inside the room and wait as he quietly closes the door behind me.
It’s like being a kid again knocking on a new friend’s door and hoping they won’t tell you to get lost.
“There should be a corkscrew in the top drawer under the microwave if you want to grab it.” I walk over to the low table in front of the sofa and set the glasses down, pretending I don’t still feel like that kid waiting for a door to be slammed in my face.
By the time he’s retrieved it, I’ve made myself take a seat to stop the restless urge I have to pace, and when he hands it to me, our fingers brush sending ripples of awareness over my skin.
One look into his rich brown eyes tell me he felt it, too.
I clear my throat and begin to uncork the bottle.
“I hope red is okay. I can grab a white or rosé from the bar if you’d prefer?”
“Is it alcoholic?”
My wrist stops mid-twist, and I lift my head to look at him, my brows rising in confusion.
“I’m not much of a wine connoisseur,” he confesses, taking a seat on the arm of the sofa. “I enjoy it well enough, but my motto about wine has always been to open the bottle, allow it to breathe, and then, if it doesn’t look like it’s breathing, I give it mouth-to-mouth.” A wry grin spreads across his face making him, if possible, even more handsome, and I have to laugh at his attempt to break the tension.
“Too cheesy?” he asks, his smile broadening.
“Nah,” I shake my head, feigning seriousness. “It was pretty gouda.”
He throws his head back and groans, and a quiet laugh escapes my lips, the sound of which has him locking eyes with mine and saying with complete sincerity, “You have a great laugh.” Then his gaze drops to my lips and a different kind of tension fills the air.
Clearing my throat once more, I give one last twist, pop the cork and lean forward to begin pouring him some wine.
“So, Macsen, when you’re not appreciating fine wine, and cheese”—his light chuckle trickles through my veins and lands with a warm weight in the pit of my stomach—"what is it you do? Apart from buying ramshackle old houses, of course?”
He stands, takes a seat a little closer to me, and I hand over his wine.
“I run a recruitment firm in London with a friend. We started the business fresh out of university. But I’m reassessing my options at the moment.”
After a sip of his wine while watching me pour myself a glass, he asks, “Have you owned Safe Harbour long?”
I tell him about buying my uncle out of his share when my parents died. How he never really wanted anything to do with the place anyway, and the pub had barely functioned for many years due to my parent’s steadily increasing age, and their inability to see it as more than the local boozer.
He listens intently to every word, all while answering any question I throw at him, and the bottle of wine soon disappears during an hour or more of relaxed, easy conversation and increasingly heavier stares.
I can’t help the way I look at him or the way I react to him, and truth be told, I don’t want to.
Connecting with an attractive man before has never been about getting to know each other. It’s always been a means to an end, whereas with Macsen, it’s a means to him—to everything about him. Yes, I am crazy attracted to the man, and I constantly have to discreetly rearrange myself when he laughs or when he looks at me a certain way. Hell, even the way he breathes has my dick at half-mast, but it isn’t about getting him in my bed, at least, not yet. If we simply sit here all night and I get to listen to his smooth voice as he tells me everything and anything about himself, it will be enough.