But while I was pliant and warm beneath him, the muscles in his frame grew rigid and cold. Something had happened. Maybe he didn’t like how I’d discovered a heart lived inside him. When his mouth slowed and began to retreat from mine, I wanted to whine in protest.
The connection of our kiss wasn’t just broken, it was severed. He turned and stared at my delicate wrist in his hold, gazing at it with pure confusion, like he hadn’t realized he was pinning me down until that very moment.
It made my heart stumble. Had I done that? Made him lose some of the careful control he always placed on himself?
I was flushed and throbbing painfully at the center of my legs as he pulled away and moved to sit as far away from me at the other end of the couch as possible. He stared off, his unfocused eyes seeing nothing and his chest rising and falling rapidly, and he looked . . . drained. As if kissing me had taken everything out of him.
I awkwardly pulled myself up and back to a sitting position. Christ, my legs were shaking. With the heat of him gone, I was instantly freezing and crossed my arms over my chest. This house was a museum with overly enthusiastic air conditioning.
Was he going to say something?
Was I supposed to?
Macalister’s posture improved until his back was straight, and he ran a hand over his hair, smoothing the wayward strands back into their perfect place. By the time he turned his head to look at me, his professional veneer was back in place.
Like our kiss hadn’t affected him at all.
“That was,” I said between still-uneven breaths, “a bit much. I don’t recommend you do that tomorrow.”
“I agree,” he said quietly. “It was far too much.”
He was up on his feet before I could process how he meant it. He strode to my coat that had been cast aside, picked it up, and held it open for me.
It was clear he wanted to help me put it on and hurry me along, but when I didn’t move, he added, “It’s time for you to go.”
I clenched my fists as I shot to my feet. What the fuck was this? He just kissed the hell out of me, and now he was throwing me out? I sneered. “Well, there’s that awesome Hale charm you’re famous for.”
That infuriatingly sexy muscle along his jaw flexed.
I ripped my coat out of his hands and pushed one arm through a sleeve as I marched toward the front door. I heard his footsteps and knew he was following, but I wasn’t naïve. It was gentlemanly habit, not to chase after me and apologize for being an asshole—
“Sophia.”
I hesitated on the landing at the top of the front steps, the chilly spring wind pricking at my heated face. He gazed at me with an unreadable expression.
“You were correct, it had been awhile for me.” A slow, arrogant smile spread across the lips he’d used to turn my world upside down just a minute ago. “Thank you for the practice.”
SIX
MACALISTER
RELIEF AND DREAD WERE FELT IN EQUAL MEASURE over what had transpired on the antique couch in my front parlor. Marist had made me doubt my skills, and now my reputation was tarnished, but my evening with Sophia proved I was still capable of seducing a woman. I was confident if I hadn’t stopped us, soon after she’d have begged me to take her to bed.
My trepidation came from the strong desire I’d had to continue the foolishness, and the worry it may not have been much longer before I’d been the one begging, demanding she join me upstairs and stay the night.
It was where I was now, lying in the dark, staring at the shadows the chandelier cast across my bedroom’s ceiling. The cat had grown bold over the last few nights. Tonight, it attempted to curl up beside my feet, but I moved them beneath the covers, forcing the animal to the far side of my bed. If it were that desperate for companionship, I’d begrudgingly allow it to be near, but up against me was too much.
The kiss I’d given Sophia had only been to satisfy a curiosity. The signals she’d sent me over the last few days were confusing, and I was out of practice with reading women. I was an observant man, though. I’d catalogued all the times she’d glanced my direction at the office when she thought I wasn’t looking. And, of course, there was the way she reacted whenever I touched her.
Like I burned her, and she wanted to burn.
She is too young for you.
I wasn’t convinced I even enjoyed her company. She didn’t know her place, talked to me as if I were a friend, and at times it seemed she’d go to great lengths just to annoy me. I wanted to reprimand. To correct her behavior. Instead, I clenched my jaw and held my tongue.
It’d given me a headache every night this week.
Now, it had become a pattern. I took a pain reliever, lay in my bed, and struggled not to think about her while I waited for the sleep I knew was unlikely to come. Two years of meditation had sustained me through the most challenging time of my life, but it did not induce so much as drowsiness.
Nothing could quiet my mind.
Since I despised wasted time, I threw off the covers, pulled on a pair of athletic shorts, and stepped into my running shoes. I needed to get at least four hours of sleep to be able to function tomorrow, and the treadmill was the only surefire way to make that happen.
While I ran, I used the time to comb through social media feeds on my phone. I’d been out of the loop but was determined to make it seem like I’d never left, that I’d been at every party and fundraiser. I filled myself in with the backstories of the important players in Cape Hill, studying captions and snapshots of the events others had deemed noteworthy over the last two years.
It was distressing how often I drifted back to Sophia’s Instagram page.
She had a feed that would have impressed Alice and pleased the brand managers at HBHC. All the images had the same tonal quality and consistency, making an eye-catching grid. Sophia’s brand was clear and executed with precision. She was the refined socialite, invited to everything and friends with everyone.
She glowed in each picture, even the ones that were candid and she wasn’t smiling. She’d posted one this afternoon of her sitting in a restaurant booth, a thoughtful look on her face and a half-eaten bowl of pasta on the table in front of her. Had she asked Evangeline to take this for her, or the waiter afterward?
For some unknown reason, my thumb moved to touch her face, and a white heart blinked on the screen. A frustrated sigh punched from my lungs. She had over a million followers, so it was unlikely she’d notice I’d liked her picture. It was just twelve hours old and had already amassed fourteen hundred comments.
Most were heart emojis or single words like beautiful, but one of them caught my attention.
Maybe lay off the carbs.
“Fuck you,” I said into the silence of my empty gym.
That person didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. I dumped my phone into the holder, ramped up the speed on the treadmill, and stared across the way to the mirror, finding my expression furious. I was covered in sweat and had a sneer on my lips, my feet pounding against the belt and my arms swinging to keep up with the ambitious speed I’d set.
I looked very much like the monster I could be.
The comment became a splinter buried beneath my skin and continued to bother me. I appreciated the way Sophia looked. She had high, full breasts, a narrow waist, and hips that flared. Everything was proportional in her perfectly feminine hourglass, and I found her more appealing than the emaciated look some retailers pushed with their advertising.