That did all really happen, didn't it? So why does she look like she might cry or run out of the bar right now? It's definitely got to be something about me.
She sits, but she won't look at me. Instead she's staring at the burger and fries like they hold the answers to whatever questions are floating around in her mind, and she's steadfastly ignoring me. Like I made a bad joke or something, instead of giving her my best flirting.
Crap. Maybe Abernathy is right and I really can't tell when someone is into me. Maybe I got all carried away because I'm completely into Lily, and so I forced her into this awkward situation where she didn't actually want to kiss me other than maybe out of curiosity. And then it was somehow terrible and she can’t come up with a good way to get herself out of the situation.
Well, the least I can do is give her an out. I sigh and shove my hand through my hair. "Maybe I should go. I don't want to come between you and your burger there."
At that, she finally looks at me. There's definitely something very wrong here. Her eyes are wet with heavy, unshed tears and her face is pale now.
K.T. shrugs and saunters back toward her office. "Guess I'd better go take care of some paperwork in my office. I'll be down the hall if you two want to talk about something important before Daniels chickens out and makes a break for it."
But even as the words to tell her off are forming on my lips, she's already flipping me the bird and heading down the hall to her office. Probably to listen in on whatever is being said out here, but hey, at least she's giving us the illusion of privacy for a few minutes.
I look at Lily again and lift my hand to smooth away a stray tendril of hair from her face, but I pause when she visibly recoils from my touch. How did we go from pressed up against each other and moaning to this?
Her lips are tight and pinched looking, and finally she waves one hand toward the door. "Well don't let me hold you up, Daniels. I mean, you certainly can kiss the living hell out of a girl, but I guess both of us have had our curiosity satisfied now and so we should quit while we're ahead, right?"
I take a step back from her, the venom in her words catching me off guard. What happened to Lily who seemed as hot for me as I am for her? Did she get switched out for this angry Lily like in a magician's act?
"Lily," I pause, not sure what to do next. I wriggle and twitch under the weight of her gaze. "I don't understand what's going on inside that pretty head of yours, but maybe eat something and then we'll talk soon."
Her eyes narrow and she gives me a look that would strip the skin off me if I weren't used to seeing it from her brother, the original mean glare giver of their family. "Are you seriously trying to tell me what to do right now? Because that might work with your usual type of girl, but it's definitely not going to fly with me."
I put up my hands in surrender. "I promise that I'm not trying to tell you what to do. But I think you're hungry and you need to eat."
I swear she balls up her fists and eyes my junk and it's vicious enough that I back up and take a couple of steps away from her.
"Get out." She turns to her burger and lifts it to her mouth, where it doesn't quite fit. And if I was thinking dirty, lascivious thoughts about the pretty girl at the photoshoot before, watching her try to stuff the giant sandwich between her pretty lips is more than enough to short circuit my brain.
Her naughty talk in front of her brother is on repeat in my mind, and to make everything even worse, she moans. A low, deep noise of pleasure that makes the burger sound better than anything I'd done to her.
How embarrassing. First of all, she apparently hated me kissing her. Second, she's making all these porno noises while eating her lunch and it's made my atrociously ill-mannered cock sit up hopefully, even though she's made it clear she doesn't want anything to do with me.
"Lily," I rasp out one more time. I can hear the desperation lacing my words, and it makes me cringe, but what can I do? She definitely has me wrapped around her little finger already, and all we've done is share a heated lip-lock in broad daylight at the best bar in Valentine.
Her eyes cut to me and widen, then narrow again menacingly. She swallows, and a little bit of burger grease glistens at the corner of her mouth and I swear it's like my own private pornography session right here, right now. I mean, what kind of woman is this hot when she's eating lunch?
She shakes her head at me then, as if she can clearly make out the filthy thoughts that are lingering in my head. "I told you to go, Daniels. You had your fun with the fat girl. Now that you've marked that particular item off your list, why don't you tuck your dick away and head home alone."
I recoil. Her words are sharp and mean, and damn it, they hurt. "I'm leaving, but if you think we're done, you're wrong. I'm going to show you exactly what you're missing out on by not taking a chance on me."
She scowls and then points emphatically toward the door. Then she turns her entire body away from me and goes back to eating her lunch. As if we didn't just kiss. As if we weren't anything to each other.
I know when to take the loss. I may not have sealed the deal with Lily this time either, but don't worry. I can totally make this work. Plus, now that I’ve kissed her, there’s no going back.
Lily
Why did I ever think that Ken Daniels was hot? I mean, okay, he is actually the best kisser in the entire universe, but his crappy personality defects more than offset the overall lickability factor.
Look, I know he's a flirt. A completely over the top ridiculous case of male overconfidence too. Fine. But there's something different about a man who is all talk and no action and a man who is willing to give me a brief taste of heaven only to pull it away because he can't cope with me fucking eating my lunch.
I'm allowed to eat. I'm allowed to enjoy food even though I'm a woman. Food is fucking delicious and I'm not going to pretend like I want a salad when what I really want is a hot, thick burger. I'm completely over it with people—especially men—trying to make me feel like I'm somehow less than what I really am because of my size.
Even if the man in question is Ken Daniels, I'm not on board with that crap. I don't care how many ridges he has in his ridiculously bumpy abs. If he can't deal with me, the real and honest me, then he doesn't deserve any further consideration on my part.
First of all, how fucking dare he try to act all food police with me. I still cannot believe that man had the nerve to sit there and go on about how he didn't want to get between me and my lunch. Total dick move, bro.
Second, how stupid is he to try to mansplain away me being hangry. I mean, I practically invented the word hangry. I know exactly what I'm like when I don't eat. I need a certain amount of food in order to be okay, and I don’t need some man telling me anything about that.
I spent my entire teenage decade feeling bad about myself because of crap like that. I'm not going to do it again now that I'm a fabulous adult. I spent way too much time in therapy to let one stupidly hot, ridiculous idiot guy derail all of my hard-won self love.
K.T. appears out of nowhere and places a beer in front of me.
I raise my eyes from my lunch and look at her. "I didn't order a beer."