I want to taste it. To put my tongue on his pulse and feel his life’s source.
“My name is Ezra.” There’s a deep richness of his voice, and when it’s absent of laughter, it’s almost directing.
This man was, after all, able to get my name from me without properly asking for it.
But when it’s tinged with humor, it pulls you in to want to laugh as well.
“Are you going to answer my question?” he asks.
His words yank me from my assessment, and I shrug, even though his tone makes me want to try to.
Something about him makes me ache to please him.
People in this town are wary of strangers. But I welcome the connection to the outside world. And I welcome this newcomer like a kid wanting to open a brand-new toy.
I’d love to play with him.
“I don’t know how to answer it,” I reply. “No one’s asked me that before.”
And it’s true. No one bothers to ask about me because they either grew up with me or are intimidated by my resting bitch face.
If I’m being honest, the bitch in me doesn’t stop at my face.
“Such a shame,” he murmurs, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.
“What’s the shame here?” I wonder aloud. I may be a small-town girl, but I don’t enjoy being baited.
Yet, here we are.
“The idea that you’ve been overlooked. Shoved in some bookstore when you belong out there, breaking some poor man’s heart.”
Laughter threatens to break through the moment. The only men I ever let close enough to break my heart are the ones I read about in the stories that surround me nearly every day.
“And if they’ve broken mine?” I ask, wondering what pitiful state he could imagine me in; wondering if he’d paint me as a damsel in distress, the brush in his hand worn by his work.
“You’re not the type,” he says, a smile on his face that tells me he’s reading me like any one of these stories that fill the room.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He pushes off from the wall and I wonder how attraction could become so palpable, it’s like a third person in the room.
“You like to ask a lot of questions for someone who can’t even attempt to answer one,” he says.
“And you like to speak in riddles and pretend they truly mean something,” I fling back his way, satisfied with my wit.
His snigger has me smiling.
“See?” he says. “Not the type.”
And maybe he’s right.
But he doesn’t have to know that.
“Ezra,” I say, admiring the way his eyebrows draw just a little at the sound of his name, “would you care to accompany me to the fireworks?”
Ruin Me: The Summer of Secrets: Part 1 Page 11