She shrugged, her posture the very definition of defensive as she crossed her arms. “There’s no ‘of course’ about it. Beauty is subjective.”
“Some beauty is,” he agreed. “Yours is not.” He eyed her with furrowed brows. “Your features are proportionate, your cheekbones are ridiculously high, and you have the kind of lips that…”
She whipped her head around to face him, her brows arched high. “The kind of lips that what?”
He opened his mouth and shut it. He was all for honesty, but he wasn’t such a big fan of being slapped across the face and he suspected that if he continued to catalogue the many and myriad ways her body appealed to him, it would end with her palm smacking his cheek.
He couldn’t afford a bruise for his final days of filming. He looked bad enough as it was with this ridiculous beard.
“Well?” she demanded.
He sighed. The fact that this woman wasn’t aware of her own undeniable appeal was annoying to him. Frustrating. Who’d let this woman walk around the streets of New York City not knowing she was a hottie?
And who’d been so dumb as to leave her flying solo on Valentine’s Day?
Were all of the men in her life morons or just blind?
Apparently so, because now it was up for him to let her in on the fact that she was dangerously seductive, all the more so because she didn’t seem to realize that she had the aura of a film noir femme fatale and the voice of Jessica Rabbit…at least, she did when she forgot to speak like an emotionless android.
“Well?” She turned to face him fully and at that moment they passed beneath a street lamp that lit her face better than any grip he’d ever worked with on set. It cast just the right amount of shadows to make her breathtakingly mysterious. It made her lipgloss gleam and her eyes sparkle and…crap.
He was done for.
“What kind of lips do I have?” she asked.
“The kind of lips that are begging to be kissed,” he said.
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, but it was tense. Heavy. They maintained eye contact like they were in the midst of some staring contest. He was painfully aware of his heart beating in his chest, absurdly conscious of the narrow gap between them.
A few inches that felt like a deep, treacherous ravine.
She broke the silence first. “Are they still begging?”
He gulped. “Yeah. Yes. Yup.” He nodded a little too vigorously, his gaze caught and held by those lips.
“It’s not polite to make a lady beg,” she said.
It took two solid seconds to register what she’d said. For a moment he was too caught up in the sound of her voice…that low, husky, seductive tone. And then it clicked.
Oh crap.
She was going to let him kiss her. He didn’t waste a second, sliding across the middle seat and wrapping an arm around her waist. He moved his other arm around her shoulder and—
“Ouch!” She winced. “My hair.”
“Sorry.” He reached over to disentangle a long black curl from the button on his jacket’s cuff. He faced her with a grimace. “Is the moment ruined?”
She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Kinda yeah.”
He started to lean back, mentally cursing the stupid button for ruining his one chance at a kiss with this weird, but super sexy stranger.
“But…” She sighed loudly. “I mean…” She threw her hands up before turning to face him again. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”
Her tone wasn’t Jessica Rabbit anymore, it was just resigned. Maybe even a little sad.
And that made him a little sad, because… Stupid Valentine’s Day. A day invented to make lonely people feel even lonelier. He met her gaze and for the first time since they’d met, he got the feeling that they were on the same page.
She was lonely. And sad. And maybe even feeling a little pathetic.
He knew he was. It was sheer desperation that had him hitting on Kat’s ice queen pal. He hadn’t wanted his night to end without at least a hint of romance. A taste of some sort of connection, even if it was fleeting.
He moved toward her again, but this time he didn’t tempt fate by placing any buttons or zippers near her long hair. Nope. He reached out and gently cupped her face in his hands as he moved in slowly. So slowly. He wanted to give her ample time to back away. Or slap him.
His money was on her getting physical. Something told him she’d have no problem breaking his nose if he so much as stepped a toe over the line.
With that in mind, he paused scant centimeters from her lips. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
Her huff of air in response was warm and sweet on his lips. “What are you waiting for? A handwritten invitation?”
He closed the distance between them and…died.
He might have died.
His brain ceased working. His heart took a hiatus from beating. Even his lungs seemed to stop all activity for that first collision.
And it was a collision. His mouth pressed to hers just as she’d parted her lips for air and the effect was insane. Their lips seemed to lock together as though they’d been made for this. Their breath mingled as fireworks went off behind his eyelids and heat speared through his limbs.
She pulled back with a gasp. Her dark eyes were wide and his were likely even wider.
“What was that?” he muttered.
She shook her head. “No time for questions.” And then she was kissing him, leaning in and claiming his lips, testing and teasing and…
Well, he was fairly certain she was performing some sort of scientific experiment on him in her quest to figure out why on earth their bodies were behaving like this.
She had to have felt it too. He cupped the back of her neck and tilted his head. It wasn’t enough. Her answering kiss was equally intense, like she couldn’t get enough either.
It wasn’t enough. He’d been suffocating all his life, and he just hadn’t known it. Not until this moment. Because she felt like his first breath of air. His chest expanded as her lips moved against his.
He wanted more. He wanted it all. He wanted—
“Stop.”
He wanted to stop. Well, he didn’t want to, but her voice was firm and cold. He froze, her face still too close to his for him to see her face. “Is something wrong?”
Her breathing was heavy, just as labored as his as she shifted back into her own seat and smoothed a hand over her curls. Then she started muttering.
The muttering was definitely not in any way sexy. It sounded…angry. But it wasn’t aimed at him, so that was something.
“What are you thinking? Stupid… I can’t believe… Ugh. So stupid.” It sounded something like that.
“Um, are you okay?” he asked.
She turned to him with a frown that was more than a little terrifying. He pulled back further until he was leaning against his door as she leaned forward and said something to the driver.
Next thing he knew, they were pulling over, right under a neon sign for a drugstore that lit up the interior and killed any remaining wisps of mystery or intrigue that might have remained.
She turned to face him fully, clutching her purse in front of her like he might try to steal her jewelry.
He scratched his stupid, ugly beard and blinked at the garish light coming in. He probably did resemble a creepy hobo in the harsh neon glow.
“I have to be up early tomorrow,” she said, her voice cold and filled with expectation. It was the sort of voice he expected from the waiting room nurse at his doctor’s office—cold, brisk, and impatient.
She continued to stare at him until he realized what she wanted.
Him gone.
“Oh, right,” he said, scrambling to turn and open the car door but he got stuck sitting on the tail of his jacket and had to fish it out from under his butt.
It was not his most graceful moment.
She cleared her throat and he glanced over to see that she was watching him with crossed arms and a grim expression. Somehow in the brie
f time it had taken him to extricate himself from his coat prison, she’d pulled her hair back in a severe bun that did nothing for her sharp features.
She still looked hot, though, in a sort of uptight librarian way.
Yet another side of her. Another facet to add to the ever growing list. He wondered briefly if he could talk her into another kiss before he left. But then she lifted her wrist and took a meaningful look at her watch before fixing him with another hard stare accompanied by pursed lips.
He was holding her up, apparently. He didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused.
Or scared.
She was kind of scary when she was scowling like that. Was she always like this or was it something he’d done?
Maybe giving a woman the kiss of a lifetime was considered an insult in her culture.
The thought made him grin. He turned to face her just as he was about to reach for the door handle, ready to make that joke aloud just to see if he could crack the scowl.
But when he turned he was faced with Attila the Bun.
On second thought, maybe now was not the time for jokes. He reached for the door. “I’ll just, uh… I’ll see you later, I guess.”
She didn’t smile, but she did slide along the backseat behind him, closing the door firmly behind him. The car peeled away from the curb like they were in the midst of a car chase. He found himself staring for several moments as his brain caught up to speed.
What the…? He’d just been kicked out of a cab. By a woman whose name he’d never learned.
He looked around then, trying to get his bearings, and what he see made his jaw drop.
He’d been kicked out of the cab…in Brooklyn.
Caleb did not live in Brooklyn. He’d thought his Valentine’s Day couldn’t get any worse, but he’d been wrong. He’d met a mystery woman, had the best kiss of his like, and then been mercilessly kicked out of a car like some unwanted creeper.
In the wrong borough.
He sighed as he huddled against the cold and pulled his phone out from his back pocket to call for another car.
In Brooklyn.
This was so not his week.
Four
Kat’s nose was wrinkled up in disgust as she sipped on her champagne. “She kicked you out of the car?”
Yvette was laughing too hard to comment.
Caleb sighed. He should never have opened his big mouth.
Yvette stopped laughing long enough to wheeze, “Wait, she lives in Brooklyn? I thought you had a strict no-outer-boroughs rule when it came to your lady love.”
Kat nodded, her expression far too bland. “Right. Because Miss Perfect would only live in Manhattan. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Yvette repeated.
She sounds like an idiot. His mystery woman’s scornful words came back to him clear as day. He scowled down at his meal. “Very funny, guys. You know, I don’t make fun of your true loves.”
Yvette patted his arm. “That’s because they’re real human beings, not imaginary.”
“And not Barbie,” Kat added.
“Why are we even talking about my dream girl?” he asked. Their brows arched and he tried to town down the defensive edge to his voice. “I didn’t even mention my ideal woman.”
Kat’s grin was unapologetic. “No, but you’re the one who brought up your date the other night.”
“It wasn’t a date!” And he should never have brought it up. “She has nothing to do with my dream girl. I don’t even like her.”
“But you kissed her,” Yvette pointed out.
“It was an accident,” he mumbled.
Kat tapped a finger to her chin. “Hmm. Accidental kisses. Is that a thing?”
He sighed. “You know what I mean. It was Valentine’s Day. I was lonely, and she was…” Hot. Vibrant. Electric. “There.”
“Ah,” Kat said with a knowing tone. “The old ‘there’ excuse.”
Yvette snort laughed into her drink.
Caleb glared. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
But Kat was still watching him expectantly, clearly waiting to hear more about the miserable end to his least favorite holiday. He didn’t want to talk anymore for several reasons, not the least of which was that his pride was still smarting.
It wasn’t every day a beautiful woman kicked him to the curb. Literally.
But he was also realizing he should never have brought it up in the first place because soon enough Kat would grow curious about who this mystery woman was. She’d want a physical description and more details…including a name.
He didn’t relish the idea of admitting that he didn’t know her name. As of now, Caleb had omitted the fact that his mystery woman had been at their party. As far as they knew, she was just some woman he’d met on the street while waiting for a ride. But if they realized she’d been at the party, they might know who she was and he’d decided he’d rather not know.
If he knew her name he could probably get her number. Tracking her down would be too easy and he had no desire to pursue that crazy chick.
But he would. He knew himself well enough to know his weaknesses—and being a hopeless romantic was one of them. Even now he was fighting the urge to ask for her name so he could send her roses or something.
He had a compulsion to do something thoughtful for the woman whose kiss electrified his world. Also, he felt like maybe roses were in order because guilt was nagging at him. Had he offended her in some way? Had he taken it too far with that kiss?
So yeah. If he knew her name, he’d send flowers, and nobody wanted that. She clearly didn’t want that. If she’d wanted flowers or even a proper date, she would have told him her name… Right?
He had to face the fact that the woman he’d kissed—the woman who’d kissed him back so passionately—did not want anything to do with him. And she certainly wasn’t his dream woman. His dream woman was a sweetheart. Kind and warm and just as into romance as he was. The lady from the cab? Well, she was intimidating and cold and clearly not in the market to be wooed.
He had a feeling roses would wither and die under her harsh glare.
“So was this mystery woman at the party?” Kat asked. “What did she look like?”
There they were. The questions he’d been hoping to avoid. He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, I’m never seeing her again.”
“Good riddance.” Yvette snort-laughed into her glass again. “I can’t believe you were kicked out of a cab.”
Wonderful. He was so pleased he could provide this evening’s entertainment.
Kat was eyeing him closely and she seemed to see that he genuinely was not enjoying being teased about this. She shifted in her seat and thankfully changed the topic. “Sorry we missed brunch the other day,” Kat said. “But what was this news you wanted to fill us in on?” Her face was lit with eager anticipation. Yvette’s too.
It occurred to him now that he probably shouldn’t have made it sound like he’d had good news to share. After wrapping up his last scene on Monday, Caleb had promptly gone home to shower. Then he’d sat on his couch for a little while, pretending to watch television and not think about the fact that starting the next day, he had nowhere to be. No job to go to, no career to think about, no clue where his life was heading.
Television had not provided the adequate diversion he’d been seeking. He added tequila to the mix, which helped his quest immensely. Soon enough, he was no longer even pretending to watch TV but his whole perspective on the situation had shifted.
Tequila always had been his go-to happy drink, and on Monday night the lovely alcohol managed to convince him that this could be a good thing. A great thing, even. Losing this cushy acting gig was just the kick in the butt he needed to make some changes in his life.
Changes were good.
It was at that point he’d texted his besties and told them to meet him after Kat got off work the next day so they could celebrate his good news. He’d managed to hold onto that chipper attitude for th
e next twenty-four hours or so, clinging to the optimistic viewpoint with everything he had.
He’d even gone so far as to order a bottle of champagne for the table, declaring that this was a night for celebratory drinks.
So now, not so surprisingly, Kat and Yvette were curious as to what exactly they were celebrating.
Right. About that…
He held up his glass and forced a smile that Soap Opera Digest had called “utterly charming and too hot to handle.”
“So?” Yvette prompted when he paused with his glass in the air, his smile firmly fixed on his face.
“I lost my job!” He thrust his glass forward as if cheersing them and then tossed in back in one long gulp.
When he faced his friends again, they were staring at him… and neither shared his brilliant smile.
“Wait. What?” Yvette said.
“What happened?” Kat asked.
His forced happiness withered and died under the weight of their concern. Then the questions started in earnest and he dropped the happy act entirely as he told them everything, starting from the moment two weeks ago when he’d been called into the writers’ room and was informed that they’d just written him off the show.
By the end of it, all three of them were sullen and gloomy, the champagne long gone and replaced by three strong cocktails.
“That sucks,” Yvette said.
“That’s such a bummer,” Kat added.
He nodded. It was indeed a bummer, and it truly did suck. Where on earth had his earlier optimism gone? He tried to remember why this was a good thing.
He turned to his friends for help. “This could be a good thing, right?”
They rallied to his cause like the troopers they were. “Oh definitely,” Yvette said, sitting up straight as if energized by newfound excitement. “This is the dawn of a new day.” She banged a fist on the table. “A new adventure begins now.”
He nodded enthusiastically at her dramatics.
Kat looked far more grim. “Seriously,” she said with a seriousness that could only come from cocktails. “I’m totally serious,” she added. “This could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
Once Upon an Ice Queen (Instalove in the City Book 3) Page 3