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  “That’s awesome,” Adrian said. “You’re really lucky.”

  “It’s not all luck.”

  “Of course not.” He poured more wine from the bucket the waiter had set by the table. “I’ve seen how hard you work. You’re there every day. How is it working to have just Monday off?”

  Switching her brain from Ox mode to work mode was a relief. “It’s fine for now. I might hire someone down the line. Depends on my hours and what my busiest traffic days are.”

  Adrian leaned forward. “Do you really want to talk about work?”

  Yes, please. “Did you want to talk about Sense and Sensibility? If you want to read more Austen, I’d recommend Pride and Prejudice. It’s her most popular for a reason. Or Emma. Both are pretty funny.”

  “I want to talk about you.” Adrian sipped his wine. “What do you like besides reading?”

  Emmie swallowed. She hated these types of conversations. Wasn’t reading enough? There were enough books to keep her occupied for the rest of her life. Books about everything! What else could she talk about? “I went hiking recently. That was fun.”

  And now she was thinking about Ox again.

  Adrian lit up. “Nice! I like going to the coast. I love hiking at the beach.”

  Emmie hated the beach. Well, she liked the ocean from a distance, but not lying in the sand. Sand got everywhere. “We went hiking in the mountains. Up to the sequoias.”

  “We?” Adrian’s smile was tight. “Did you go with Ox?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded slowly. “Maybe I can take you to the coast for a wine-tasting trip or something like that.”

  “That sounds fun.” It did sound fun, so why was Emmie feeling so guilty? Ox hadn’t talked to her in days. He’d all but disappeared by Saturday morning. He wasn’t answering texts. He didn’t call. He wasn’t even calling his clients because two had shown up at the shop for their appointments, and Emmie had been at a loss making excuses for him.

  And now she was on a date with Adrian Saroyan.

  Ox had never called her his girlfriend. She wasn’t cheating on him. Besides, this was a friend dinner. That’s what she’d told Adrian. They were friends and he was talking about taking her on a friendly wine-tasting trip to the coast. As friends.

  Emmie, you are so full of shit.

  Adrian was not looking at her like a friend. He was looking at her like he wanted to get in her pants. Not that she was wearing pants. She was wearing a pretty skirt and shirt, not jeans and a goofy T-shirt like she would if she went out with Tayla or Ethan or Jeremy.

  She fidgeted in her seat. “Adrian, I’m sorry.”

  He set down his wine. “Why?”

  “I shouldn’t be here. It’s not fair to you. And—”

  “Where’s Ox?” he asked. “He wasn’t working when I picked you up. Doesn’t he usually work on Sunday?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know when he works?”

  Emmie’s eyes flashed. “Why the third degree?”

  “I’m trying to figure out why you’re sorry to be with me when the other man you’re involved with isn’t around. In fact, he hasn’t been around in a few days, has he?”

  “You’ve been keeping track? So those times you stopped by the shop to chat weren’t friendly, I guess. Were you spying on me? On him?”

  “Where is he, Emmie?”

  “Why is that your business?” A gust from the door touched her neck and Emmie shivered.

  “Because I like you.” His voice rose a little. Not too much, but enough that their neighbor turned his head. “I like you very much. I’m attracted to you, Marianne Elliot, and I think if you gave me a chance—”

  “Who’s Marianne?”

  Emmie’s eyes went wide when she heard his voice. She turned and saw Ox standing in the foyer of the restaurant, staring at her and Adrian. “Ox?”

  He was dripping wet from the rain. He strode toward them, his eyes blazing. “Who’s Marianne?”

  Emmie turned around and crossed her arms. Of course he’d chosen the middle of her… non-date to turn back up. Of course he did.

  “Marianne is her name,” Adrian said. “Her actual name, not her nickname.”

  “Emmie?”

  Her cheeks heated. “I don’t like Marianne. Don’t call me Marianne.”

  “Is that your name?”

  “Marianne Elliot. M.E. I’ve gone by Emmie since high school. It’s not a big deal, Miles.”

  “How about that?” Ox was dripping on the carpet, his thumbs hooked in his pockets, the bottom foot of his jeans covered in mud, and everyone was staring at them. He did not look amused by her nickname. “So I’m gone four days and you’re out with someone else?”

  “It’s not like that,” she whispered. “Can we talk about this—”

  “If you’d called me two days ago when I asked you to, we could have talked about this.” Ox glanced at Adrian. “But I guess I know why you were so busy. Good to know where I stand.”

  “It is not like that!” Emmie glanced around the restaurant, mortified by the public scene.

  “Four days, Em. What the hell?”

  “Where have you been?” she hissed. “I don’t even know where you’ve been.”

  “My mom was in the hospital.”

  “How’s she feeling, Miles?” a voice called from the other side of the dining room.

  “Much better, Mr. Howard. She’s home now. Thanks for asking.”

  Emmie stood up, her napkin falling to the ground. “Your mom was in the hospital and you didn’t call me?”

  “I didn’t know what was going on, and I didn’t want to bother—” Ox suddenly stopped and looked around, realizing that every eye in the restaurant was on them. He leaned down to Emmie. “I’m not doing this here. Him or me?” he whispered. “Who do you want?”

  “You, you idiot! Why didn’t you call me?”

  Ox grabbed her chin, kissed her hard, and reached for her hand. “Get your coat, Buttons. You’re not having dinner with Adrian Saroyan.”

  Emmie picked up her napkin and set it on the table. “Adrian, I’m—”

  “You’re not sorry,” Adrian muttered, “so don’t say you’re sorry. See you later, Emmie.”

  Ox muttered something she couldn’t hear under his breath, then he grabbed Emmie’s coat while she grabbed her purse. He walked to the door, taking a second to drape Emmie’s coat over her shoulders before he strode into the pouring rain, Emmie’s hand still clutched in his.

  She put up with it for five long strides before she yanked her hand away.

  Ox spun around. “What?”

  “I am not finished being mad at you for disappearing, and also I am not impressed by the caveman deal back there.” She marched past him. Her feet were squishing in her heels it was raining so hard. But she was only three blocks from her house. At this point she just wanted to go home. Tayla was in San Francisco visiting some friends, and Emmie decided she should have gone with her even if she had to take the train. She wanted to go home and eat ice cream and read a book she knew the ending to. It was going to be a happy ending where heroes weren’t assholes who disappeared for days on end and didn’t call you when their mom was sick.

  “Where are you going?” Ox yelled.

  “Home! I’m freezing cold and soaked and I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “So you’re mad at me? Is that what’s happening? I’m the one who found you on a date with Adrian Saroyan, and you’re mad at me? What the hell?”

  It was eight o’clock and no one else was on the sidewalk, but Emmie was still allergic to public displays. She kept walking.

  Ox yelled, “What if it was me and Ginger, huh? Would you like that?”

  Emmie stopped in her tracks and spun around. “It wasn’t like that. I promised him weeks ago—way before we started… whatever it is we’re doing—that I’d go out to dinner with him and discuss a book he was reading.”

  “Whatever it is we’re doing?” Ox asked. “Wh
at do you think we’re doing?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “I’m fucking falling in love with you and you don’t know?”

  Emmie’s jaw dropped open. She could feel rain falling on her lips. Down her cheeks. It was pouring, but all she heard was Ox.

  “You’re falling in love with me?”

  Ox didn’t say anything. He walked toward her, grabbed her hand, and started dragging her toward the shop.

  “Ox?”

  “It’s fucking pouring out here. You need to get inside.”

  Had he meant it? Was it said in the heat of the moment? She thought he’d been playing. She’d been convinced he was ghosting her.

  Emmie stumbled, and he caught her before she fell. Ox bent down, pulled off her soaking-wet shoes, then handed them to her before he picked her up and carried her down the sidewalk cradled in his arms.

  Emmie was speechless for a block.

  “Total romance-hero move,” she said. “If I were writing a romance novel, I’d want to put that in, but I couldn’t because it would be considered too cliché.”

  He barely cracked a smile. “Buttons, you kill me.”

  “Is your mom going to be okay? Are you?”

  “They put her on a couple different blood pressure medications. She should be fine once they figure out what the right combination is.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Saturday morning. I was on my way here when she had a dizzy spell. Her nose started bleeding and she passed out at dinner. The hospital just let her out this afternoon.”

  “That’s why you didn’t call.”

  He gave a short nod and set her down when he reached the door. Digging into his pocket, he unlocked the door and pushed it open. The shop was warm and dry and utterly silent. All she could hear was the rain falling outside and low thunder in the distance. Emmie dropped her shoes by the door and peeled off the soaking-wet coat, hanging it on the coat tree by the door.

  “I left my umbrella at Marley’s.”

  Ox had his hands in his pockets again. “And I left my truck there. I’ll grab your umbrella when I get it.”

  “How did you know we were—”

  “I didn’t. I was driving here to see you when I passed the restaurant. I could see you right in the window.”

  Emmie tried to imagine what she’d feel like if she’d seen him having dinner with Ginger. She’d have been devastated.

  Ox was staring at her. “You look beautiful.”

  She looked down at her dripping outfit. “I look ridiculous.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re beautiful.”

  She shook her head. “I told him dinner was just as friends. But then he wanted to go to Marley’s, so I wanted to dress up. It’s not… When I told him we could go for dinner when he finished Sense and Sensibility, it was before… us. And then when he finished the book and called me—”

  “He read a book so you’d go out with him?”

  “I know.” She desperately wanted to get into dry clothes. “Stupid, right?”

  “Smart.” He took a step closer. “He knows you.”

  “Not as well as you do.”

  “Yeah? I didn’t even know your real name.”

  “I hate my real name.”

  Ox put a hand on her cheek, rubbing away the drips that were falling from her hair. “You should get upstairs. Get dry.”

  Emmie caught his hand before he could pull it away. “You said you were falling in love with me.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Ox froze.

  “You said it, and it’s just hanging there now,” Emmie whispered. “I can’t pretend I didn’t hear it. I don’t want to pretend I didn’t hear it. But I don’t want to say the same thing back to you right now because then what if you think I’m just saying it because you did? I don’t want you to think that, because… because it’s not. That’s not why I’d be saying it, but I can’t say it now.”

  His voice was rough. “Why not?”

  “Because you scare me to death.” She fisted a hand over her heart. “I almost said it the first morning after you kissed me. You were joking with Tayla through the door, and you two were making each other laugh and I thought it, which is crazy because that’s way too soon, right? It’s crazy soon, and that’s not who I am, Ox. I need time and I need to know I can depend—”

  “Stop.” Ox put a finger on her lips. “You’re freaking out again, and I’m done being patient.” He didn’t say another word. He bent down, picked her up, and lifted her to his mouth. Emmie wrapped her legs around his waist held on while he kissed the hell out of her. She went from frozen to boneless in seconds. Ox turned the deadbolt in the door and strode toward the stairs, his mouth never leaving hers.

  Emmie dug her fingers into his shoulders and gripped the thick muscles that tensed under her hands. Ox stopped at the base of the stairs and set her down.

  “My shoes are muddy,” he said.

  “So take them off.” She started unbuttoning the quilted flannel shirt he wore over his T-shirt.

  Ox bent down and tugged off his boots and socks, leaving them in a pile at the base of the stairs. He looked at her fingers unbuttoning his shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’re soaking wet.”

  “So are you.” He fingered the tiny buttons on her black cardigan. “Buttons.”

  She shoved his wet flannel off his shoulders. “And your jeans are muddy.”

  “I’m filthy.”

  “You should take them off.”

  “I should.”

  Her heart started to race as soon as his fingers flipped open the buttons on his fly. He peeled down his wet jeans, leaving himself clad only in a soaking-wet pair of boxer briefs and a T-shirt.

  Emmie backed up the stairs, her fingers hooked in the hem of his shirt.

  “Your clothes are all wet.” Ox gripped her black cardigan at the waist and pulled it up and over her head. “That’s better.”

  She kept walking backward up the stairs, pulling him with her. “Are you cold?”

  “Freezing.” He peeled off his T-shirt, exposing every delicious inch of his black-and-grey-inked chest. “But I’m getting warmer all the time.”

  “Tayla’s out of town.”

  “Don’t care.”

  Ox kept up with her on the stairs, knitting their fingers together and pulling her close for a kiss. His lips were chilled but heated on hers. Steam had to be coming off her skin. Ox reached behind her and opened the door at the top of the stairs, but they didn’t make it inside. Emmie lost her footing and sat down hard on the top step. Ox crawled up to her, fumbling with her skirt as he tried to pull it off.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Where’s the…?”

  “Here.”

  “Is it a zip— Got it.” He pulled the skirt down her legs, exposing her legs to the dim light in the stairwell. The hardwood floor was cold, but she barely noticed as Ox reached for her shirt and rolled it up her torso. Emmie lifted her arms and let him undress her.

  She was freezing cold and hot at the same time. The air chilled her skin, but Ox heated it. He nipped at her neck as he threw her shirt over his shoulder and down the stairs. He crawled between her legs, knees on the steps beneath the landing, and pushed her back, coming down on top of her and covering her torso with his body.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, his lips hovering over hers.

  “Not anymore.”

  He flashed a smile before he kissed her again. His tongue teased her lips until she opened for him. Her thighs cradled his hips, and she could feel the delicious weight of his body pressing hers into the floor. They were at the top of the stairs, only a few feet from her door, but she couldn’t seem to pull away. Ox was ravenous, biting her lips and squeezing her breasts before he ran his hands down the side of her body.

  “Sex on stairs,” he whispered against her lips, “is highly overrated. Except for one particular thing.” Kissing down her body,
he rolled her panties down her legs and tossed those over his shoulder too. Spreading her legs, he settled between them, kneeling and bringing his mouth down to the juncture of her thighs.

  “Oh my—” Emmie gasped and clutched at his arms as Ox feasted on her.

  She writhed on the floor, the cold hardwood at her back and the heat of Ox’s mouth between her thighs. Lights flashed behind her closed eyes as she climaxed in a sharp crescendo of pleasure. His lips and tongue stayed on her, driving her out of her mind. She couldn’t remember what it felt like to be cold. There was only heat and pleasure and Ox. His kisses turned softer, savoring her, easing her down from the high. She watched him as he sat up. He licked his lips and held his hand out, helping Emmie to her feet on nearly boneless legs.

  “Bed.”

  Emmie nodded wordlessly but didn’t move. Ox picked her up and she clung to his shoulders as he unhooked her bra and dropped it in the middle of the living room. She was completely naked as he carried her through the apartment. Rain pounded on the roof, running down the windows and turning Main Street into an oily blur. He found his way to her room in the darkness, tossing her on the bed and stripping down to his skin. The room was lit by streetlamps outside, awash in blacks and greys, lending her familiar surroundings a surreal air as rain smeared the windows and beat against the roof.

  Ox put a fist around his erection and watched Emmie scoot up the bed in the dim light. “Condoms?”

  “Bottom drawer in the bathroom.”

  He nodded and walked out the door, returning in moments with a box he tore open with his teeth. He rolled on a condom and fell on the bed, grabbing Emmie and searching for her mouth again.

  “Wanted you…,” he murmured against her lips. “I’ve wanted you since the first day we met.”

  “Even though— Oh my…” Emmie gasped as Ox shoved her up to the pillows and latched his mouth around one breast. “Ox, stop teasing.”

  “Never.” He rolled to his back and dragged her over his chest. Then he sat up and scooted against the headboard, bracing Emmie on his lap with his hands gripping her hips. “I like teasing you. I like handling you.”

  Emmie had never felt more handled. Or turned on. Ox was strong. He lifted her and brought her down over his lap, easing himself into her body as he captured her lips. He groaned out her name as she sank onto him, pressing their bodies together. He moved them together, surging into her as she braced herself on his shoulders.