I study the rigid set of Banks’s chin. “I bet you’re a lot like her, aren’t you?”
For the first time since meeting him, the edge of his mouth tips up into an amused smile, and good God, he was handsome before, but now he’s dangerous. “You’d be right about that, Elise. Doesn’t make it any easier to come here every week and have my assistance rejected.” His thumb travels along the waistband of my skirt, slowly. So slowly. Then his fingers splay on my back, his palm riding my spine all the way up to my shoulders, back down with increased pressure, stopping just before my backside and I don’t know how he’s done it, but I want him to go lower. I want to feel that skilled hand on my bottom, pulling me close. Which, hello, would be entirely inappropriate. We don’t know each other and there are two other people in this car. Yet I can’t seem to stop myself from leaning in until my nose is almost buried in the notch of his throat and breathing the perfect scent of him into my bones. “And you, Elise? Why are you here?”
His voice has dropped considerably, his head tilted to the right, focus latched on my mouth. Just like before, with Gabe, I get the sense that he’s going to kiss me.
Am I going to let him?
Who am I and what happened to the girl who refused to borrow any of their outerwear for warmth? I am all about boundaries. Ask my roommate, Shayna—I strive to keep my relationship formal with her, despite her best efforts. But the lines between me and these men have blurred so much, I have no idea which new territory we’ve entered.
Banks dips his mouth closer to mine, creating an urgent tug in my belly.
My toes stiffen automatically, lifting me. The energy of the other two men seems to go on high alert—and then a phone rings.
Wait. Huh?
It’s Banks’s phone, vibrating between us.
The spell doesn’t dissipate completely, but when I take a hard gulp of cold air, there’s a tic in his cheek and we allow a few inches between our mouths. Inches that should have been there all along, because my goodness, he’s a stranger. He studies me, I study him back, and I can see the moment he deems it wise to take the call.
Without breaking eye contact with me, he tugs the phone from the inner pocket of his coat, answering it with a slip of that magical thumb. “Hello?”
“Bad news, coach,” comes a voice from the other side. “Trainers are putting Vankman on the injured list for the next two weeks. Goddamn ankle. He won’t play on Tuesday.”
Banks tips his head back, his breath visible as it curls toward the ceiling. “Fuck me.”
“Why don’t you take the call?” Tobias suggests, closer now. Right beside us. “I’ve got her.”
“Like hell you do,” I counter.
“Take my coat,” Banks says, removing the garment with one hand and wrapping it around my shoulders, phone still pressed to his ear. With a warning look in Tobias’s direction, he paces a few feet away and continues the call, leaving me with the man on this tram that puts me most on guard. Mentally, I’m stacking bricks in between him and I, slathering on mortar and slapping on a DANGER sign for good measure.
“I’ve got the coat,” I say, pressing a finger to his stomach and pushing him back a step. “I don’t want or need your body warmth.”
“That’s a shame.” He drags his full bottom lip through his teeth. “I’d love to give it to you.”
I’ve seen what he wants to give me. Many times. It’s very photogenic.
“Not interested.”
“Liar.” His lips twitch. “Tell me which scene lives in your head rent free. The one where I play a male escort? Fan favorite, that one.”
I should slap him upside his head for being so forward, when I’ve made it abundantly clear that I’d like him to back off. He deserves a good shove at the very least. “Actually, the ones you did with two women were always the best,” I say, batting my eyelashes. “Your mouth was too busy to do much talking.”
An appreciative grin flashes across his seductive mouth and I have the dumb urge to return that smile, even though I’m beyond irritated. Is the altitude affecting me?
“Do you speak to every woman with this much familiarity?”
There’s a twitch somewhere in the neighborhood of his right dimple, but he maintains his smirk. “Sometimes. But I’m not all that interested in their answers,” he says, seeming to catch himself off guard. “The way I am with yours.”
“Why me?” No answer. His mischievous grin dulls ever so slightly and his blue eyes grab onto mine tightly, holding—and I see something vulnerable there. I get a fleeting glimpse behind his tomcat façade and it…affects me. “You behave like this as a distraction, don’t you?”
He chuckles. “A distraction from what?”
I shrug a shoulder. “The real you. Whoever that is.”
Amusement fades from his expression. “The real anyone is usually a disappointment.”
“What are you more afraid of? Being disappointed? Or doing the disappointing?”
Tobias breaks our stare quickly, shoveling fingers through his thick head of chestnut hair. “Who says it can’t be both?”
The thrum in my veins grows thicker. I’m tethered to him by a rope of intimacy that was objective before, but it tightened, became personal, with a brief glimpse at the man underneath. I’m becoming magnetized against my will.
This isn’t real. Seriously. I have to be imagining this.
My brain has conjured this entire bizarre scenario.
A third man cannot be making my pulse race. Fast. Faster. In a way that confuses me, because it’s reminiscent of fight or flight, except the rapid-fire pounding in my veins is a lot thicker. And lower. My erogenous zones are well acquainted with this man—his chiseled face and deep, promissory voice—and they’ve fired up at his nearness, forcing me to press my knees together in an attempt to quell a spreading ache.
He notices.
His chest rises and falls with a curse.
But I don’t expect him to look pained over my embarrassing, telltale move.
Briefly, he closes his eyes. When they open, his gaze travels up the side of my neck, over the crown of my head, as if he’s taking my measurements. “The uptight one asked you a question, Elise.” His tone once again cajoling. “What business do you have on Roosevelt Island?”
Reality comes back to me in degrees.
Obviously I can’t tell him—them—the truth.
Not with Gabe sitting directly behind Tobias. A quick peek at his reflection in the window tells me the construction worker is listening closely, too. I’m not a good liar. I’m much more likely to tell an uncomfortable truth and damn the consequences, but in this case, I’m better off telling an itty bitty white lie. The last thing I need is Gabe tipping off his boss that someone from the Gotham Times has connected him to the deputy mayor.
The sandwich girl, but hey. Semantics.
And maybe there is a tiny part of me that is embarrassed to tell them I sling ham on whole wheat all day. Maybe there is even a little annoying part of me that wants to impress them, especially since I haven’t impressed anyone lately. Especially myself.
“I’m a reporter,” I say, just as Banks hangs up his call, his attention immediately zipping back to me. Staying there. All three of them are hanging on my every word. Why? No way am I physically disturbing all three of them the way they are disturbing me. “I was on the island to get some details about the housing project.”