The Hidden(17)

“He has this deep, sexy, bedroom voice, and he was all”–she lowered her voice in what she thought was an imitation of his–“This is Gabriel. Can you tell Emily I found her lipstick in the floorboard of my car? It must’ve fallen out of her purse while I was rockin’ her world in the backseat.”

I laughed and hit her on the arm. “He did not say that!”

“He didn’t have to! It was all in the tone of his voice.”

I rolled my eyes. “I was only in his car for, like, five minutes. Just long enough to go from the coffee house to the diner on third and back.”

“So you didn’t have a quickie in his backseat?” Her face fell, like a little kid who’d just been told Santa Claus wasn’t real.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little at the sight. “No, of course not. I hardly even know him.”

“How’d you meet him, then?”

“It was actually last week in a Dallas parking lot. His grocery cart got away from him and I helped get it back. When we got to talking, we found out we both go to the same school. Pretty crazy, huh?”

She frowned. “He didn’t sound like he was from Texas…”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. It was actually a myth that all people from Texas spoke with a “twang,” and it was one that really bothered me. I was from Dallas for crying out loud, not some hick town in the middle of nowhere. “Do I sound like I’m from Texas?”

She squinted at me for a second, and it looked like she was re-evaluating her earlier comment. “Good point,” she finally said. “So why didn’t you just come out and tell me about him? What’s with all the sneaking around?”

I glanced away. “I wasn’t sneaking…”

Beth gave me a pointed look–one that conveyed the word “bullshit.”

I sighed. “I didn’t tell you because I was hoping to avoid this,” I said, gesturing between the two of us. “I didn’t want to have to answer twenty thousand questions when it was nothing more than friends going out for coffee.”

She threw her hands up. “Well, until I get asked out by a sex god, I’m gonna have to live vicariously through you, so…deal with it.”

“You don’t even know what he– All right, whatever.” I quit while I was ahead, realizing it didn’t matter that Beth didn’t know what he looked like. She’d already made up her mind that he was Gabriel, God of Backseat Lovin’.

And for all I knew, she might be right.





Chapter Twelve

EMILY

“Ugh.” I huffed out a quick breath and threw off the covers.

Jesus Christ, it was hot in here.

I climbed out of bed, reveling in the cool tiles under my feet, and quickly took off my sweatpants. I turned around to face my one and only window, popped the lock, and pulled up on the ledge. It didn’t budge on my first tug, but squeaked open on the second. I pushed it open as far as it would go, breathing a sigh of relief when a gust of night air rushed into my stifling room.

I climbed back in bed and turned on my side, facing away from the window. My eyes closed as I listened to the new sounds–rustling trees, crickets chirping, my curtains flapping in the breeze… I felt the familiar tugs of sleep pulling me down when a soft scratching noise dragged me back into consciousness.

I rolled over, my heart freezing when I saw the dark figure near the foot of my bed. Adrenaline kicked in as I scrambled back, bumping into my headboard. My hand shot out to my nightstand, trying to grasp something–anything–I could use as a weapon.

Shit, all I had on my nightstand was a half-empty bottle of water and my stupid fucking alarm clock.

I grabbed the bottle and cocked my arm, prepared to chuck it at the intruder, when they stepped forward, into the sliver of moonlight coming through the window. It was enough for me to make out his features and see his hands, which were palms out in a non-threatening gesture.

I lowered my arm, blinking several times as I tried discerning if what–or better yet, who–I saw was real. It appeared so.

“Thomas?”

I gaped at him as he stood there, half-bathed in moonlight and half in the shadows. “What are you–”

All thoughts disintegrated as my eyes roamed over his naked torso, down to the muscled “V” of his hips, where his low-slung jeans sat. I swallowed. “What are you doing here?” I asked again, my voice cracking at the end.

“I wanted to see you. And based on your expression, you want to see me, too.” From the illuminated half of his face, I saw the corner of his lip turn up into a smirk.

Smug bastard.

And just like that, the spell was broken and my thoughts barraged back to me. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!” I cocked my arm back and chucked the bottle at him. He sidestepped the damned thing and it crashed into the wall before falling to the floor.