Imaginary Lines (16 page)

His lips turned up. “Because I’m so good-looking?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and shook my head at him. “Not exactly what I was thinking.”

He smiled at the ceiling. “And how many of you are there at your work?”

He was unable to give things up. “Oh, not many. Mostly I work with these three guys.”

“Should I be jealous?”

I narrowed my eyes at him and decided to let that pass for now. “Tanya has plans, I think. She wants it to be serious journalism.”

First the first time since he’d arrived, his face shifted toward seriousness. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. Maybe I should have stayed on the jealousy track. Maybe we should be talking about that kiss. “She wants to blow stories wide open. Right now the news department gets to cover the really big stuff, like rape or murder.”

He arched a brow and straightened his back. “How complimentary.”

“You know what I mean. Or even things like report on drugs and gambling.” He didn’t stop watching me with that oddly serious look, so I couldn’t help prodding at him. “You have any drugs or gambling going on?”

His gaze flickered slightly, that same flickering from before, where I just couldn’t quite figure out what it meant. Only it made me think about Rachael Hamilton crying over her boyfriend in their apartment.

But then it was gone, and he grinned, even though I was positive he didn’t mean it. “I guess that means I couldn’t talk to you about it even if I did.”

I frowned. “Abe. You know I would never betray your confidence.”

He shrugged, his face still reflecting false feelings. “I know.”

“When did you learn to guard your emotions?”

He lay back on my bed, which made my imagination go wild, and made it very difficult to keep on track. “I guess when I learned people were willing to take advantage of me.”

“What?”

He raised a brow. “What do you mean, ‘what’? You remember what I do for a living, right?”

My stomach twisted. “I’m not used to you sounding cynical. I don’t like it.”

“That’s what happens when you’re a millionaire.”

“But people—no one’s tried to take advantage of you, have they?”

Now he propped himself on one elbow—on my pillows!—and grinned at me, and I was sure it was genuine. “‘Taken advantage’?”

I waved a hand. “You know. They say football players often struggle with people who want to get to their money, but—I don’t know, I didn’t think that applied to you. You family never would, right?”

He relented. “Not my parents or anyone close, no. My aunt Claire, some—”

“Oh, well, Claire,” I said, unsurprised. “No shocker there.”

“She wanted me to send Aviv to private school.”

“I hope you said no!”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t pay for him to go to a private high school, but college’s so expensive. So I set up a fund.”

I placed my head in my hands.

“And then,” Abe continued, “I figured, ‘I can’t just do this for Aviv,’ so I set up a fund for all my cousins.”

I groaned. Abe had twelve cousins.

“And
then
,” he said, sitting up, “I realized it was ridiculous to set up funds for my cousins, who are already well-enough off, and ignore kids who can’t afford any education, so I ended up sending most of my money to children’s educational charities and setting up scholarship funds.”

“You set up scholarship funds? How come I didn’t know about this?”

He looked slightly embarrassed. “I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t want them to go around bragging, which they kind of tend to.”

I shook my head, astonished. “They’d be proud of you.
I’m
proud of you.”

He smiled, his best kind of smile, and it warmed me all over. “Thanks.” He paused. “I’m proud of you too, you know. That you moved out here on your own. That you landed your job at
Sports Today.
”

Now I was embarrassed, so I returned to the conversation from before. “But no one else is hounding you, are they?”

He shrugged. “Occasionally. College friends who aren’t as successful. It’s hard for them, but after the first year I figured out how to set boundaries. Ryan was good at helping—he often mentors the rookies.” He glanced up. “And then there are girls.”

Affront that I had no right to filled me, and I didn’t even bother trying to squash it, knowing it would simply have to run its course. “Well, I hope you haven’t fallen for any of that.” My tone came out overly prim.

Which caused him to grin overtly. “Once or twice.”

I sat on my hands so I couldn’t cross my arms and look annoyed. “What did you do—buy them dresses and jewelry and whisk them away to private islands?”

He laughed, low and husky. “That didn’t even come
close
to sounding airy and uninterested.”

I watched him but said nothing.

He scooted forward so that his long legs reached out and his knees came close to touching mine. “And what would you ask for?”

My heart clenched and unclenched, heat and wind washing through my body, all the elements alive and pulsing. “There’s nothing I want.”

His dark eyes brightened. “Nothing?”

I raised my chin defiantly. “Nothing you have.”

“And what else is there?”

Our voices were soft, but we were so close we didn’t have to strain to hear each other. I could feel my pulse pounding, my blood rushing as my heart tumbled over at an impossible speed. “Things I can find myself.”

“Like?”

My eyes involuntarily flickered over to the list, still sitting on the top of my dresser, close to Ellie. Abe caught the motion. “You have a list?”

“Something like.”

“Let me see.”

I smiled. “Oh, you don’t need to know about all of it.”

“I think I do.” He stood and plucked the piece of paper off my dresser.

And at that moment I remembered my late night addition a week ago. “No!” I jumped up and threw myself at him without a second’s thought.

Eyes bright with laughter, he lifted the list above his head. I tried to snatch at it but all of my limbs were too short—Abe had a full head on me and even with my arm fully outstretched I couldn’t reach his. But the image of Abe reading
Get over Abraham
kept me leaping, determined to keep him from reading my desires.

He didn’t relent, instead dancing backward with the grace he usually reserved for the field, until he stood with his back against the wall. I swatted him, my light fists glancing off his warm arms. He grinned down at me a moment more, and I figured I could at least distract him even if I couldn’t win physically—and then he tilted his head back and angled the paper down.

I clamored atop the trunk at the foot of my bed and leaned across the space between us to trap his hand against the wall. It didn’t work; instead I lost my balance and fell into Abe. He managed to catch me, but the angle was awkward and he tripped himself, and in the next instant we tumbled across my bed. I sprawled across his chest, breathing quickly, my forearms resting on him, my hair draping down to tickle him.

His eyes were wide and clear and unblinking. They drew me in; I couldn’t look away from them. Instead, I shifted, until my whole body lined along his. He was hard and warm and solid and my body craved more touch, craved that our limbs and fingers and everything be entwined, that we be braided together until we couldn’t be separated.

The air shimmered between us. With each breath I took, I could feel my body pushing against his, my breasts full and aching as they strained against the fabric of my shirt. My hands smoothed down over his biceps, smooth as carved marble under my fingers, living marble. His hands ran down over my body, coming to rest in the small of my back, holding me tight against him. I ached for those hands to keep moving, to keep roaming. My breath hitched but our locked gazes never faltered.

He pulled me down and kissed me.

My lips opened under his and hot desire spread through my body, arching my back and my body toward him. His tongue glided deeply into my mouth, stroking and seducing, and I writhed against him. I wanted more of it, wanted the clothes between us to be gone. My core ached and my breath came short.

His hand slipped under my shirt. He took his time, his finger slowly winding their way up my side, caressing my hip and waist and ribs until he reached the underside of my breast. I let out a mew of pleasure as his thumb traced the bottom of my bra.

He rolled me over, a tumble of limbs and flesh. His weight above mine was welcome, desired, and I hooked one leg around his to bring him closer. One of my hands tangled in his hair, soft and thick and curling slightly around my fingers, while my other slid over the strong planes of his back. He skimmed my shirt up and off, a gentle rustle of fabric. Air kissed my skin ever so gently, and I gasped into his mouth as he deepened the kiss, exploring my mouth with a thoroughness that almost left me boneless.

Almost.

I placed my hand on his chest. It was a testament to his strength—and perhaps his willpower—that he braced his arms on either side of my body and held himself aloft above me. “What is it?”

“What are we doing?”

He smiled down at me. “I’d think that was self-evident.”

I let out a huff of amusement, but still gave him a soft push so that he sat up. He did, though slowly, and I did as well, until we sat across from each other in a nest of blankets. I scrunched up my hair in a brief tick of frustration. “Okay, but why?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is that a trick question?”

I accepted that with a smile, but stood my ground. “All I mean is—I don’t really want to be friends-with-benefits.”

To my great surprise his expression utterly blanked, and no matter how hard I tried, it remained unreadable. “Really.”

Great, I’d probably insulted him. As though it wasn’t hard on me, too, having a conversation when there were so many better things our mouths could be doing. “I just mean—no, that is what I mean. I don’t want to hook up with you.”

He reached out and slowly traced a line from temple to my jaw, and then over the outline of my lips. “It didn’t seem that way a minute ago.”

I trembled but remained firm. “Okay, yes, I do physically, but emotionally it’s a really bad choice for me right now.”

His eyebrows climbed and his dark eyes turned practically black. “I’m ‘emotionally’ a bad choice?”

I hung my head in embarrassment. “I’m insulting you, though I swear I’m not trying to.”

His voice came out clipped. “Yet you’re doing a very good job.”

I made myself look up, because he deserved an explanation. “Abe.” I took his hands in mine. “Abraham, I get that you can’t really be in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, but
you
get that I was totally infatuated with you for years, right? I don’t think it’s healthy for me to hook up with you when I want to start looking for a real, lasting relationship.”

His dark eyes searched mine for a long moment. “That’s what you’re looking for?”

I shrugged. “Yeah.”

His breath touched my neck. “You’ve wanted us for ten years.”

I slipped my hand up his jaw. He leaned his face into it and I smiled. I could feel my heart steadily pounding, and I breathed in the relaxing, familiar scent of him. “But I don’t want to get my heart broken by you again.” I picked up my list and handed it to him.

He glanced down at it briefly, and then his brows dove and he took a second, longer glance. “‘Get over Abraham’?”

“Probably the wrong wording,” I said mildly. “I got over you years ago. It should probably read
stay
over Abraham.”

“I can get under that,” he said below his breath, and then shot me a sharp, heated smile.

I responded with my best
Seriously?
expression, which he returned with full on impishness. I shook my head and tried to continue without laughing. “I don’t want to put myself in a position where I’ll end up pining. I want to fall in love. I want a real relationship. I don’t want to hook up with a friend.” Especially not with him. “We had a shot, four years ago, and it didn’t work out. End of story.”

“It didn’t work out because it was the wrong time and place. Besides, you called that shot. I’m calling this one.” He smiled slowly. “You say you want a real relationship?”

I nodded, refusing to be embarrassed.

“All right then. Let’s date.”

I gaped at him. That hadn’t even been on the list of reactions I’d expected. “
What?
”

He smiled at me, slow and sure. “You know. You and me. See each other.”

That idea was so antithetical to my notion of the universe that I shook my head dumbly. “You don’t want to date me.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because!” Why was he even suggesting this? “You’re only interested because for the first time in our lives, I’m not throwing myself at you.”

He let out a breath of laughter. “That’s not true.”

“But it is true. The
first time
, Abe. In over ten years. And what else has changed between us?”

He raised a brow. “Besides four years?”

“It’s been four years again and again. I mean it, Abe. Look, I know I messed up when I buried my head in the sand and didn’t talk to you and managed to no longer ever be home when you were. I take responsibility for ruining our friendship—”

“You can’t do that.”

I stopped. “Why not?”

“Because I did the same thing.”

News to me. “Wait, really? You were avoiding me too?”

“Tamar, you’d just told me you loved me. I was terrified.”

Now I raised my brow. “Thank you. But that’s not the point. The point is that I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to fall in love with you all over again. And I’m not going to ruin, for the second time, our friendship.”

Shock registered on his face. “I don’t want to be
friends
with you, Tamar. I want you naked on the bed and moaning my name.”

I turned red and hot, but stayed firm as I shook my head. “Well, then we’re at an impasse.”

“No, we’re not.”

I stared at him. Had he missed something? “Yes, we are.”

“Are you dating anyone else?”

I almost wanted to make someone up, just to rub him in Abe’s face. “No.”