Island Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story (The Kisses Series Book 9) (6 page)

I hung onto his words like they were the greatest thing ever said. His voice was deep and sexy. He oozed a relaxed confidence that made me squirm in my seat. I felt like it wouldn’t have taken much for him to get me out of my dress.

The waiter approached and asked, “Can I get you two anything else this evening?”

“I’m stuffed,” I responded, as I patted my belly. It wasn't really true, but there was no way I was ordering more. Not when I knew how much my asparagus had cost.

“I think we’re good,” Gabe told the waiter.

I watched as the bill was pulled out from behind the waiter’s back. It was like slow motion as he set it on the table in front of us.

Who’s going to pick it up? I pray that he doesn’t stick me with the whole thing.

“Should we split it?” I asked, without any hesitation. It was why I had ordered the cheapest thing I could find on the menu.

Gabe looked at me like I was crazy as he reached forward and grabbed the bill, pulling it toward his side of the table.

“That’s a very nice offer, but I’ll get it,” he said, reaching for his wallet.

Okay, now I know for sure that this guy isn’t real,
I thought.
Charming, sweet, and pays for dinner? What kind of weird date was I on?

“Are you positive? I can pay for my half,” I said. I meant it. Mostly.

“No way,” Gabe responded. “This was my choice of restaurant and our first date. There’s not a chance I’m letting you pay for this. It’s my treat.”

Both my mind and my pocketbook felt deep relief from his words. Gabe paid for the bill with cash and then scooted his chair back.

“Well, would you like to get out of here?” he asked. “I did promise a walk.”

“Sure,” I said.

Normally, this would have been the time when I’d have jumped in my car and driven home immediately to write the latest blog post. But I had nothing to write about. This date had gone exceptionally well. Too well, to be honest. I had no idea what I would write about this one.

Deep breaths, Harper. Just don’t trip over these heels or scratch your ass through this dress and you’ll be fine. Just relax and smile and keep flirting. This evening could get interesting if you let it.

I
stood
up from the table and followed Gabe out of the restaurant.

It had been so long since I'd even had the slightest inclination to let a date go farther. The thought actually terrified me. The butterflies in my stomach started mambo-ing.

Gabe tipped the hostess as we walked through the doors and into the street. The sun dipped behind the ocean and was replaced with the fluorescent lights of the street lamps.

Dove's
was located along the beach in a commercial area. There was a short path to the water that would give us a nice stroll. It wasn't a long walk, but it would be a nice way to end the evening.

The water rippled under the moonlight. For a moment I thought I saw a flash of a dolphin in the waves, but I was fairly sure it was just my over-excited imagination. There was no way I was lucky enough to have a good date and see dolphins. We had the path to ourselves, although we were clearly visible to everyone in the restaurant.

“Have you ever been to a Blue Jays game?” Gabe asked. It wasn't the question I was expecting.

“Uh, I sat in the cheap seats once,” I replied, feeling a little off balance. “It was amazing getting to see the team live, even if I needed binoculars to see them. What about you?”

“A couple of games,” he answered. “I try and go as often as I can.”

“As often as you can?” I asked, pausing as we approached the water. The ocean was absolutely beautiful. I could see the lights of several boats out on the water and the tropical air was cool as it came off the water. “How many do you get to go to?”

“I may have season tickets,” he admitted slowly. He turned to face me, a small smile lit up by the moon on the waves. “But don't let that change how you view me.”

“Season tickets?” I squeaked. “Can I marry you?”

He laughed. “I told you not to let that change your opinion of me.”

I grinned. “It doesn't. In fact, it just makes me like you more.”

I immediately felt my face flush. This wasn't like me on a first date. He was making me nervous and excited all at the same time. I didn't want this moment to end and at the same time, it was a form of torture to not be in complete control of the date. I wanted more, yet was terrified of what could happen next.

He smiled back and took a deep breath. We were at the end of the path. There was no where else for us to go, even though I wished we could walk and talk longer.

“Can I walk you to your car?” he asked.

My eyes widened and I suddenly felt even more surprised than I had the entire evening. He wasn’t trying to pressure me into having a drink with him, or going back to his place, or anything else that every other guy would have done. I was impressed, to say the least.

“Well, where are you parked?” I asked him.

“I’m right around the corner in the parking garage,” he explained. “Where’s your car?”

“I parked five blocks away because I didn’t want to pay for parking,” I said with a chuckle.

“That’s no problem. Let’s go,” he said, as he held out his elbow for me to hold onto.

“You really don’t have to, Gabe. It’s a long ways and it’s pointless for you to walk me. It’s not like I’m going to get mugged or something in this part of town. You don’t have to take the hike with me.”

“Nonsense,” Gabe said, matter-of-factly. “I’m happy to walk with you. It’s a nice night and it feels good to be outside.”

A coy smirk crossed my face.
Is this what a real gentleman is like? Or did I die and wake up in a different era, where men actually treated women like princesses?

I slipped my hand into the crease of his elbow and walked alongside him. My heart thumped in my chest as we made our way to my car. I wasn’t sure how this date would come to a close. Would it be an awkward hug or would he just go straight for a kiss on the lips? It seemed like there wasn’t much in between, at least in my experience.

We turned the final corner and I looked up to see my ancient car parked crooked in the street.

I really should learn to parallel park one of these days,
I thought.

“That’s my car, right up there,” I said, lamely motioning towards my sad transportation.

We strolled up to it and I released Gabe’s arm. The street lamp above us shined down, causing his green eyes to glow. I once again found myself melting into them.

“Thank you for having dinner with me,” he said. His voice was low and inviting. It made my insides turn just a little bit mushy.

“Well, thank you for taking me to dinner,” I responded. “That place was amazing. Next time I might get the steak, though. That looked really good.”

“Next time?” Gabe asked, smiling flirtatiously. My knees threatened to melt out from under me when he smiled like that.

I stuttered. “I mean, if I ever were to go there again for some reason. You know what I meant.”

Gabe just chuckled softly. “I had a really great time tonight, Harper. To be honest, I was a little nervous before I met you. I’ve had some not-so-great dates with women. I was pleasantly surprised this time. This was a lot of fun.”

“I had a really great time too,” I said. And I meant it. It was the best date I had ever been on, and I had been on a lot of dates.

We stood close and Gabe’s hands were on my sides. This was the part that always made me feel the most awkward, because typically this was when a guy would go in for a kiss and I’d have to turn away. But not this time. If Gabe went for a kiss, I was ready. I wanted that kiss.

He leaned in and I steadied myself, breathing in his intoxicating cologne. It was woodsy, yet had a clean scent that made me want more. He got close and then gave me a simple kiss on the cheek before pulling away.

“Drive safe, okay?” he said, taking a step back.

I was shocked.

That’s it?

I had really hoped for more than just a kiss on the cheek and my lips were practically puckered in expectation. I thought about kissing him again, this time the way that I wanted. But I didn’t. Gabe was practically too good to be true and the last thing I wanted to do was to mess things up by acting too eager. So I just pulled my keys out of my purse and unlocked my car door.

Like the gentleman he clearly was, Gabe opened the door for me and I got into the seat.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said, still not sure what was going on. This never happened to me.

“You’re very welcome,” he responded. “Can we do this again soon?”

“I’d like that.”

He smiled and closed the door. I had to choice but to start up the car. The date was over, even though I wasn't really ready for it to be. When I pulled away from the curve, I looked into the rear view mirror. Gabe waved and then began walking back toward the restaurant, where his car was parked.

The whole drive home, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I was completely shocked. He hadn’t tried to push me into anything. In fact, I was actually the one who wanted more. It was a surprising, yet refreshing end, to an already amazing date.

I knew that it had to be too good to be true.

T
his is just
writer’s block, right? I mean, surely there was something about last night’s date with Gabe that went terribly. There must be something for me to write about...

I sat in my office chair, staring at the blank screen of the word processing program in front of me. I had been gazing at it for half an hour, trying to brainstorm what to write for the upcoming blog post. The problem, though, was that I ran a website that people visited to hear about my
bad
dates, not the good ones. There wasn’t anything interesting about a good date, or at least anything that my current readers would want to hear. They wanted the ridiculous details. They wanted the men who didn’t pay for dinner and the ones who wore sweat pants to their first date. They didn’t want to read about the charming, good-looking, gentlemanly Gabe.

I pressed my fingers against my cheek where he had kissed me. I could still feel the soft touch of his lips, and I could just imagine what they would feel like on mine. I wanted to feel them. I wanted so much more.

No words were coming through my fingers, no matter how intently I stared at the screen. I needed to figure out the best way to approach the blog post about the date with Gabe and since staring at my computer wasn’t helping, I decided to call up Cora for some advice.

I grabbed my cell phone and kicked my feet up onto the desk to give her a call. It rang three times before she finally picked up.

“Hey, lady,” she said. “I hope you’re calling to tell me about all of the juicy details from last night’s date. I’ve been waiting patiently all morning. Please tell me that he showed up wearing a clown suit or something.”

“I wish that had happened,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked, interest flowing through her voice.

“The date was a disaster.”

“That’s great!” she replied. “I can't wait to read the hilarious blog post about it!”

“No, Cora. That’s the problem.” I set my feet on the floor. “The date was a disaster because it
wasn’t
a disaster. It was actually a lot of fun.”

She was silent for a moment before speaking up again. “Oh my, Harper. That sounds absolutely terrible.”

I ignored her patronizing tone. “It was horrible! His name was Gabe. He was well-dressed, funny, charming and a total gentleman. He paid for dinner, walked me to my car and only wanted a kiss on the cheek to end the night.”

“Harper, I want to feel sorry for you right now, but you have to understand how ridiculous this sounds. You’re telling me that you had the date of a lifetime and yet, you sound like you’re about to have an anxiety attack because of it.”

“I know, it’s insane,” I said. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting it. And I still need to write this blog post, but now I don’t know what to say.”

“Tell the truth,” she said, like it was the easy answer.

I thought about it for a moment, but then shrugged away the idea. If I blogged about the truth then it wouldn’t be keeping with the horror-story theme of my blog. And if I lied, well then I’d be just painting the date as something it wasn’t, and I didn’t want to do that. It didn’t seem right.

I started to wonder if I should just skip the blog post completely. I worried that a “bad” date post would somehow come back and bite me in the ass, potentially ruining any future possibilities with Gabe. I wanted to go on a second date with him.

“I don’t know what to do, Cora,” I said slowly. I picked up a pencil on my desk and spun it around through my fingers. “But I don’t think I should spell out how amazing Gabe is on my blog. My readers don’t want to hear about that kind of thing. You know that. They want bad dates.”

“Harper, you need to look at this a different way. This was your very first date with him. People tend to put their best foot forward on a first date. Maybe that’s all this was. Maybe he’s not really quite as amazing as he made himself seem and somewhere underneath that gorgeous smile and charming demeanor, there’s a crazy guy who deserves to be put on the wall of shame that you call your blog. Maybe he’s got that slow-burning crazy, you know? The kind of crazy that takes a little while before it’s revealed.”

I chuckled. “What are you saying, Cora?”

“I’m saying that maybe all is not lost. Are you going on another date with… what was his name again? Abe?”

“It’s Gabe.” I was surprised at how I felt almost angry that she had gotten his name wrong.

“Are you going on another date with Gabe?” she asked.

“Nothing is set in stone yet, but he did ask if we could get together again soon and I said yes,” I told her. “We only went on a date yesterday. I'm expecting him to follow the three day rule, so...”

“Perfect!” Cora announced. “Well then don’t worry too much about the blog right now. Just relax and forget about it for the time being. You don’t have to update it immediately. Instead, you should wait until you get a second date with Gabe and then when his inner craziness finally comes out, you’ll have plenty of things to write about.”

“You know, that’s actually not a bad idea,” I said slowly. I could see this post going well as long as he went crazy. The idea of him turning out to be awful was rather depressing, though...

“You’re welcome,” Cora responded sarcastically. “I should start charging you for this advice.”

“You might want to,” I agreed. “Someday, I'll be rich and famous because of your ideas.”

“Besides, even if Gorgeous Gabe doesn’t end up wanting to see you again, there are plenty of fish in the sea who you can write about,” Cora said. “In fact, don’t you have another first date tonight with some other guy? I’m sure that one will be great fodder for your blog.”

I quickly jumped up from my chair and glanced at the clock. I had been so focused on Gabe that I'd completely lost track of my other dates.

“Oh no!” I said. “I had completely forgotten about that! Cora, I’ve got to get ready. Thanks for the reminder.”

Cora giggled. “No problem. Have fun with tonight’s victim! I hope it goes terribly. And I mean that in the best possible way.”

“Thanks, lady.”

I hung up the phone and got undressed to take a shower. My thoughts weren’t really on my upcoming bowling date with this new guy, though. They were still on Gabe.

Calm down, Harper,
I told myself.
You just had one date with the guy. Just because you haven’t had a good date in years, doesn’t mean you’re going to marry the dude. Plus, like Cora said, there’s a good chance he has some of that slow-burn crazy yet to reveal.

With the thoughts of Gabe pushed to the back of my mind, I got ready for the evening. I only had about an hour before I had to meet this new guy at the bowling alley.

And this one was sure to be promising material for my blog. I just had a feeling.