Page 14 of Say It Again
“Sheesh, it makes sense.” Aaron’s brow furrowed. “I should’ve known.”
“What makes sense?”
“The way you move, sweetheart.” Aaron’s icy blue gaze softened or intensified. Or both. “It’s dazzling.”
Daniel cupped his hands over his mouth, frozen mid rhapsody.
When a few moments passed and he still hadn’t spoken, Aaron rolled his lips and said, “Okay, you ready?”
“No.” He sighed, dramatically fanning himself. “You can’t say things like that to me if you want me to function like an adult human, but I see it’s killing you, so go ahead and say it. Just one more time, though.”
A smirk teased Aaron’s lips. “Call you dazzling one more time?”
“God,” Daniel moaned, generously bending his knees as he wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead. He wafted his shirt on his way to the closet. “Let me get a jacket. I need to cover up some of this dazzle. I don’t want to stop traffic—”
Then Aaron did that thing. That archetypal breadwinning-spouse thing where he took Daniel’s jacket from him and held it up. Daniel worked his arms through in slow motion as he gazed up all doe-eyed at Aaron’s archetypal-breadwinning-spouse profile.
Aaron also then proceeded to lead him to his car by the small of his back, where he held the door open—because of course he did—to a sleek little glossy black number. Not that Daniel was a car person. His manual-windowed sedan, which he’d regally nicknamed Turdingston IV, just got a fresh coat of duct tape for the bumper.
But this car… this was the type of car around which one might struggle to stay fully clothed.
“Goodness, mister.” Daniel itched to touch all the shiny buttons. “I’ve never been inside a more beautiful car.”
“No?” Aaron winked, starting the engine. “Well, you look good sitting there.”
“Duh, that’s my thing. Everyone knows that’s my thing.” Daniel leaned back in the seat and grinned. “I pride myself on looking cute in other people’s vehicles.”
Aaron chuckled as he pulled from the street and into traffic. “You should pride yourself on the way you kiss.”
Daniel sucked in a quick breath. The kiss. The kiss, the kiss. It’d consumed his thoughts, his prayers, and his text message trail with Olivia, but Aaron didn’t need to know that, so he waved a blasé hand about. “Wait, so remind me which one you were again? It’s just, I kissed a lot of guys in the bathroom at that party.”
“Oh, I kissed so many guys in the bathroom,” said Aaron, mocking Daniel’s voice. “When was that? Last night? I cannot possibly remember. It was just soooo many.”
Daniel pursed his lips to keep from smiling at that impression, which was alarmingly accurate.
“If it helps to narrow it down,” Aaron said, back in his own husky voice, as he raised a naturally arched eyebrow, “I was the one you would’ve let take it a lot further than a kiss.”
How utterly true. “How utterly presumptuous.”
“Sure, Daniel Greene.”
“Sure, Aaron—uh. Aaron…?”
“Silva.”
“Ooh, Sil-vah.” Daniel winced. “That’s gorgeous. Like silver, but vahh.”
“I guess?”
Daniel Silva. Daniel Alexander Silva—
“Think it’d sound good with your name in front?”
Daniel choked on a cough.
“Kidding.” Aaron laughed, holding a hand up. “Kidding. I promise I’m not crazy. That’d be pretty scary.”
“Right!” Daniel loudly cleared his throat. Speaking of kisses, he should probably address the other one. The British one. The pesky Yellow Jacket that someone needed to shoo. “So, speaking of the party, Mr. Silva. I believe you were the one who kissed more than one person.”