Page 93 of By His Vow

The sight of her in sweatpants does something to me as well. It shouldn’t. They’re not meant to be sexy, but damn…

She hits pause on the series she chose to watch and climbs to her feet.

“Bathroom,” she says before stepping between me and the coffee table. Only, she doesn’t lift quite high enough so her toes hit the top of my foot and she stumbles.

“Whoa,” I say catching her a beat before she crashes into me.

“Sorry, sorry,” she mumbles, a bit of a slur to the words.

Glancing at her wine glass, I find that it’s empty again. As is the bottle next to it.

Her eyes find mine, and instead of immediately jumping up and running away, she stays where she is. Her eyes search mine, looking for…fuck knows what.

“Tatum?” I whisper, my fingers twitching around her waist.

It would be so easy to lift her and place her on my lap. But I can’t.

Not tonight. And not when she’s under the influence.

I might be a man who always gets what he wants. But not like that.

I earn everything I get. I don’t just take. Ever.

“Bathroom,” I say, reminding her of the reason she got up in the first place.

“Mmm,” she hums, still staring at me. “You’ve got really pretty eyes. Did you know that?”

I smile as I wait for the insult that’s no doubt about to follow. But it never does.

Instead, she says, “I could look into them for hours.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It’s funny,” she muses, making me raise a brow at her to encourage her to continue. “I always thought they’d lead directly to a black soul.”

Ouch.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint.”

She doesn’t say anything for the longest time, and I start to wonder if she’s ever going to.

But just as I’m about to set her back on her feet on the other side of mine, she blurts, “You’re not what I was expecting.”

“No?”

“I mean, you are. You’re still an egotistical asshole but…there’s more, too.”

“Should I take that as a compliment?”

She shrugs. “Take it however you want,” she says before wiggling out of my hold and stumbling toward the bathroom.

My eyes don’t leave her until she turns the corner and disappears from my sight.

“And yet you’re everything I was expecting, and then some,” I muse into the silence.

While she’s gone, I get up and get us both glasses of water.

She might want to embark on a second bottle of wine, and I’m sure if she were home right now, Lorelei would let her. But I’m not Lorelei.