Imaginary Lines (21 page)

He grinned. “Don’t worry. I made a second one just for you.”

He followed me into the living room. A mixed percentage seemed to recognize him, which made sense—Abe wasn’t as famous as some of his teammates, not like the tabloid darling Ryan Carter or the incredibly talented Malcolm Lindsey. He settled onto the floor, since none of the folding chairs were quite large enough to be comfortable.

Sabeen’s friends were all delighted to see him, and immediately nabbed his attention. He was happy to give it—but he also met my eyes every time my gaze lingered on him.

Which was more often than it should have.

Still, I thought I’d be able to juggle everyone. Except then Shoshi showed up.

I gaped at my cousin when I opened the door. “Hey. Um...” She’d definitely responded no to my Facebook invite. “I didn’t know you could make it.”

“Change of plans.” She swept in, a picture of sophistication in her black silk top and dangling silver earrings. She peered about at the apartment. “Not bad. Pretty small.”

I hurried after her, my nerves tangling up in my chest. “Um, Shoshi...”

She stepped into the living room and came to a sudden stop.

I almost shoved my fingers through my hair, and restrained myself from messing up my curls just in time.

I saw the moment Abe saw her, because he slowly turned to face her and take in all the daggers her gaze threw at him. He smiled. “Hey, Shosh.”

She narrowed her eyes even more, and then turned to me. Luckily, we were so close that no one else could overhear our words. “Are you kidding me?”

I offered a hesitant smile.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re friends?”

“You can’t be
friends
with him. Are you trying to make yourself miserable? To sabotage your chances at having healthy relationships? Is he why you cancelled on the speed-dating thing?”

Yes. “No.”

She looked furtively back and forth between us, and caught the way Abe was watching. “You’re sleeping together.”

I reddened. “We’re not! God, why is my private life not allowed to be private?”

“So he’s part of your private life?”

My teeth ground against each other. “He’s my friend. Leave us alone.”

She crossed her arms.

For God’s sake. The only way I’d get her off my case was to distract her with something else. “Come meet my roommate Lucy. I think you’ll really like her.”

I’d just managed to pawn Shoshi off when Neil came up to me. “So you’re a reporter?”

I nodded. “I am. What about you? You’re also in theater?”

“Yeah. I actually just got cast in
Hamlet
.”

“That’s great!” Look at me, having a conversation with someone new. “What part?”

His smile widened. “Hamlet.”

“Oh. Awesome. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. So what do you cover?”

“Oh. Sports.”

“Oh.”

We nodded at each other.

Abe came over and dropped into the seat beside me, casually slinging his arm across the back of my chair. “Shoshi’s in a mood.” He glanced at Neil. “Hey.”

I rolled my eyes at his blatant proprietary tactic, but the meal had made me warm and fuzzy, and I let it go.

We worked our way through the wine everyone had brought, until I reached for a bottle and nothing came out. I wobbled to my feet. “Be right back, guys.”

I headed into the kitchen to pull down a bottle of red from my shelf, and then discovered I was drunk and that meant corkscrews behaved incorrectly. I was staring at the cork in puzzlement when Abe entered the small space. “Need help?”

I did, desperately. I stepped back. “Yes, please.”

He set to work, after a quick laugh at how badly I’d mangled the cork. “That Neil’s kind of a tool, huh?”

I leaned against the counter and grinned. “You’ve barely spoken to him.”

“He wears argyle socks.”

“I think argyle socks are cute. Besides. Why did you even notice that?”

He shrugged. “They were glaring.”

“You were
looking
for a reason not to like him.”

He left the wine and braced his hands against the counter on either side of me. He grinned wickedly, and my heart started fluttering at how stunning he looked, the light in his eyes, the line of his jaw, the perpetual thick messiness of his hair. “Maybe.”

Part of me knew I should tell him to stop if I wanted him to take my request of
leave me be
seriously, but most of me yearned toward him. “I’m trying to meet a prospective boyfriend at this party!”

He offered an easy grin. “Good thing I’m here.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes.

“Oh.” His nostrils flared gleefully. “Is that a challenge?”

“I can’t take you seriously.”

His brows flew up, and his voice lowered. “How’s this for serious?”

His hand eased around the back of my neck, and his mouth covered mine with intense dedication. His lips caressed mine until I parted them with a tiny moan, and his tongue stroked deeply against my own, teasing me with the deep mimicry until my entire body was on fire and I had flattened myself against him, draped shamelessly, aching for his hands to slip lower and set fire to the rest of me.

And at that realization, I somehow managed to draw back and whisper at him in outrage that didn’t quite reach genuine. “Stop! Anyone could walk in here.”

“So what? They’re not going to be scandalized by a kiss.” His brows winged up and his lips curled. “If you want them to be scandalized, I can arrange that...”

I batted his hands away as they started to slip lower on my body and snaked away from him. “Behave.”

“I don’t think so.”

I didn’t want him to. “Friends, remember? And what if Shoshi saw us?”

“Shoshi needs to get rid of the stick up her ass.”

“She’s just trying to look out for me.”

Frustration hardened his jaw. “She doesn’t need to. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Not on purpose. “Abe...”

He silenced me with a hard, deep kiss that left me leaning against the counter, absolutely breathless.

And then Lucy poked her head around the corner, puppy-dog pathetic-ness on her face. “Wine? I need more wine.”

See?
I mouthed broadly at Abe.

He laughed and picked up the bottle, lifting it in Lucy’s direction. “On our way.”

* * *

The guests started trickling out around eleven. Shoshi and Abe both stayed late, helping us clean up all the dishes, clearly trying to outlast each other. Abe finally said, “I’m going to win, you know.”

Shoshi glared at him, and then looked to me. “He’s wrong, right?”

I squinched my face up in awkward apology.

She let out an offended huff, and then practically snarled at Abe, “You hurt her, I hurt you, got it?”

“Goodbye, Shoshi.”

When she finally left, I drew Abe into my room and jabbed a finger at him. “You’re cheating.”

He grinned down at me. “Huh?”

“You’re cheating! How was I supposed to pay attention to anyone else, when you were sitting there being all—”
Wonderful.

“Are you going to see any of them?”

“I don’t know. Yes.”

He lifted a tendril of my hair and wrapped it around his forefinger. I couldn’t help myself; I leaned my head toward him. He slowly moved to stand behind me, and his fingers dug through my hair and into my scalp. They stroked my head in slow, powerful motions that caused a small groan to escape out of me. I craned my neck so he had better access. He slowly gathered up all my hair and pinned it against my head with one hand, and then his other slid along my arm. My entire body tingled and I tensed with anticipation, not sure what he was doing, not sure what I wanted him to do.

But he just picked up my hand and moved it so I held up my own hair, and then his hands traveled down my neck and landed firmly on my shoulders, kneading and digging away the knots I hadn’t even realized existed. My head drifted forward and my eyes shut. I know I should tell him to stop, but it felt too good. “
Urm.
”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “You like that?”

His thumbs dug into a pressure point at the top of my shoulder blades, and I gave a small moan of agreement. The hitch of his breath coincided with the pause of his massage. I wiggled my back slightly to indicate he shouldn’t stop.

His hands returned and moved along my back, his thumbs stroking down alongside my spine, his broad hands curving around my rib cage. “You know, this would be a lot easier if you weren’t wearing this dress.”

I laughed breathily and didn’t answer, but oh, I agreed with him. Without that strip of fabric between us, his hands could move more smoothly across my skin. I would welcome the heat, the roughness... I arched my back. “Lower back?”

His voice came out deeper than usual. “Aren’t you supposed to say please?”

I twisted around so I could see him and ended up closer than I’d anticipated. We were nose to nose, and if I stood on tiptoes, I could kiss him. My voice matched his in huskiness. “Please.”

Abraham’s eyes, so close to mine, lit. His hands slid across my body, trailing warmth, until they encircled me and dug slowly into my lower back, working the knots as I faced him, pushing my body closer to him. It felt amazing. Everything felt amazing. This close, the air was filled with his clean musky scent, and my skin tingled, and I started to ache for his touch to be everywhere. My breathing quickened.

Abe groaned deep in his throat, then crushed his lips to mine. I wrapped my legs around him, and then we were on my bed. The move was so fast, so sudden, that I just lay there staring up at him with my heart in my throat.

He paused for a moment, looking down as though he was memorizing everything about me, and then his lips descended to mine. They devoured me, firm and sure. I’d never felt so desired in my life, and my lips parted under his.

My Skype ringtone went off.

I froze like a paralyzed animal, like a teenage boy caught by his mother, like a twentysomething girl caught by her’s. “It’s my mom.”

“Don’t answer it.”

That would have been logical, but I didn’t ascribe to logos in my dealings with my mother; we were strictly pathos. I was strictly pathos with Abe, too, so I scrambled to my feet and said, “Hide!”

He looked around my room in befuddled amusement. “Hmm?”

I realized how dumb that was. “I mean, don’t come into the camera’s path.” I angled my computer toward me and smoothed my hands over my hair. “Do I look okay?” I straightened my shirt.

He grinned wickedly. “Ravishing.”

I dealt him a look, and then clicked the green answer button. “Hi, Mom!”

“Hi, sweetie. Oh, hmm, is your camera working—wait. Wait. There you are!”

I waited for a moment as my mom adjusted her camera. She’d cut her hair since last week; a short, dark bob that looked good on her. “I like your hair.”

She reached for it automatically. “You do? You don’t think it’s too short?”

“No, it looks great. What did Dad say?”

“You know your father. His opinion can’t be trusted.”

This was because my dad adored my mother and thought everything looked great on her. She was right; his opinion couldn’t be trusted. But it was always welcome.

Dad must have been in the same room, or at least nearby, because I heard him shout, “
Dad
also got a new haircut, but did anyone notice? Nope!”

He walked into the picture. It was possible his balding locks were cropped slightly closer to his head, but difficult to tell. “Wow, Dad, looks great.”

He sat down on the couch next to my mom. “You’re such a suck-up.”

I laughed, and then jerked upright when Abe landed on the bed next to me. In the tiny box in the corner of the screen that showed us what my parents saw, he grinned and waved while my eyes and mouth formed circles. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenfeld!”

My parents, drat them, broke out in smiles and waved back. “Abe!” Mom said. “So nice to see you! What are you doing there?” She gave me a meaningful look as though Abe would somehow miss it.

“Just helping Tamar wrap up her party. I made your chocolate babka, Mr. Rosenfeld.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Now who’s the suck-up?”

He spread his hands. “Just being honest.”

“I love that babka.” Dad looked at Mom. “How come you never make me any babka?”

She ignored him. “What party?”

So for a while we took turns telling them about the dinner party. Then they asked Abe about the team and life, and he let them interrogate him with good grace. I watched fondly, but tried not to reveal just
how
fondly; no way was I going to let myself lose focus and touch his hand or anything.

After Mom gave us all the neighborhood gossip, she asked, “You’ll be home for Thanksgiving?”

“Thanksgiving?” How had it gotten so close to that already? Hadn’t I just moved here, just started at
Sports Today
? Had that really been almost two months? “Yeah, I think so.”

“Oh, good. Abe, I talked to your mother yesterday and she said you’ll be coming home too. It will be so good to see both of you again. We miss you so much!”

We hung up with goodbyes and love yous all around, and then I closed my laptop just to be on the safe side. I flopped back on the bed. “That could have been a disaster.”

He caressed my neck. “Good thing I didn’t get to the biting yet.”

I laughed. “What, are you a vampire?”

He leaned down and pressed a hot, hard kiss on my lips. “Way sexier.”

I traced the line of his throat with the tip of my nail. “I don’t know, those capes are awful sexy.”

“Only if you’re wearing one, and nothing else.”

I flushed but didn’t look away. “That could be arranged.”

He lowered himself until his mouth touched my throat, and I shivered and arched my neck as he ran kisses along the line of my throat. His teeth nipped at my skin, sparking desire all through me. Thought started dissipating, replaced by pleasure and want for more.

That can be arranged...

Only I wasn’t supposed to be arranged. “Abe, I
report
on your
team
!”

His voice gentled. “Is that what’s holding you back?”