Page 17 of Tanner

Tanner stops at the corner. “Where would you like to go?”

“Dealer’s choice.”

He grins. “Are you always this spontaneous?”

I shake my head. “I’m a teacher. I need to schedule everything. Since I don’t have a plan in front of me, I’m finding an odd sense of comfort in letting you take the lead.”

I turn back toward the street and the secret club we just came from. I’d love to know what other secrets Tanner keeps. I look up into his piercing gaze that sparkles under the fluorescent street lamps. “Take me where you go when you want to run away from the world.”

His brow rises as if a particular place has come to mind. “What makes you think I have a secret lair?”

“I have a feeling there’s a side to you no one knows about, Tanner Sexton.”

His head tilts slightly. He stares at me with those mysterious blues, searching my soul, bearing down on me as he seems to be deciding if he should take me to the place he has on his mind.

His lips part, and with a steady inhale, he steps back.

My head falls, and I stare at the pavement. He’s decided he’s not going to take me there. I don’t know why I’m upset or for what exactly. There was just something in his expression that made me feel like he was holding back.

His hand palms my chin and raises it.

“Sweet, Harper,” he says, grazing the side of my cheek with his thumb. “For a woman who didn’t want anything to do with me a short time ago, you’re now willing to follow me to the darkest alleys.”

My shoulders sag at his accurate description. Something awakened in me in that club. I’m riding on a buzz that’s the opposite of anything I’ve ever felt in my life.

“Maybe I just want to forget reality tonight. I want to live in your dream.”

There’s a mischievous twinkle in his eye. His other hand rises to my hair, and he looks down upon my face with a sense of awe. “My muse,” he whispers.

My eyes flutter closed, and he places a soft kiss on my cheek. His lips move down to my jaw where he nips the skin below my ear and then trails his tongue down my neck. We’re on a street corner in New York City, and yet I feel like we’re the only two people on the planet.

Tanner takes my hand and pulls me toward the curb where he hails a cab. We hop in as he tells the driver, “One hundred twenty-seventh and Malcolm X.”

I’m surprised we’re headed up to Harlem, but I don’t say anything. I’m not nervous as we ride uptown.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asks.

“Purple?”

He laughs. “Are you asking me if that’s your favorite color?”

“Purple,” I say more surely this time. “Dark purple. Aubergine, to be exact. What about you?”

“Before tonight, it was red.”

“What is it now?”

“Blue,” he says as he looks right into my eyes. “A cool, icy blue.”

I’m pretty sure I just whimpered. Or quivered. Whatever the sound I just made from my mouth was a direct reaction to the verbal sexiness of those words as they poured out of his mouth.

We pull up to the corner, and Tanner hands the driver cash. Then, he climbs out of the car and offers me his hand.

I follow him onto the sidewalk and notice the glowing red lights from a bar across the street. The Den. It’s a good name for a bar, something I’m using as a distraction as Tanner takes his keys out of his pocket and lets us into an unassuming gray building.

There’s no fancy lobby or doorman. The walls are a lighter gray, and other than the mailboxes tucked off to the side, there’s only one potted plant and a single elevator bank.

We take the elevator to the top floor. My stomach flutters a little. It’s that uneasiness I got just before we walked into the club. It’s my brain’s way of reminding my body that Tanner is a stranger.