She said yes.
Killian stares after her retreating figure, savouring the sway of her denim-clad hips and the impudent swing of her ponytail as she saunters out of the park. Still faintly gobsmacked, he watches her go, one sentence running on repeat in his head.
She said yes.
He runs a distracted hand through his damp hair, trying to remember the last time he'd asked out a woman while he was sweaty and sporting grass stains on the knees of his jeans. The answer is, of course, never.
She'd seen straight though him, too, taken one look at James (even before the little wretch had dropped him in it with his ridiculous childhood candour) and had known exactly what his game had been. And he'd liked her all the more for it, because there's nothing he admires more than a woman who doesn't hide her intelligence for the sake of a man's ego. She'd called him on his bullshit then said yes to his offer of coffee, and now he only has to wait five hours until he can see her again.
It's going to be the longest five hours of his life.
Liam shakes his head at him when he finally catches up with them near the swing sets. The ice creams are long gone, and his brother has James slung over his shoulder, the boy looking as though he's on the verge of passing out. "Just what did you do to my son?"
Killian gives his brother his best impersonation of an innocent man. "You are saying there's something wrong with fresh air and exercise?"
"Not at all." Liam rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. "I suspect his exhaustion actually stems from helping you pick up that blonde."
Killian grins at his brother. "She was a tough nut to crack." Reaching out a hand, he gently chucks his nephew under the chin (his father's chin) with his finger. "Took me longer than I expected."
"So she didn't tell you to bugger off?"
They've started on the long walk to where they'd left the car now, and despite his recent marathon Frisbee session, Killian feels as though he could bloody well fly there. "I'm meeting her for coffee at six."
Liam laughs, stopping in his tracks, and before Killian knows it, his arms are filled with sleeping, surprisingly heavy child. "In that case, you can carry him back to the car." His brother tosses him a smug grin. "Seeing as he helped you get the girl."
Adjusting his hold on his sleeping nephew, Killian thinks of the beautiful smile, sparkling green eyes and long legs that almost took his breath away, and smiles. "I hope so, mate."
She's fifteen minutes late, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't worried that she wasn't going to show. Finally, he sees her, strolling across the park as though she's merely taking in the early evening air. She's still dressed in her jeans and red leather jacket, but the pony tail is gone, and all that glorious hair is now spilling down her back in a soft tumble that makes his hands itch to lose themselves.
He's spent the last fifteen minutes practicing the most relaxed and casual pose to effect on this blasted park bench, but now that she's finally here, he springs to his feet without a second thought. Bloody hell. "Hi."
He's pleased to see that he remembered her smile correctly, the smile that looks as though she's remembering a private joke she might one day share with him. "Hi."
Absurdly feeling as though he should offer his hand for her to shake a second time, he instead shoves both hands into the back pockets of his jeans. "Are we still good for a coffee?"
She doesn't answer straight away, instead looking him up and down, and he wonders if she's noticing that he's now sporting different clothes and is dirt and sweat-free (except for his palms). "You know, it's been a bit of a tough afternoon," she begins, and his heart sinks. He's just started to steel himself for her to tell him that she only came back out of politeness to let him know the date was off, then she grins. "I was thinking maybe we could have a drink instead."
He doesn't punch the air in triumph, but it's a close thing. "Works for me, love."
He takes her to a pub he knows well, ten minutes' walk from the park, and filled with enough people for her to feel comfortable in the company of a stranger. Although, he thinks as he watches her deflect the flirtatious chatter of the bartender with admirable ease, he has the feeling that she's not exactly the shrinking violet type.
"So," he begins after they've snagged a corner booth, watching as she taps a painted fingernail on the lemon wedge decorating her gin and tonic. "You said something about a tough afternoon?"
She looks at him with obvious amusement. "You really want to hear about my day?"
He picks up his pint and takes a quick sip, his eyes never leaving hers. "Does that surprise you?"
She shrugs, and he can tell she's genuinely taken aback by the question. "Well, you don't know me, so I'm not sure how interesting it would be for you to hear about how I spent my afternoon."
He smiles at her. "Humour me."
"In that case-" She plucks the wedge of lemon from the side of her glass, squeezing out the juice then dropping the spent slice into her drink. Lifting her drink to him, she smiles. "I sat outside three separate court-date-skipping scumbags' apartments until they showed up, then I cuffed them and dragged their sorry asses to the police station to make a new court date." She puts her glass to her lips, obviously enjoying what he can only assume is his stunned mullet expression. "The last guy gave me a bit of trouble, so I had to chase him down the street for a mile or so, but I got him eventually. Might have left him with a few bruises after I tackled him, but that's how it goes." She takes a long sip of her drink then, her pale throat working languidly as she swallows, and he thinks it's quite possible that he's never been more turned on in his entire life.
"You're a bailbonds person," he blurts out, and inwardly cringes instantly, because come on, he uses his words for a living and what is it about this woman that has him bubbling through the most rudimentary of conversations?
"Got it in one." She leans forward, her elbows on the table, and he tries and fails not to notice the way the low scoop of her red jumper showcases her admirable cleavage. "So, what do you do, Uncle Killian?"
"I'm a writer," he tells her, knowing in his heart of hears that this admission might just be a deal breaker as far as she's concerned, because he suspects they both know what that means. "Which, of course, means I spend my time tutoring students from the local community college in English and Modern History to pay the bills while I send my manuscript to publisher after publisher." He lifts his beer glass to her in a toast. "Not quite as exciting as tackling scumbags in the street, I must confess."
If his current situation is indeed a deal breaker for her, it doesn't show on her face. Instead, her eyes light up with gratifying enthusiasm. "What's your story about?"
He feels the back of his neck grow warm. He's normally very comfortable with self-promotion, but there's something about her enthusiasm that renders him incapable of his usual swagger (as Liam calls it). "Pirates." It's about so much more than that, of course, but he doesn't want to waste time talking about himself, not when he could be devouring every single fact about her.
Emma raises her eyebrows, her lips pursing (they're tinted with dark pink gloss and he very much wants to taste them) as she tilts her head to one side. "Can I read it?"
"I don't actually carry it around with me, I'm afraid."
His teasing words hover between them, and he realises it might sound as though he's already haggling for a second date when they haven't even finished their first drink. To his relief, she grins, her eyes sparkling. "That's a pity." She takes another sip of her gin and tonic, her gaze still locked with his over the rim of her glass. "Maybe over dinner you can tell me the Reader's Digest version."
His pulse seems to be doing an odd kind of rhumba in his ears, because he's quite sure he's misheard. "Dinner?"
She swirls the clear liquid in her glass, and for the first time, he sees uncertainty in her eyes. "If you don't want to, that's okay," she mutters and he reaches across the table, touching his fingertips to the back of her hand where it lays on the table.
"Let me state now for the record, love, that I would very much like to have dinner with you." He pulls his hand back, wondering if she felt it too, that odd sensation almost like a static shock, sparking between his fingertips and her skin.
She studies him for a moment, her eyes searching her face, and apparently what she sees there pleases her. She nods, both hands now curled around her glass. "Good."
They have steaks for dinner at her request, and he teases her that taking down scumbags must work up an appetite. She agrees, smiling, then adds that pretty much everything works up an appetite as far as she's concerned, and she can't see the point of eating salad for dinner.
He does his best not to conjure up lurid imaginings at her mention ofeverything and appetite, but he's not entirely successful. God help him, she's bewitched him, and he couldn't be happier about it.
Their conversation ebbs and flows, and he quickly learns that behind that beautiful face is a razor sharp mind and a wicked sense of humour. He also learns that he can make her blush with a simple turn of phrase (perhaps it's the accent? It's not as though he's a stranger to that particular effect) and that the sound of her laughter makes him restless in the best possible way. She insists on splitting the bill, insisting that he'd only offered coffee, and he doesn't bother arguing, knowing it's not a token gesture on her part. To refuse would mean that he didn't value her feelings on the subject, he realises, and is a little shocked that he can know so much about one person after only a few hours.
They finally do have that coffee, taking the last free table in a popular twenty-four hour coffee shop. Well, he has coffee. She has hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon and a serve of chocolate cake on the side, and he takes great delight in watching her select which areas of the dessert to attack with her fork first. "Sweet tooth," he teases, and she waves her chocolate smeared fork in the air.
"A day isn't worth living unless it involves chocolate, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a dirty rotten liar."
He laughs, then takes the offered bite of dense chocolate cake from her, his eyes almost watering at the sweetness of it. If he kissed her now, he thinks, she'd taste like chocolate, and his gut tightens. Perhaps it's for the best that they're in public, because he doesn't want to stop at the taste of her mouth. He wants to explore every single inch of her, and the images currently tumbling through his head would definitely be cause for arrest on the grounds of public indecency.
"It's late," she finally says with reassuring reluctance, and he looks at his watch. It is, he realises with a shock, almost midnight.
"Bloody hell, I didn't realise the time." He looks at her, suddenly at a loss. He doesn't want this evening to end, but he knows it must. He's determined not to rush things, not this time. "Do you have to work in the morning?"
"Normally I'd say that crime doesn't rest, even on a Saturday, but thankfully I'm rostered off tomorrow." She leans back in her seat, her gaze sliding away from his as she reaches for her handbag, as though she's been gripped with a sudden shyness. "How about you?"
"Early morning bike-riding date with my brother and his family."
Her gaze snaps up to meet his once again, and he sees an odd longing in her eyes. "Must be nice."
He grins. "Getting up at the crack of dawn to talk about Transformers with a five year-old for two hours?"
"No." She tugs her handbag into her lap, her hands clutching it a little too tightly. "Having your family so close."
"It is," he says slowly, his thoughts ticking over. Despite asking about his, she hasn't mentioned her own family once during the course of the evening, deflecting the conversation away from the subject each time. "You're more than welcome to join us," he tells her, and perhaps he should be shocked that he's just invited a woman to a family gathering after only knowing her for a few hours, but he's not. This time it's different. She'sdifferent, and the thought of not seeing her again, of this being a one-time thing, sends a faint panic swirling through him.
She blinks, her dark eyelashes fluttering, and for a moment he's afraid he's said too much, pushed too hard, then she smiles. "Maybe another time."
It's not exactly a yes, but neither is it a no, and that's good enough for him. "I promise not to make you play Frisbee."
She laughs, and the warmth of it presses against his skin. "In that case, I'll definitely consider it."
Once they're back on the pavement, it's the moment he's always disliked, especially since he moved to the States. Back home, in his youth and early twenties, he'd known all the right things to say and do, and it was a rare date that didn't end with a kiss of some kind. Here, things seem to be vastly more complicated, and there are times when he thinks he's still learning the rules. "I'm so glad you chose that park bench today," he finally says, and her whole face softens, her eyes glowing with an emotion he doesn't dare begin to name.
Perhaps he is learning the rules after all.
"Me too," she tells him, taking a step forward until the toes of her boots touch his, the space between them dwindling down to practically nothing, and he cannot stop himself from lifting his hands to cup her face.
She says nothing, but her answer is in the way she sways even closer, in her soft sigh when he kisses her.
His mouth covers hers in a soft, slow caress that goes on and on, the taste of her spiking his blood, sending it southward to his groin in a hot sweep of desire. Her hands come up to touch his chest, her fingertips finding the bare skin in the v-neck of his shirt, then she shifts closes, her body seeking his, and he can't help the groan that rises up in his throat. Her breasts press softly against his chest, her hips teasing his, and a shudder goes through him. Fuck, he'd wanted to take things slowly with this woman, and now all he wants to do is tear off their clothes and let her do whatever she bloody well wants to him, public indecency be damned.
She's blushing when he pulls back, and he knows his own face is flushed. "Call me," she finally tells him, her voice throaty, her eyes filled with the same realisation that's currently making his pulse thunder through his veins. She wants him as much as he wants her, and he makes a mental note to buy his bloody smug git of a brother a bottle of scotch for insisting that he come to the park with them today. "I'm free next Saturday night."
He grins at her, feeling his temporarily misplaced sense of self-promotion returning with a vengeance. "And the weekend after that?"
She frowns at him, but he sees the mischief sparking in her green eyes. "Depends on how next Saturday night goes, doesn't it?"
He pulls out his phone, suddenly filled with the urge to double check he'd taken her number correctly earlier. "Well, I've already promised there'll be no Frisbee, but I can't promise anything else," he tells her with as much earnestness as he can muster on short notice, and her decidedly wicked laugh sends the blood rushing southward all over again.
"I'll take my chances." She kisses him again before she climbs into the back of the taxi that's pulled up with infuriating promptness, one hand curled around the nape of his neck, the other on the roof of the vehicle. Her mouth is tender and hot on his, almost making his knees buckle beneath him. "Have fun tomorrow," she murmurs, brushing her lips against his. "And bring your book about swashbuckling pirates with you next time."
"Manuscript," he manages to say, his heart hammering into his ribs. "It's not a book yet."
"Whatever you say, Captain." Then she's gone before he can answer, gracefully slipping into the car and pulling the door shut behind her with a slam.
He stands on the pavement until he loses sight of the red tail lights amidst the late night traffic, then shakes his head, feeling his mouth stretch in a smile that seems to reach from ear to ear. He'd laid a trap for her today, and he'd been the one ensnared. He does so hate to use a writer's cliché, but irony truly can be delicious at times.
Despite the lateness of the hour, he walks the twenty minute journey home, too wired to catch a taxi. Each step bringing him closer to the hour he can respectably call Emma Swan (such a lovely surname, it suits her perfectly) without looking like a lovesick fool, and he thinks perhaps he'll buy Liam two bottles of scotch.