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"I don’t share," I warned her quietly
"I don’t either"
"And I don’t flirt"
She paused, as she seemed to understand the depth of my reaction I wasn’t even sure I understood the depth of my reaction I’d never been jealous with Portia; even when she tried, by dancing at parties or getting drunk and flirtatious with friends But with Rubythere was an instinctive pull, some desire to claim her that made me at once uneasy and thrilled
"I know I’ my face, "but I’d never betray anyone like that"
And soht of the bar and in thecrowd, our conversation felt even," I told her "I trust you, even though sometimes it feels like I know so much about you, and other times I remember that we’re barely acquainted"
I had to remind myself that Ruby was only twenty-three, that she had broader sexual experience than I did, and far -ter her how to enter into soile I wanted to balance her tendency to run headlong into things against my tendency to hide my head in the sand
"We are not ‘barely acquainted,’ " she growled, pinching my backside in her hand "Just because this is a new relationship doesn’t mean I don’t know you in ways no one else does How else are we supposed to start? You can’t know everything at the get-go"
The bartender returned with our drinks and I released Ruby froet her wallet out of her slare, and then turned, stretching to pull me into a kiss I expected to be only a sue sliding intome in the playfully brazen way she had
And for a ot that ere away from the privacy of our hotel or the safety of London Withher neck and her palms pressed flat toforward into this thing that had captured me so immediately
I pulled away to catchback into awareness of the press of bodies all around us at the crowded bar, the eyes on us atte a public flash of our passion The bartender deposited e on the bar with a s us, too And Ruby couldn’t care less She lifted her drink, raised her eyebrows cheekily at oddamn job," she said
With a little smile, I pulled out a few of the multitude of limes in my drink to drop onto a bar napkin I liked limes as iin