Well Suited Read online

  Well Suited

  Staci Hart

  Copyright © 2019 Staci Hart

  All rights reserved.

  stacihartnovels.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Quirky Bird

  Photography by Perrywinkle Photography

  Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing

  Proofreading: Love N Books

  Playlist: https://spoti.fi/2Pltojy

  Pin Board: http://bit.ly/2Xx0rUF

  To those who aren’t sure

  if love is real:

  Love believes enough

  for the both of you.

  Contents

  Prologue: That Night

  I. First Trimester

  1. Decisions, Decisions

  2. Transaction Malfunction

  3. Let Me Help You With That

  4. Exemplary Specimen

  5. Modern Man

  6. Destinations and Doorways

  7. Brilliantly Beige

  8. Blob

  9. Emotionally Bendy

  10. If I Have My Way

  11. Prepositional Propositions

  12. Scientific Method

  13. The Itch

  II. Second Trimester

  14. Batsignal

  15. This or That

  16. Big Spoon

  17. Makings of a Man

  18. Mathmagician

  19. A Wing and a Prayer

  20. Oh No Chi Didn't.

  21. Forever and Ever, Amen.

  22. Coming Up Roses

  23. The Same Page

  III. Third Trimester

  24. The End of That

  25. Impassable

  26. Semantics

  27. Queen of Sheba

  28. Take the Bull

  29. Automatic

  30. Plato Says

  Epilogue(s)

  Thank you

  Also by Staci Hart

  About the Author

  Prologue: That Night

  Theo

  “Hello, Theodore.”

  A very serious, very stern, utterly stunning woman stood before me with her hand jutted out and a determined set to her chin, which was tipped up so she could look me square in the eye.

  The only thing I hated worse than blind dates was the use of my full name. But from her lips, I was disarmed and unexpectedly charmed by the formality, as if she were meeting a colleague or a second cousin, twice removed, not a date. I had a feeling the context didn’t matter. She’d greet everyone with the same businesslike matter-of-factness and firmness of hand.

  Six sets of curious eyes—her friends and my twin brother—watched on as I took her offered hand. But rather than shake it as she’d intended, I turned it over and brushed the soft skin and delicate bones with my lips.

  At the flash of simultaneous heat and aversion behind her steely eyes, my smile tilted higher.

  “Nice to meet you, Katherine.”

  Her palm, which had bloomed with a cool sweat, disappeared in a snap of motion. Wide, full lips the color of a stoplight flattened.

  “That’s how the flu spreads, you know,” she said, wiping the back of her hand on her dress.

  I fought the urge to laugh, saying instead, “I’d hate to be the cause of senseless virus-spreading. I’m sorry.”

  She gave me a single curt nod. “You’re forgiven. And I hope you like to dance,” she said.

  For a split second, I imagined turning her around the dance floor at the swing club we were heading to.

  “I do.” My smile hadn’t budged.

  “And I hope you don’t mind me leading.”

  At that, my smile liquefied, brows drawing together. My mouth opened, then closed again when I could find no clever response. Only a string of questions.

  “Katherine and I usually dance together,” Amelia, my brother’s wife, offered helpfully, which answered at least three-quarters of my questions.

  “Some people say I have control issues,” Katherine added with a shrug.

  Amelia laughed. “It keeps us from getting hit on, too.”

  “They think we’re lesbians,” Katherine clarified clinically.

  Tommy burst into laughter, looking down into Amelia’s face with disbelief.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Amelia said. “Pretending to be a lesbian is easier than talking to strange men. Even when she kissed me in front of a hundred people.”

  Tommy’s laughter stopped dead. “I thought you’d never been kissed.”

  Amelia rolled her eyes. “That didn’t count. There wasn’t even any tongue.”

  A single Ha! shot out of Katherine.

  The conversation shifted, and when we all had drinks in hand, Katherine’s friend Val raised her glass and toasted. But I wasn’t listening.

  I was watching the girl with the stiff spine and dark hair, the girl who smelled like anticipation and fresh, clean soap. Her eyes weren’t on me.

  But mine were on her.

  We sipped our drinks, chatted easily, the camaraderie clear between the group, all bound together by the four girls. Rin, the tall Asian with a gentle smile and soft laugh. Val, the short, curvy one with freckles smattered across her nose and wild, curly hair. Amelia, my brother’s fake wife, the fairy with platinum hair and cornflower-blue eyes. And Katherine, the starched, serious girl who was to be my date, and who I’d decided I’d make smile before the night was through.

  It seemed a herculean task. But I always loved a good challenge.

  Out the door we went, piling into cabs to head to the swing club. We loaded in with Val and her boyfriend, the conversation flowing between the three of them. But I spent the ride in observation, cataloging everything about her. Her hair, glossy and dark, bangs cut in a precise line. Her dress, tailored with an exactness that accentuated the curve of her waist, punctuated by a thin belt. Her lips seemed to forever rest in a flat line, even when she was amused. There was no little upturn in the corners, no mirth. When she smiled, her lips stayed together. When she laughed, it was compact, contained.

  In fact, everything about her seemed contained, from her small, straight nose to her level shoulders. From her long fingers, wound together smartly and symmetrically in her lap, to her ankles, which crossed demurely. Her smile. Her eyes. The truth of her, I imagined, was locked down somewhere between her ears and never let out.

  And I wanted to pick the lock.

  We breezed past the line and straight to the bouncer, who shook hands with Val’s boyfriend. He seemed to know everyone except me and Tommy, and eyed us both with suspicion and warning as we passed.

  It was like stepping back in time. Swing music filled the ballroom from corner to velvet corner, from parquet to elegantly tiled ceiling, strung with hanging Edison bulbs at varying heights. They cast a golden light on the dance floor, which was a sea of bouncing heads, dotted with the occasional flip of skirts and saddle shoes.

  We wound our way into the club, everyone hand in hand, except Katherine and me. That was, until she saw the dance floor.

  And that was the beginning of my end.

  Her face opened up, her smile wide and bright, her eyes joyous and brows high, the emotion transforming her. The vision hit me in the chest.

  When she snagged my hand and t
owed me toward the parquet, that twist in my chest deepened. Tightened. Simmered and crackled. I followed her willingly.

  I chased the fleeting thought that I’d follow her anywhere.

  She pulled me to a stop and turned to face me, her smile smaller but undeniable, her arm out to the side, palm posed in wait for mine.

  “All right, are you ready?” she asked.

  I slipped my hand into hers despite that it was extended to the wrong side. Everything was backward. My hand that should have gone on her waist hesitated.

  I frowned.

  “Put it on my shoulder,” she offered helpfully.

  I did as I’d been told. My hand swallowed the curve.

  My frown deepened.

  “Okay,” she said with authority, “let me show you how to triple-step.”

  I kept my smile put away. Just after my mom had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Tommy and I had taken classes with her to cross it off her bucket list before she lost mobility. But I held my tongue and did as Katherine guided, appreciating the feel of her hand on my waist and the sound of her voice as she taught me something I already knew.

  The backward stance was difficult enough, but when she tried to put me in a sweetheart hold—my back to her front, her arms around my waist—she couldn’t get her arms over my head, which was over a foot above hers.

  She let me go with her face pinched in frustration and a sigh on her pretty lips. “Well, that does it. You’re going to have to lead.”

  “Oh, thank God,” I said with a sigh and a smirk, reversing our hands.

  I took off, spinning her out and bouncing her around to the bopping beat of the music. Her face shot open like a starting gate, her black lashes shuttering as she blinked her shock away.

  And then she laughed.

  The sound was open, lilting and musical, a complete juxtaposition to everything about her. It was free, untethered, floating around us to twist together with the jazz music like its own song.

  I should have realized right then that I was doomed, damned. But the novelty of her, the unexpected intrigue, the sheer sight and smell of her were too alluring to resist. I couldn’t tell you exactly why. Only that something in her and something in me sparked like a knife against flint.

  I wondered briefly which was whom, deciding I was the flint.

  Struck.

  As I zipped her around the dance floor, she shifted, softened. Changed. I didn’t let up, too surprised by whatever was happening between us to willingly speak.

  You see, I didn’t date—not in the relationship way at least. There were girls, plenty of girls—perks of my brother’s firm spot in the public eye—but I hadn’t dated in years. I was too busy keeping my brother out of trouble and taking care of my mom to have time or energy left over for a girlfriend.

  I was too busy to be lonely. And that companionship hadn’t ever been missed. Not until that moment on the dance floor.

  The music slowed, and her body pressed against mine. She fit into my arms with a click that I felt somewhere in the vicinity of my ribs.

  I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that I had no intention of ignoring it.

  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright and sharp. She was breathless, and the look in her eyes left me feeling it was only in part from the dancing.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you danced?” she asked in all seriousness.

  I shrugged one shoulder. “You didn’t ask.”

  An upward curl of her lips. “How presumptuous of me.”

  “Can’t say I blame you, Kate.”

  The curl reversed into a frown. “My name is Katherine, with a K. Not Kate. Not Katie or Kat. Katherine.”

  “With a K,” I echoed.

  “Yes. I dislike nicknames.”

  “Your friends have nicknames.”

  Her brows flicked together. “Those are their names—Rin and Val. It’s how they were introduced to me.”

  “By that rule, you should call me Theo.”

  “I dislike nicknames,” she said again, her voice a notch lower and her brows a millimeter closer.

  I chuckled. “I won’t make you defend your code, Katherine. I only wondered. What is it you do?”

  “I’m a librarian at the New York Public Library.”

  “A librarian,” I said, enlightened as a couple of Katherine-shaped puzzle pieces snapped together.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Please, don’t make any pornographic librarian jokes. I don’t find them amusing.”

  This time when I laughed, it was a full, deep rumble. “Anything you want, Kate.”

  “Katherine,” she corrected. “You’re a wonderful dancer. Much better than me, and I’ve been coming here for months.”

  “I’ve got something to confess,” I said, lowering my lips to angle for her ear. “Tommy and I had lessons.”

  “Oh.” The word was full of air and breath as equally as it was contained.

  When I straightened up and looked down into her face, her brow quirked like she was puzzling me out. Difference was, I knew how to school my face. When struck with the unexpected, it seemed that Katherine did not.

  “Why do you smell so good?” she asked. “Is it your cologne?”

  I considered for a split second what she could possibly be smelling. “I don’t wear cologne.”

  She leaned in, tilting her chin higher so she could get her nose as close to my neck as possible. Her hand slipped into my lapel and fisted as she took a deep inhale. A little hum followed that sent a hot pulse through me.

  “You smell so nice,” she murmured. “I don’t recall ever noticing how a man smells. Not a pleasant smell at least.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, staring into the face of this amusing creature, so brash and strange and lovely.

  She spoke first, “Our brains are incredible machines. They know when to open and close gates for pheromones, how to detect chemosignals from another human and make decisions based on them. Adrenaline. Oxytocin. Dopamine. Before we know anything about each other, there’s a level of compatibility that can be determined simply by smell.”

  “Well then, I’m even more flattered.”

  She didn’t acknowledge what I’d said, just continued as I swayed with her under the golden light of the Edison bulbs. “Everything we feel can be equated to a chemical reaction. Lust, for instance, is driven by a desire for sexual gratification.”

  “Kate,” I said with a sideways smile and a thumping pulse, “are you coming on to me?”

  “Katherine, and maybe. Something about the way you smell, the way you move, makes me salivate. Do you think I smell good, too?”

  I would have called the question timid had it not been so unaffected by emotion. “Hmm. Let’s see.” My hand shifted from her waist and gathered her hair to expose her neck. And I lowered my nose to the column, brushed the silky skin, dragged the tip up to the space behind her jaw, around the curve of muscle to the hollow behind her ear.

  She smelled like rain and fresh-cut flowers, like desire and unspoken promises. She smelled like my last meal, like a color I’d never seen before. Like a sense I hadn’t known I had was awakened simply by the proximity of my lips to her skin.

  Her breath consisted of shallow sips of air. Her fist around my lapel clutched tighter and pulled like she wanted me to wrap myself around her.

  I caught her earlobe in my teeth. A shudder trembled through her.

  “Good enough to eat,” I whispered into the curve of her ear.

  “Did you know that lips are the most exposed erogenous zone we possess?” The question was rough and shaky.

  I couldn’t seem to stop myself from nuzzling her neck, breathing her in. “I might have been able to guess.”

  Her neck bent, cradling my face to keep it where it was. “Lip contact engages five of twelve total cranial nerves. Every sense is engaged. Electricity is sent between our brains, skin, tongues, lips, back and forth, carrying the signals to relay every feeling.”

  My lips closed over the tende
r skin behind her ear, trying to understand how her clinical explanation of kissing was so hot. “Do you want me to kiss you, Kate?”

  “Katherine,” she breathed. “And yes, I think I do.”

  I dislodged myself from her, fueled only by the knowledge that if I did, I could kiss her.

  But not yet. Not here.

  Instead, I cupped her jaw and looked into her eyes. “What do you say we get out of here?”

  And with a smile, she answered, “I’d say, lead the way.”

  We spent the following few minutes saying goodbye to everyone under the guise of me getting her home safely. Without a sideways glance, they sent us on. I found myself surprised. No one had noticed our exchange or whatever zinged between us. Maybe I appeared unassuming, or maybe they doubted Katherine’s desire to go home with anyone.

  Either way, they were wrong.

  We hurried out of the club, slipping silently into a taxi. The second he had his destination—her place, which was slated to be empty all night—I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her across the bench, tucking her into my side with another neat, nearly audible click. She felt it too, leaned into it. Into me.

  Anticipation, thick and heady, clung to every molecule between us.

  Her face turned to mine, a request for a kiss.

  One that I denied.

  Instead, I engaged every other avenue of connection. Hooked her knees to sling her legs across my lap. My fingertips tasted the skin of her thigh, slid under the hem of her dress, only high enough to tease. My lips I kept directed to the front window, a testament to my will as her hands cupped my neck, my jaw, tested the consistency of my hair with thirsty fingertips. Her lips—I could feel them across the slim space, her breath humid and sweet—hovered over the tender, tingling skin of my neck, just above my thrumming pulse.