Out on Good Behavior (Radleigh University Book 3) by Dahlia Adler Page B

but maybe we can take them to go. I just need to shut my brain off for a bit. Is that okay?”
    Is that okay? That she wants to go back to my apartment? Hell yes, that’s okay. She’s not asking as if she wants the same things to happen there that I do, but for right now, I’ll gladly take not having fucked up this brunch into too-awkward oblivion. “Yeah, for sure.” I call the waitress back, and she brings us hot cups so we can transfer our teas for the walk back. I also grab the check over Samara’s protests, even though she clearly has the money to spend and I most definitely do not. “You treated for the pizza,” I remind her.
    That seems to placate her, and after I empty my wallet onto the table, off we go.
    The walk home is a silent one, both of us sipping tea and taking in the changing leaves. The cold may be killer in the winter, but autumn always makes me love going to school in upstate New York. All around us, swaths of ochre and carmine are bleeding into the green treetops like flames licking at the branches, and they make such a beautiful backdrop for Samara’s honey-colored hair and flushed cheeks that all I want to do when we get back to my apartment is draw her.
    Well, not all I wanna do, but.
    “Have you ever posed for anyone before?” I ask.
    “Posed?” She stops and takes a sip of her tea. “Like, for a photograph? Yeah, that’s kind of a massive part of being a mayor’s daughter, unfortunately.”
    “I meant for a drawing or painting, but I’m guessing you’ve done that too.”
    Her lip curls, and I get the impression it’s not a particularly happy memory. “Yup, once when I was little, and then again when I was in high school.”
    So much for that , I think, but then she says, “I imagine posing for you would be a lot more fun than posing for the official portraitist of Meridian, South Carolina.”
    I whistle. “You guys have an official portraitist?”
    “Of course we do,” she says in a gruff man’s drawl. “We aren’t Neanderthals—or worse, Yankees—Samara Jane.”
    I crack up laughing. “Is that the mayor of Meridian himself?”
    “You bet it is.” She cracks a little smile herself, and it warms me up to see her smile when talking about her parents, even if just for a moment. We reach the apartment complex then, and I’m not sure whether I should bring up posing again, but it turns out, I don’t have to; she does. “So, was that your way of asking me to pose for you, or were you just curious?”
    Does she have any idea how flirty she sounds right now? How badly she’s making me want to “pose” her over my desk or on my bed or—no, of course she doesn’t. Rein it in, Bellisario. The girl’s been painted by an “official portraitist”; she’s not looking to get fucked against a shower wall by an amateur one. Still, it’s not like I can possibly respond to that without a little flirting of my own. Hell, I can barely respond to questions at the dentist’s office without a little flirting of my own. “That depends,” I say as I let us inside.
    “On what?”
    “On what you’d say if I was asking you to pose.”
    “I’d say…let’s do it.” She drops onto the couch and flashes me that panty-wrecking smile.
    One thing’s for sure—if she’s not flirting, she is trying to kill me. And so help me God I can’t think of a sweeter way to go.
    • • •
    “When can I see?” she asks for the millionth time that hour. Or maybe it’s been two hours. I’m actually not sure how much time has passed. We’re sitting on the patio and I guess it’s been getting a little chillier, but I hadn’t noticed until just now.
    “When I’m finished,” I say, the same as I’ve said the last fifty times, but it’s hard not to smile with each one. She sounds so damn excited, and the truth is, I don’t even want to show her when I’m done, because I wouldn’t be able to stand the thought of letting her down. It’s not exactly prize-winning work—just a