2
" Okay, let's start over." I reached across the table, my hand outstretched. "I'm Stella Allesandro and I zone all the way out on my morning walks. I blame *NSYNC."
Cal laughed, but he didn't release my hand. "I'm Cal Hartshorn and I approach women by mowing them down to see if they like being underneath me."
A shocked laugh burst from my lips and I felt heat rising to my cheeks but I couldn't focus on the obvious innuendo he offered when there was more curious business at hand.
"Hold it right there," I said, leaning closer to peer at him.
"You can hold it anywhere you want it," he murmured.
"I'm sure." I held up a finger as my shoulders shook with silent laughter. "You keep them coming, Cal Hartshorn."
"I keep them coming like you wouldn't believe, Stella Allesandro," he replied. "Like you would not believe."
Laughing, I said, "Stop being obscene for a minute."
He had the balls to pull an appalled face. As if I was the one with all the bawdy comments here. "Obscene? I'm not obscene at all."
"You hide behind all your shy-boy awkwards but you're filthy. "
― Kate Canterbary , Before Girl (Vital Signs, #1)
3
" I'm not really a flowers-and-proper-dates girl," I said, fully aware of his thigh muscles
tightening under my hand. "I'm more of a burgers-and-football girl, to be honest. Baseball or hockey since we're in the off-season. Basketball too. Burgers, sports, nothing proper. I'm not proper."
Cal rested his forehead on my shoulder with a quiet groan. That sound, it was more intimate than a kiss. It belonged to private spaces where no one else could listen in. But we'd already forgotten about the rest of the world. We were alone here, me and Cal, and I wasn't smitten. I wasn't lovestruck. "Marry me, Stella. Marry me and bear my children."
His hand skated up my arm and over my shoulder to cup my face, and just like that, I was kissing a man I'd met an hour ago. "
― Kate Canterbary , Before Girl (Vital Signs, #1)
9
" Okay, Stella." I stepped closer, edging into her space. "You don't want a relationship. Okay. I won't give you one."
Her eyebrow arched up. I moved closer.
"You don't want sex," I continued. "Okay. I won't give it to you."
She glanced down, her gaze on my coat.
"You don't want a nice guy." I shrugged. "Okay. I won't give you one."
I inched closer, all the way into her space now. She sucked in a breath, blew it out slowly. "I won't give you anything, Stel," I said. "Not until you ask me for it. "
― Kate Canterbary , Before Girl (Vital Signs, #1)
10
" why she wants you to think it over."
"It must be a neurosurgeon thing," she mused. "This intractability. It's what happens when you assume one organ system is more important than the others."
"It is," he replied. "When the brain shuts down, the game's over."
Alex squared her shoulders and let out a long breath. "Gastric functions continue, unaided, for at least a week following brain death."
"Yeah. With a ventilator," he snapped.
Because I couldn't listen to this argument without fighting for my service's supremacy, I added, "You're both wrong because none of it matters without a beating heart."
The three of us stared at each other for a second, each ready to drop our specialized
hammers. Then Nick said, "We need to get a urologist at this table. Someone to stand up for balls. "
― Kate Canterbary , Before Girl (Vital Signs, #1)
11
" He vibed on a different level, my man-brick. He wasn't meant for anything but full-out, balls to the walls, unrelenting intensity when it came to work, women, even burgers. His whole damn life moved at that level. All or nothing at all.
And what a treat that full-out, balls to the walls, unrelenting adoration would be. But it wasn't meant for me. Not for now, not for keeps. "
― Kate Canterbary , Before Girl (Vital Signs, #1)
