The Perfect Shot (Book 3) ✓

09 - Sweets

Hannah

I still couldn't believe that my one-night stand from a different city was staying in my parents' kitchen, getting praised by my mother. It was surreal. All day long, I was trying to forget that night and the absolute pleasure that unknown man made me feel for the few hours we shared together. And just when I was properly back into the role of the daughter of the chief of the police this unknown man showed up to remind me what I can't have. Not only was he under my father's command, but from what I gathered, he was well known to be meeting with different women. Which... I didn't have a problem with that. Everyone could live his or her life the way they wanted it... but I knew my father wasn't the biggest fan of this kind of behavior. He was a little bit of an old school, where your sex partners shouldn't be more than the fingers on your hands...and something makes me feel that Cleo's body count couldn't be showed only by his fingers, even if he included the one on his feet. And I was this nice, proper, innocent girl in the eyes of everyone from the town, so it was out of the question to have something between us. Everyone will think he's corrupting me in some way or that I am in my rebellious period, even though I'm not a teenager anymore. I couldn't let Cleo be the bad guy even if the sex with him was out of this world. It wasn't going to be fair...

"Hannah, sweetie, can you please take this plate out there? Your father asked for it." I got back to the present with my mother's question.

"Yes, of course. It was nice meeting you, Cleo." I tried to play it nice since we had an audience.

"You too, Hannah..." I quickly left the room and went to my father with the full plate in my hands.

"Do you need anything else from me?"

"No, Hannah, I don't think so."

"Okay, then I'll go to my room for some rest. Have a good evening, everyone. It was nice meeting you." I got to my room as quickly as I could without raising suspicions. I knew if I stayed there, I was going to constantly look at Cleo like a moth to the light. He had some kind of aura that was just... calling to me, and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to fight it.

The reality of resisting the temptation named 'Cleo' was a lot more difficult than I thought. And I was constantly reminded of it in the next weeks. Everywhere I went, he was there. Like he was tracking me in some way. And every time we were at the same place, he'll specifically come to me, and we'll talk for a while. At first it was just random small talks, how I was, what I was doing, where I was going, how was his work...but with every conversation I could feel the little changes in the topics. Like 'do you have old friends here, did you meet with someone from your childhood, do you have old love in the town.' Every question was getting more and more personal, and I knew what he was trying to do. And with every question, it was getting harder and harder to deny him.

"Cleo...it won't happen. Whatever you think, it won't happen." We, once again, accidentally met at the grocery store, and he was walking next to my cart while I was trying to concentrate on the stuff I needed to buy.

"I was just trying to be a good friend, you know? I'm trying to get invested in your life, trying to be supportive and all that stuff..."

"Good friends don't try to get in each other pants..."

"You sure? I think you are wrong on this one. I'm pretty sure that a lot of friendships end up in a bed for at least one night... you know, just to see how it is..."

"We had our 'one night'. There won't be anymore trying things, Cleo." I looked around us, making sure no one was listening to us. The last thing I needed was people to know I slept with the city playboy.

"But then we weren't friends...it's kind of different when you know the person you are sleeping with."

"We are not friends, Cleo." Even I could hear my cringe and disbelief in the words leaving my mouth.

"You sure?" I stopped my cart in front of the aisle with the sweet stuff looking for something that would satisfy the cravings of my body... I knew I couldn't have Cleo again, so I had to deal with the next best thing – chocolate. "You can't eat stuff from here." That made me stop in my tracks and look in disbelief towards him.

"Are you trying to say I can't eat sweets because I'll get fat? Who do you think..."

"Whoa-whoa, what?! Who said anything about getting fat... and before you get riled up for things that didn't even cross my mind. You are not fat now, nor will you be anywhere close to it in the near feature. If someone tried to make you believe in something else, then they are idiots, whose words you don't have to listen to at all." He didn't know how close he was with his statement. I had one boyfriend at university who was really unhappy with the way I was eating and with my sweet tooth. He was constantly trying to change my diet to be more healthy and less chocolatey, and that's why he's ex-boyfriend. No one could stay between me and my sweets. It was one of the only good things in my life at the moment, and I didn't care if I was going to become double my size by eating them.

"Then what the hell did you mean? Because, let me tell you, the last man who tried to tell me what I could and couldn't eat was quickly dropped from my life..."

"I wound never think of getting between you and something sweet, Hannah. I, myself, am kind of addicted to this stuff. And that's why I think you can't eat cookies, chocolate or whatever you wanted from this store. Because I know a place where you could lick your fingers from the amazing things they made there."

"Cleo, we can't..."

"Listen. Do you need anything else from here?" I looked at the cookies in front of me, wondering why am I listening to him and not grabbing the box. "Anything different from the cookies?" I looked at my phone where I had my list and checked if I got everything from it.

"No, that's all."

"Good. Let's go pay and I'll show you this heaven's place." He took my cart and started pushing in before I even realized what was happening.

"Hey, you can't steal my stuff like that." I quickly got to him and tried to get the cart, but he didn't let me.

"C'mon, we better hurry, or all the good things will end before we even go there." He was walking with big steps that was hard for me to keep up. Once I paid for my groceries and was ready to get the bags, Cleo once again got ahead of me and took them in his hands.

"Cleo. I can hold my things on my own..."

"Yeah, I know. But I am here right now, and I'm glad to help...plus don't think this is for anything else than getting quicker to your car, so we could get quicker to the bakery." He put the groceries in my car once we got to it, and I looked around, trying to see where his car was.

"Where did you park?" I couldn't find a car that was saying it belonged to him. All the cars were too big or too small, too girly or too old and I couldn't imagine him driving in one of them.

"Over there." I looked at where he was pointing at the front of the store... There was nothing else there than a big black sportbike. Of course, he was going to have a bike! How could I not see this... I looked at him and saw the little smug smile on his lips like he knew something I didn't. "C'mon. Let's go. I'll lead, you follow and try not to crash into me... I'll go slow." I had a feeling he didn't know the definition of the word 'slow'... 

***Cleo is nothing but convincing when it comes to anything sweet...