Chapter 12 #2
I picked up one of the steamed mussels and the tiny fork that came with the dish to dig them out of their shell.
She watched me as I forked the tender morsel and held it out to her.
She reached for the fork, eyes fixed on me.
At the subtle rise of my eyebrows, she blushed a light pink and dropped her hand back into her lap, leaning forward like I wanted her to, and parting those lips.
I passed the tidbit between them, and she took the little bite between her teeth, her lips grazing the oyster fork as she drew back and carefully chewed.
I fed myself one and enjoyed the bright burst of citrus and wine with the underlying richness of the mussel itself.
“Why did that feel so obscene?” she asked softly, dabbing at her lips with her napkin.
“Because all I can picture is those beautiful, soft lips wrapped around my cock.”
She froze, wide-eyed, staring at me as though I’d just set something on fire. Judging by the creeping blaze of color seeping up her chest and into her cheeks, I perhaps had.
“Why do I get the impression that appeals to you?” I asked with a slight smirk.
She turned her head resolutely in another direction and stared at the door, as though half-willing someone to come through it, while the other half contemplated making a break for it.
But alas, there was another part of her that kept her rooted to her seat, and that intrigued me more than anything.
I could see the struggle play out in her stiff body language, and I relished it.
“Have another,” I murmured. She turned back to me, all wide-eyed and innocent, trying to cope with a myriad of emotions and thoughts. I thoroughly enjoyed the cognitive dissonance playing out in real time before me.
“Are you always so crude?” she asked softly, and yet she took the proffered bite of mollusk I held out to her.
“Oh, you have no idea, Bright Eyes,” I told her.
She blinked, mystified at the little pet name, and chewed slowly and thoughtfully. I let her think about it, the rest of the way through the course.
The next course was a traditional Caesar salad, the notes of vinegar intent on cleansing the palate before the main course, which arrived promptly just as we each had taken our last bite of crisp romaine.
She seemed to relax a little as the main course was served. Rockfish stuffed with a shrimp and crab medley with a rice pilaf of exquisite execution, the likes of which would torture my brother, Torment, who was an executive chef.
We ate quietly, and the silence had shifted to something quite pleasant, and considering how I wanted my dessert, I was alright with that.
“Who were those men?” she asked quietly, after taking a fortifying sip of wine. “The ones who came after you…” She didn’t need to clarify. I knew who she meant.
“You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m an Iron Wraith.” She jolted with a bit of startlement.
“You?” she asked, and gave a long, slow blink. “I never would have guessed in a million years, actually.”
“Ah, excellent,” I said and took another bite of my fish.
I chewed carefully and slowly, thoughtfully studying her as she silently ran up and down the catalog of implications that the revelation had brought with it.
She really had no idea, which just meant I had done well at keeping my mundane, day-to-day business life and my real life separated well enough. That was a good thing.
“I somehow can’t picture you as a biker,” she said finally, and I laughed decently long and hard at that.
She winced and said, “Don’t make fun of me. Clearly, you didn’t want anyone to know, and I can have a guess or three at why.”
“Enlighten me,” I said with mirth. “And I would never make fun of you.”
“I’ve heard a rumor or two about the Iron Wraiths operating more like the Mafia rather than a biker gang,” she said evenly, but there was a slight tremor in the lilt of her voice that gave her away. She was afraid, and rightly so.
“I suppose with that reaction, now would be a bad time to mention I’m more than just a member… I’m the vice president of the club.”
Her fork clacked against the fine China we dined off when it slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers.
“You’re joking,” she said incredulously, and her deep blush returned. If I were a betting man, which I was want to be from time to time, I would bet that it had more to do with anxiety this time rather than any sense of embarrassment or what have you.
“I don’t joke about things so serious to me,” I told her flatly.
She looked at me with new eyes, and I watched her visibly shrink as she leaned back into her chair and let it catch her.
“Those were some of my club brothers, to answer your question, and now you likely have put two and two together on why I’d rather not involve the police in such matters.”
“I’d wondered about that,” she whispered faintly.
To their credit, my brothers had arrived slick-backed to the occasion of cleanup on aisle thirteen.
There was no need to advertise the Iron Wraith’s presence in such dirty deeds, should anyone happen along at the right place at the wrong time for us.
At any rate, that was why she had no idea who we were that night. There were absolutely no clues.
“I believe that should answer the majority of your questions?” I said pointedly, a less-than-subtle hint that I would really rather she not ask any more.
“Yes, um, thank you,” she murmured. With a trembling hand, she took up her fork to resume our meal. I expected her to pick at her food or to merely shuffle it around on her plate, but it would seem she hadn’t lost her appetite with the new information provided to her.
Her esteem went up a notch in my book for that.
We finished our meal, and I could see other burgeoning questions and queries lighting up her eyes. I waited for a time until she began to shift in her seat before relenting and saying, “Go on, ask. I won’t promise you I’ll answer, but you can ask.”
“Oh, um, I mean… how long?” she asked.
“Since the club’s inception,” I told her, which I knew was a non-answer, really, being as no one could really know, except for the club itself, how long we had been going on.
“I see,” she said, and she looked thoughtful for a minute before finally accepting that at face value.
“You all, um, go way back?”
I smiled then, and nodded, the question evoking nostalgia for the days in our mutual boarding school when it was just me, Syn, and the core group of a few others.
“We do,” I said. “Some are newer to the club and came after its creation. But they aren’t too far behind, and they’re as important to us as the next brother.”
“I never understood how any of that was meant to work,” she confessed as the door opened and the final course was served, though they only brought the one plate.
They set it down in front of Savannah with a single dessert fork and set a glass of top-shelf bourbon at my place setting.
I nodded with appreciation as the staff set about clearing the rest of the dishes and cutlery away, leaving us with just our drinks, the dessert, and the faintly glowing candlelight of the centerpiece.
“You’re not having any?” she asked.
“I’m not much one for sweets,” I told her.
She looked at the slim slice of New York-style cheesecake, drowning in a bourbon-and-peach-glazed compote, and took up her fork.
“Mm!” She rolled the first bite in her mouth, letting the flavors soak into her being, her eyes slipping shut, and her expression lighting with pleasure.
My lips flickered into a smile of pleasure of my own at just watching the spectacle of her before me.
“That is amazing,” she said, and her delight was a real and palpable thing.
“Yeah?” I asked, and I couldn’t help my grin.
“Mm-hm,” she hummed around another bite.
I enjoyed watching her savor every last morsel of the dessert, and she sat back, sighing in satisfaction.
“That was definitely the crown jewel in an otherwise sumptuous meal,” she said. “Thank you for that.”
“It wasn’t hard to guess that peaches are something you like,” I told her.
She blushed faintly at that, and said, “Let me guess… my perfume?”
“Indeed,” I told her.
She smiled, then a thought occurred to her, and the smile slipped ever so slightly. “So, what happens now?” she asked softly, and my smile grew.
“Now, it’s my turn for dessert,” I told her, and her solemn blue eyes met mine. I loved watching the uncertainty creep back in.
I snapped my fingers twice, and the door opened. Savannah jumped slightly as three staff members entered the chamber. One took her plate, while another used a candle snuffer to put out the centerpiece.
The third member of staff took the centerpiece away, while the man with the candle snuffer removed the top-most layer of linen, leaving the clean one beneath.
All three filed out of the room, the door shut, and the dim light of the crystal chandelier rose ever so slightly to make up for the light that’d just been whisked away.
The door closed, and Savannah turned at the snick of the lock being thrown.
“Relax,” I told her, and took a large, old-fashioned, antique key from the inside of my breast pocket and set it on the table beside where I’d set my glass.
“It’s the privacy I paid for, not a trap,” I told her gently.
“What do you want from me?” she asked. I rose from my place, letting the napkin fall from my lap to the floor.
I held out my hand, indicating she should rise as well, and she did, standing slowly as I moved deftly between her and her chair.
She looked up at me, fearful, as I backed her against the edge of the table.
I brought my lips to hover just before hers and whispered against them, “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you.” I was going to tell her to close her eyes, but as luck would have it, I didn’t need to. They slid shut of their own volition as her breathing became shallow.