Chapter 15
fifteen
. . .
When I turned sideways in the mirror and saw what that light-caramel dress was doing to my hips and ass, one thought came clear as day.
Oh, I’mma fuck his head up when he sees me.
The dress looked simple until it was on my body.
Sleeveless. Soft square neckline. Ribbed knit that hugged without begging. Close enough to my skin tone that, at first glance, it almost disappeared. My breasts looked fuller. My waist looked smaller. My hips looked like they had every intention of making a man gather himself before he spoke.
Good.
I wanted Micah halfway to begging for something I was still pretending I might not give him.
By the time I had gotten home and dropped my bag on the console table, my whole body had already been tuned to the night.
Not frantic. Just alive in that low, dangerous way that made everything feel more charged than it had any business feeling.
The air in my townhouse. The light slipping gold through the windows.
My heels lined up by the wall like they were waiting to be chosen.
All of it felt like scenery for something I had not quite admitted I wanted as badly as I did.
So I went straight to the shower because standing still felt foolish.
Hot water first. Then lotion. Then oil worked into my skin until it glowed. The small, private rituals of a woman getting ready for a man she wanted very badly and was not about to let him know too soon.
I wanted to look like myself.
I also wanted to do damage.
The caramel dress had been the answer before I even touched another hanger.
I stepped into it slowly, pulled it down over my body, and watched the woman in the mirror become more dangerous by the second.
Damn.
I added the rest with care. Gold choker.
Hoops. Bangles. Diamond bracelet. Little diamond studs in my second and third piercings.
Nude heels. Bronze lipstick. Brown liner and shadow soft enough to warm my eyes without doing too much.
Perfume at my wrists, behind my knees, at the center of my chest, and under my ears where a man had to earn the truth of it.
When I looked in the mirror again, I did not look uncertain.
I looked like I knew exactly what I was doing.
My phone buzzed while I was still adjusting one earring.
Micah: I’m outside. Take your time.
My pulse kicked once, low and hard.
I grabbed my bag, cut the lights, and headed downstairs before I could stand there any longer letting the mirror talk me into more mischief.
The evening had gone blue at the edges by the time I stepped outside, warm enough for bare arms and soft enough for perfume to carry properly. Micah was leaning against his truck with one hand in his pocket when I came out.
Whatever he had been about to say died somewhere between his chest and his mouth.
Exactly.
His eyes found me and stayed there. The neckline first. Then my waist. Then lower, to my hips, like the dress had personally offended his self-control.
He pushed off the truck slowly.
And damn, he was something to look at himself.
The short-sleeved knit fit close across his chest and arms, dark against his skin, the fabric stretching just enough over the thick build of him to remind me that Micah was not some slim pretty man in good clothes.
He was broad through the shoulders, heavy in the chest, built through the arms and torso in that grown-man way that suggested strength you did not have to ask about.
His jeans sat low on his hips, and the long line of him moved with that quiet, masculine confidence some men spent years trying to fake and never learned.
The watch at his wrist caught the porch light as he came closer, followed by the flash of the diamond stud in his ear. His fade was fresh, his jaw carved into place, and by the time his eyes moved over me, his mouth shifted like he was trying not to say exactly what he was thinking.
“Fuck, Talia,” he said softly, then shook his head. “This what you call comfortable?”
A laugh slipped out of me before I could help it. “What’s more comfortable than being in my own skin?”
His eyes went darker at that.
“See,” he muttered, stepping closer to open the passenger door, “you say shit like that on purpose.”
“Maybe.”
He stood there one beat too long after opening the door, looking at me like he wanted another answer and had already decided he did not trust himself with it.
Then his hand landed at my waist, broad and warm and just possessive enough to make everything under that dress wake up harder.
I got into the truck before I embarrassed myself in the driveway.
The drive to his place wasn’t long, which was probably for the best. There was not much room left between us tonight for anything too casual.
Music moved low through the speakers, something soft and grown that let the silence stay alive.
He drove with one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting near the console, and even that did something to me.
His fingers.
His forearm.
The easy strength in the way he moved.
Every time the city lights crossed his face, I caught some new detail I had not taken in properly before. The shape of his mouth. The seriousness in his eyes when he wasn’t smiling. The little crease between his brows when he was trying to behave.
I looked out at the city for a second just to breathe.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“So are you.”
He smiled without looking away from the road. “That make you nervous?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The one word sat warm between us.
By the time he pulled into the garage, my body had already decided this night was not ending halfway.
He came around to get my door before I could reach for the handle.
Of course he did.
That hand found my waist again when I stepped down from the truck, and the contact stayed long enough to let me feel how deliberate he was being. He didn’t rush me. Didn’t crowd me. Just guided me toward the elevator like he had already made up his mind that I was safe with him there.
Upstairs, when the doors opened and we stepped into his place, everything in me went still for half a second.
His condo smelled like warmth before anything else.
Not just fragrance. Warmth.
Something rich and masculine with a little smoke in it, a little sweetness under that, and the faintest trace of whatever he used on his skin.
The city spread wide through the windows in gold and navy and glass.
Music moved softly somewhere in the background.
Candles glowed low from the console and the dining table.
Dark wood. Leather. Cream upholstery. Black accents. Nothing loud. Nothing trying too hard.
The whole place held itself the way he did.
Solid.
Sure.
Intentional.
And there, right in the middle of his dining table, was a glass vase full of stargazers.
I stopped.
Big pink blooms, open and fragrant, their petals curling back soft and dramatic. That sweet, deep floral scent rose above the candle smoke just enough to catch me right in the chest.
“You remembered,” I said quietly.
Micah looked at me like the answer should have been obvious. “Of course I did.”
That alone made me want to kiss him stupid before the night had even properly started.
Then another surprise stepped out of the kitchen.
A tall Black man in chef whites came through carrying two small appetizer plates, looking between us with the ease of somebody who knew he was helping set up a memorable night and had no intention of acting awkward about it.
“Talia,” Micah said, taking my purse from my shoulder and sliding the strap over the back of a chair, “this is Chef Elijah Ware.”
Chef Elijah gave me a warm nod. “Good evening.”
I looked at Micah. “You have a chef.”
“Tonight I do.”
That made me laugh, soft and helpless with surprise. “You are really showing out.”
He took one step closer, eyes moving over my face like he was measuring my reaction carefully.
“I wanted you here,” he said simply.
That moved through me deeper than it had any business moving through me in the first thirty seconds of being inside his condo.
Chef Elijah set the plates down and gave us just enough time to settle before he disappeared back into the kitchen.
Micah pulled my chair out for me.
I sat.
The candlelight moved over the stargazers, over the table settings, over the city in the windows behind him. Everything had that dusky, golden look rooms only got when the evening had decided it was on your side.
And sitting there across from him, I could feel the effort of the night.
Not effort in the bad way.
Care.
Thought.
Intention.
All the things that let a woman know she had not just been included. She had been considered.
The first plate was a lump crab cake over a little fennel and citrus salad with lemon aioli dragged under it in one creamy swipe. Light enough not to make a woman tired. Rich enough to feel special.
Micah watched my face when I took the first bite, and I had to close my eyes for half a second before I looked back up.
“Oh,” I said.
Chef Elijah’s voice floated from somewhere behind me. “That’s what I was hoping for.”
That got a laugh out of all three of us.
Micah sat back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. “I know good help.”
“You are insufferable.”
“You’ll live.”
The second course came after that, and this one was worse in the best way.
Filet, sliced and blushing at the center, garlic-herb butter glossing the top.
Truffle whipped potatoes. Charred broccolini with lemon and shaved parmesan.
Nothing on the plate looked fussy, but everything tasted like somebody had been in the kitchen loving on it.
The room darkened by degrees while we ate. The city outside sharpened. The candles did more work. His face softened under that light, less business, less edge, more of the man he kept tucked behind his composure.
We talked through all of it.