Chapter 30
OLIVER
Seven on the dot, and the door to her room swings wide.
“If only I’d put money on you being late,” I begin, gesturing with my glass, “I’d be quid’s ...” My words trail off as Eve appears in a pool of midnight-colored silk. The halter-neck style bares her shoulders and arms, the neckline plunging between her breasts. The dark silk skims her hips like a lover’s touch, dropping to the floor to reveal a hint of red toenail.
“What do you think?” As she crosses the room, the sinuous flow of the fabric parts like a wave, exposing her leg almost to the top of her toned thigh.
“I think ... I’m lost for words.” And sporting a semi at the sight of her, at the heady perfume she’s wearing as she comes to a stop in front of me.
“Honestly, I feel like a Bond girl.” Her pleasure is a sudden, shy smile, and I note how her fingers toy nervously with a tiny silver purse. “You look like a Bond villain,” she adds, taking the glass from my hand. Her eyes hold mine over the rim as she sips.
“Would that be the one with the pussy or the one with the unfortunate teeth?”
“The one that looks like Henry Cavill.” Reaching out, she runs her thumb over my satin lapel. “You scrub up good.”
My evening suit is single breasted and shawl collared and fits like a glove. I can’t think of my own clothing when all I want to do is slide my thumbs under those shoestring straps at her shoulders. Would her dress snag at her hips or flutter freely to the floor? Now is not the time to find out. Unless I want a punch in the balls.
“I try,” I say, taking my glass back. I set it down and offer her my arm. “Shall we get that drink?”
The hotel bar is busy this evening as we enter. I could procure a table (I do own the place, after all) but it’s best we aren’t tempted to stay long.
Tempted. What a joke. In that dress, Eve is the personification of enticement. Desire is the serpent in the garden, and Eve is the forbidden apple dangling from the tree. Sweet and ripe for the plucking. But only if I have no regard for my testicles.
My hand slips from her back as she turns, bare but for two thin straps crossing at her spine. “What are you having?”
You under me, your breath in my ear as your body yields to mine. “The usual. And you?”
Her lips twist briefly. “Something to take the edge off. A margarita, maybe?”
“You’re nervous?”
Her lips twist. “Whatever makes you think that?”
“There’s nothing to be worried about.” I have every faith she’s up to the task.
“Meeting a man I don’t know to do what, I’m not sure. No biggie, right? But—” She halts and frowns, as though she didn’t mean to say that.
“What is it?”
“Well, this dress is gorgeous, but I feel kind of exposed.” She pulls her purse to her front, holding it with both hands.
I give a quick and very thorough once-over. “You’re not, thankfully. There are too many men in this bar to fight.”
A tiny smile catches at the corner of her mouth, but she turns her head to hide it. “Fight them for my honor? Remember, you’re not the hero type.”
I’m prevented from answering, thanks to the barman’s appearance. I place our order, and Eve declines a seat, watching as my employee prepares her drink.
“I feel like we should’ve talked more about this,” she says absently, pressing her chin to her fist as she watches the barman salt her glass. “Maybe filled out one of those online questionnaires or something?”
Turning to face her, I rest my elbow on the polished bar top and my left foot on the brass footrail. “I don’t quite follow.”
“I barely know anything about you.” She spares me a glance. “What if people start asking me questions? About you? About us?”
“There are very few people who truly know me, so your answers won’t matter. You can say what you like. Besides, they’re not going to be asking questions about me.” My eyes slide over the smooth skin of her shoulder and down her back, my cock pulsating as I take in the luscious swell of her arse.
“Stop staring at my butt.”
I look up to find her watching me in the smoky glass behind the bar. “It’s what lovers do. Watch. Touch. Kiss when they think no one is watching. Sometimes, even when they know they are, just because they can’t help themselves.”
“You aren’t the PDA type.”
“You know that’s not true.” Leaning forward, I press my lips to her shoulder. “I absolutely can be inspired to public displays.”
“Smooth,” she says, her tone indifferent as she turns her face away. It doesn’t hide the flush to her cheeks. “But if my answers won’t matter, then I’ve decided you aren’t the demonstrative type. At least for the purposes of tonight.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Maybe you’re even born again. You’re very respectful, and you keep your hands to yourself. You don’t even believe in sex before marriage.”
“I can’t imagine what kind of people you think you’ll be speaking to tonight, but I suggest you don’t say anything like that in earshot of my friends.”
“Matt and Fin will be there?”
“Yes.” I frown at her response. Her genuine surprise—delight, even.
“Thanks,” she says, turning her attention away. I’m almost jealous of the smile she bestows on the barman as he places her drink down in front of her. As he leaves, she rises to her toes, attempting to pluck a tiny straw from a container just out of reach.
“A little help here?”
“Sorry. I wasn’t watching the top half.”
“Rude,” she mutters, as I pass her a tiny straw.
You have no idea, darling.
“But thank you for saving my lipstick.”
“Do I get to spoil it later?”
“You know, now that I think about it, you’ve recently taken a vow of celibacy.”
“Kissing isn’t fucking. That might depend on what you’re kissing, of course.” I take a sip of my whisky, allowing that little memory to float between us.
“I think you’re about to enter a monastery,” she adds airily.
“Another time, perhaps. Tonight, I’m besotted with you, and there will be public displays of affection and adoration. Even a little manhandling.”
Her mouth turns down at the corners.
“But I promise to leave that one up to you. You can be as handsy as you like, all as part of the role.” I lift my glass in a toast. “Bottoms up.”
“Even if Bo is about?”
“There’s a lesson I won’t need to learn again.”
“Because that’s not happening again .” She smiles around her tiny straw, and my mind turns deviant.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You might have those baby blues,” she says, “but that innocent look doesn’t work for you.”
“I’ve gotten away with it this far.” I give an unmanly flutter of my lashes, prompting her to giggle.
“You should stick to that haughty brow thing you love so much.”
“My what?” I murmur, doing the exact thing she’s talking about.
Her smile is sudden, wide, and genuine and makes my heartbeats fall in quick succession.
“That’s the one ... that makes me want to shave the sucker off.”
I almost choke on my drink. Coughing into my fist, I clear my throat, then set my glass down. “That would leave me in a predicament.”
“Or looking like a groom after a bachelor party.”
“There’s little chance of that ever happening.”
“How am I meant to convince people we’re heading for big love when you say things like that?”
“Because I’m saying it only to you.” As I also remind myself.
“You don’t think it’ll ever happen?”
“That I’ll have my eyebrows shaved off at a bachelor party?”
“That you’ll fall in love again.”
Again. Another Lucy assumption I suppose.
“My life is already quite full. It’s not something I devote a lot of thought to.” People don’t fall in love. It’s a choice, not accidental.
“If it happens, it happens? And if it doesn’t, we’ll just murder your harem and bury them, and you, with your pots of money when you pass.”
“No harem.”
“And no Saint Lucy,” she murmurs, quickly taking a sip from her glass.
“You wouldn’t call Lucy a saint if you knew her.” I wonder where this has come from.
“Well, I don’t know her, and I’m clearly not her.”
“And for that, I’m very glad.” I pause, choosing not to correct her assumption. “If you want to know, you only have to ask.” Not that she will.
“I’m not interested.” She flicks her shoulder. “It’s not like I can trust your answers, anyway.”
“I’ll tell you the truth. You just have to know the right questions to ask.”
“Like I said. I don’t care.” She paints on a fake-looking smile, and I’m sorry for it. But what I’m sorry for, I can’t bring myself to admit. “If I can’t make you a celibate monk, who can I make you tonight?”
“Make me a love-drunk fool.” Who doesn’t deserve you.
“Yeah, right.” Averting her eyes, she lifts her drink again. “Why are you looking down at me like that?”
“Physics, darling,” I answer smoothly. “I’m simply taller.”
“Right.”
Wrong. I’m looking down at her like a lover, remembering what it’s like to be drunk on her. “I would love to know what’s keeping your breasts in that dress.”
“Hey!” She presses her hand to her chest, her laughter a sudden bark around the word.
“Careful.” I catch her by the elbow when it looks as though she might topple back. “One wrong move, and the patrons of this bar will get an eyeful, and I’ll be forced to fight the lot of them.”
“To protect my honor? Again?”
“Plain old jealousy, I’m afraid. If I can’t look, no one can.”
“There will be no nip slips in this dress.” Leaning closer, she flicks her finger against my chest. “Womanly trade secrets. Don’t ask. I can’t tell.”
“What is the probability of finding an enormous pair of knickers under that dress later?” I slant her a narrowed look. “The kind made from trampoline skins.”
“I suggest you remove your head from my undergarments,” she says with mock primness. “You won’t find anything under this dress—”
“Daring.”
“—because when we get back later, we’ll be parting at our respective bedroom doors.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot. My apologies.”
“Sorry, my ass.”
“Your arse should be sorry. For making me stare at it.”
“Favorite color,” she demands suddenly.
“No one is going to ask you my favorite color. They’re more likely to ask you what I’m like in bed.”
“Oliver.”
“I had a nanny once who used to say my name like that.” Her expression softens. “ Had being the operative word.”
She rolls her eyes, unimpressed. “Siblings?”
“One. A sister. Younger. And you?”
She gives her head a quick shake. “Stepsiblings. We don’t maintain contact.”
“Your parents are divorced?”
“My dad passed, and my mom has been divorced twice.” This she says without inflection but not without some hurt.
“Yet you believe in marriage?”
“If you’d met my parents, you’d know they aren’t exactly the role model types. But I’ve seen happiness, love, and fidelity. I know it’s out there. What about you?”
I sigh, indifferent to the whole concept. “I’m on the fence, which is probably odd for a man of my age.”
“See? I don’t even know how old you are.”
“I’m thirty-six.”
Her brows jump. “That pretty face must cost you a fortune in fillers.”
“I am a whole seven years older than you.” This I know thanks to her visa paperwork.
“Exactly. Old. But you were saying?”
“About marriage? I need to find the right woman first. I’m sure that’s how the convention goes.” But I’ve never seen love as the kind of risk I’d take a gamble on. “But you’ve been in love.”
“Because the day we met I was wearing a wedding dress?” She shakes her head. “Can’t love a ghost.”
I open my mouth, but Eve cuts me off.
“He didn’t love me, so please don’t say it. And I couldn’t have loved him, because how can you love a person who never existed?” She stares at her glass, and we both watch as she twirls the stem in her fingers. “I must be an optimist because I do believe in love, even if I haven’t found it yet.”
“What will it look like, do you think?” I swirl the amber liquid around the base of my own glass, almost worried to look at her. “When you finally see it.”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” She glances up, then away. “Love is ... choosing that person always.” The stones in her ring catch the light as she gathers her hair in one hand, the spill of it like a sheet of red gold slipping over one shoulder. “I guess I need to see it to know it.” Her hand falls away and she glances at the glinting gems. “One thing’s for sure. It won’t be someone who buys me a ring as a photo opportunity.”