by Tessa Blake
Across the table, Brigitte looks slightly rattled, so I answer. “My first time,” I say, “but the lady has been here before. I’m just going to let her take charge.”
The server smiles at me, then turns to Brigitte. “Would you like to speak with the wine director?”
Brigitte nods, clears her throat. “I would, thank you.”
The wine director turns out to be a surprisingly young woman in a severe black pantsuit. I half-listen as she and Brigitte talk about what’s new, what’s most popular, and whatever else. I don’t particularly care about wine—it’s fine, but I’m not into it or anything—so I just let Brigitte handle it. Whatever they decide on—something white, fairly young, and sweet—it tastes good.
When the server returns, I let Brigitte handle that, too.
“You had this kind of sushi bruschetta thing last time I was here. It wasn’t called that, but—”
The server points to something on the menu in Brigitte’s hand. “The spicy tuna on toast, here, that’s basically the same thing.”
Brigitte looks at me over her menu. “Miles, how opposed are you to raw fish?”
“Not remotely.”
“Beef?”
“Fine by me.”
“Okay, so the tartare, with the cheddar? And I think the Sicilian sashimi.” She smiles brilliantly at the server, who gathers the menus and tops off our nearly-untouched water glasses before leaving. “Honestly, I could eat one of everything, but then you’d have to roll me home.”
“If rolling is the only way you’ll take me home, I’m in.”
She furrows her brow at me. “I told you, I still haven’t decided about you.”
“And I told you we could put it away for the rest of dinner. I’m sorry I said anything.”
“Does it work?” she asks. “Coming on strong like that, does it get you what you want?”
“I do okay.”
She sips her wine, looking at me over the rim of the glass. “I bet you do.”
“Now what is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that you have that way about you.”
“What way would that be?”
The server reappears, sets down a plate of bread and olive oil. “Compliments of the chef,” she says, and scurries off.
Brigitte pushes the plate toward me. “You know. Like you’re used to getting what you want.”
“I am.”
Her eyes cut to something over my shoulder, then return to me. “Ainsley says you’re the black sheep of the family.”
“So it’s been said.” I transfer a piece of bread to my plate, offer her the other. She waves it away. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned you and Ainsley talking about me. I’m getting quite full of myself.”
“Don’t.” She smirks. “It was largely uncomplimentary.”
“Ouch.” I’ve come to expect being gossiped about, and none of it tends to be flattering, but this gets under my skin a bit. “In what way?”
“You know what?” She tilts her head, frowns a little. “That was unkind. All Ainsley knows is what she hears from other people, and you know what that is? It’s fucking gossip. Why don’t you tell me something about yourself instead?”
“Like what?”
I’m a little thrown. At home, on the West Coast, they judge me for myself, not for rumors. It’s one of many reasons I prefer there to here. Here, everyone already knows what I’m all about—what they think I’m all about.
But here she sits, in the center of the rumor mill, deciding she’ll make up her own mind about me.
“Where did you go to college?” She takes another sip of wine, and I watch her throat move as she swallows. She’s looking over my shoulder again.
“Vassar. You?”
“Ole Miss. That’s where I met Ainsley. We were both Journalism majors., but she ended up in print and I ended up on TV.”
“That’s right—Rafe said she’s a fashion reporter?”
She takes just a few seconds too long to answer me. “Something like that.”
Okay, that was a little weird. “How is Ainsley?”
“Apparently she’s awesome. She’s with your brother, according to the text she sent me at the crack of dawn this morning.”
“Oh.” I turn that over for a moment, decide it’s good. “I’m glad. He was … having a rough time.”
“So was she.”
“But it’s all settled now?”
“I certainly hope so. She indicated as much, but I haven’t heard from her since that text. Shagging all day, I assume.”
“Shagging? Are you British?”
“No.” She shrugs a little. “It’s just less vulgar than ‘fucking.’ ”
“I hate to tell you this, but you have definitely used that word several times, in a few permutations, since I’ve met you.”
“Probably, but not to refer to sex. It’s crude. Sex is … I don’t know. “ She looks embarrassed. “It’s just more important than that word.”
I’m … moved. That’s the only way I can think to describe it. I’m unexpectedly moved by the slightly old-fashioned attitude. It’s not prudish—she clearly doesn’t have a prudish bone in her body. It’s cautious.
It makes me want to be the person she throws caution to the wind for.
She’s looking over my shoulder again. I turn in my seat, but there’s nothing noteworthy back there. Just other customers.
“What are you looking at?” Brigitte asks me.
“You keep looking over my shoulder.”
“Oh. Sorry. There’s a woman over there wearing a pair of powder-blue suede Louboutin half-boots that I would kill my own resurrected grandparents for.”
I turn again. A couple tables over, there is indeed a woman wearing blue boots—though I doubt I would have been able to rattle off fabric, style, and color the way Brigitte just did. I know for sure I wouldn’t have known the name of the designer. The woman’s hair is piled on her head in some kind of complicated twist, which probably also has a name I don’t know. Women have a secret language. “The redhead?”
“The very same.” She laughs a little, sounding self-conscious. “I try not to be a walking cliche, but … shoes.”
The server swings back by our table and sets down three plates. We establish that everything looks great, we don’t need anything, and she leaves again.
“There nothing wrong with cliches,” I say. “But tell me something you like that I wouldn’t expect.”
She appears to be thinking about it as she digs into the spicy tuna. “Guns,” she says after a moment. “Target shooting, skeet.”
I have to admit, that does surprise me. “Really?”
She takes a bite and makes that same sexy yum noise she made last night, when she was describing the wine here. My pulse picks up, just a bit.
“Yup, really. I’m from Tennessee, my friend. We take our guns very seriously. My daddy taught me how to shoot before I was ten.”
I haven’t noticed it till this very moment, but when she says the word daddy, I do: the faintest wisp of a southern accent. Now that I think about it, it was there when she said Ole Miss, too.
“You don’t really sound like you’re from the south.”
“I’m in broadcasting,” she says. “First thing you do is eradicate any accent.”
“Interesting.”
And it is. As we eat, swap stories, and drink our way through the bottle of wine, I discover that she’s very interesting. That she plays video games and she knits, that she bowls as well as she plays pool, and that she rebuilt a classic Mustang from the ground up with her father when she was in high school.
Somehow, she makes me feel interesting, too. Maybe it’s just because she’s a reporter, but she asks good questions, she seems fascinated by the answers.
I deflect anything that hints toward what I’m currently doing with my life—other than surfing, which it’s safe for her to know about. But I tell her things about my life growing up here, about my time at college. About
my parents, whose love story is a legend in my family—the environmental activist and the big bad corporate polluter, meeting at a protest and falling in love.
“That’s absolutely fascinating.” She swallows the last of her wine and looks at me across the table. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright. “The tabloids love to gossip about your family. How have I never read that?”
“It’s private,” I say. There’s one more bite of sashimi, and I point at it. “You want?”
“I do, but I can’t.” Her grin is mischievous. “As you so rudely pointed out earlier, there’s not a lot of room for expansion in these clothes. I’m done.”
“And as you so rudely pointed out, I was the one who asked for curves.” I take the last of the sashimi and signal the server for the check.
“You did.” Her eyes flash a challenge at me. “If I ask you to walk me home, are you going to try to talk your way inside?”
I keep my eyes steady on hers, answering the challenge with one word: “Yup.”
4
Miles
Brigitte laughs, a peal of laughter that has heads turning. “Oh, I like you.”
“Good. Hopefully that means it will work.”
“I told you, I haven’t decided.”
“Is it going to take forever?”
She doesn’t answer. I deal with the check, sign the credit slip, and all the while she just gazes at me. I feel weighed and measured. I’m not sure I care for it.
Finally, as we step out into the cool night air, she says, “I have a rule.”
“Oh, really?” I guide her around an open sidewalk cellar door. “That sounds serious.”
“It is serious.” She looks sideways at me. “Three dates.”
“Three dates?”
“No sex until the third date. At least.” She shrugs. “Maybe longer, if I’m not sure, but definitely three dates.”
I nod. “Okay, sounds great. I’m in.”
She stops walking and turns to me. People ebb and flow, parting to go around us, as she looks at me for what feels like a long time.
“That simple?” she says. “Just sounds great?”
“What did you expect?” I take her hand and tug it to get her moving again. “An argument?”
“Maybe. You argued last night.”
“No, I attempted to persuade you last night. And when you told me to back off, I did.”
We wait for a break in traffic, then cross the street. On her front stoop, she takes out her keys and looks at me thoughtfully. “You did back off. Points for that.”
“Excellent. I will trade my accrued points for the privilege of seeing you all the way up to your apartment door tonight.”
“Three dates,” she says.
“Of course,” I say, and let her lead me to the elevator.
In the elevator, I’m careful not to crowd her. I resist the urge to touch her. In the hallway outside her apartment, she unlocks her door, then turns back. “Thank you for taking me to dinner.”
“Thank you for coming to dinner with me.”
I lean down to kiss her. It’s supposed to be light, a little casual, but I can’t help myself. As soon as I feel her lips on mine, my arms come around her almost of their own accord. She tastes amazing, she smells amazing.
Her arms are around my neck, her body pressed full-length against mine.
I press her back against her door and slant my mouth across hers, taking the kiss somewhere deeper. Somewhere darker.
All my good intentions are just gone. What the hell? I was going to kiss her and walk away. I was going to be the guy who waited three dates, then blew her fucking mind.
I pull away, fight to get my breath under control. To get myself under control. “This is insane. I want you. Why is there an arbitrary rule?”
Her breathing isn’t all that steady either. “It’s not arbitrary,” she says. “I just think three is a good number. To get to know someone.”
My brain, which does not seem to be working very well right now, somehow manages to throw a Hail Mary pass. “Sure, definitely. I totally respect that. So the first night we met, that’s number one, then Max Fish is number two, so tonight would be—”
“Those were not dates!” She shoves me, but her lips are twitching, her eyes shining. “You’re fudging the numbers.”
“I’m doing what now?”
“You went to Vassar. You can get it from context.”
“I’m not fudging anything. We had beer. We played pool.”
“After we talked about murder!”
“Still.” I can barely think; every drop of blood has been redirected from my brain to … elsewhere. “Beer, pool. I bought you a drink.”
“I bought you a drink.”
I steal another kiss, tear myself away again. “Going Dutch,” I say. “Very modern of us. Definitely a date.”
“Even if that was—which it was not—the first night wasn’t a date.”
“We were both there.”
“Sure, in an Uber tracking my kidnapped best friend. That’s—”
“You smelled amazing.”
She stops, stares at me. “What?”
“You smelled amazing. I mean, you always smell amazing, but that was the first time I’d met you, and there you were. All tumbling hair and curves for days and eyes the color of a storm over the Pacific. I couldn’t not see you.”
“It was a kidnapping!”
“And I knew that. Did I put the moves on you? But Ainsley being kidnapped didn’t mean I was struck suddenly blind. The instant I saw you, that was it. Do you get me? That was it.”
“That was what?”
“I honestly don’t know.” And that’s the absolute truth. “It’s too soon to know. Only three dates, after all.”
“We have not had three dates.”
“Says you.” I try out my most charming smile—it usually works pretty well—and move in to kiss her again.
She turns her face away. When she speaks, her voice is quiet. “You’re making it so I can’t think. I have to be able to think, and you’re just … pressuring me.”
I take a step back, shove my hands in my pockets because that’s the only way I’m going to be able to stop touching her. “That’s not what I’m trying to do. Christ, you’re not the only one who can’t think.”
“I just want to be careful,” she says.
God almighty. Does she want me to beg?
I realize, in that moment, that I will. I’ll beg. On my fucking knees, if I have to.
“Come on, Brigitte.” I reach out and catch one of her hands in mine. “Fudge the numbers with me.”
She looks at me for what feels like a long time—just stands there holding my gaze. I can’t look away, because if I do, I know she’ll say no. I just know it. So I wait.
Finally, she takes a breath, lets it out slowly. “Don’t make me regret this,” she murmurs, then her hand reaches behind her and turns the doorknob.
My heart starts to beat in triple-time.
Her fingers tighten on mine, then she steps backward into her apartment, pulling me with her.
5
Miles
I barely register the apartment—there’s furniture, I guess. That’s probably the kitchen over there. Whatever. All I can see is her.
She turns, still holding my hand, and crosses to an open door in the far wall. Beyond, a big bed covered in midnight blue fills most of the space in an L-shaped room. Bedside lamps throw a warm glow, and fairy lights twinkle like tiny stars all along the line where the walls meet the ceiling. In the short leg of the L, sliding glass doors lead out to a balcony.
She stops, but doesn’t turn. I move in and wrap my arms around her from behind, brushing a kiss across the back of her neck. The smell of her surrounds me. Her thin sweater is soft under my hands as she turns in my arms and lifts her face, offering her mouth again.
I kiss her, let my hands explore the warm skin of her lower back. She sighs against my mouth and wraps her arms around my neck, pr
essing herself against me. Every curve of her body fits perfectly with mine. Her fingers wind themselves in my hair as she kisses me back, fiercely, her tongue warring with mine, her teeth flirting with my lower lip.
“Take this off,” I say, giving the hem of her sweater a little tug. “I want to see you.”
She steps back, pulls the sweater over her head, and drops it to the floor. Without being asked, she wiggles out of her pants, and then she’s standing there before me in barely-there underwear and a low-cut bra, both the color of a fire engine. I don’t know a lot about women’s underwear, but these seem designed to make a guy swallow his own tongue—and it’s working.
One other thing I know: You don’t put on that kind of underwear unless there’s a chance someone might see it. I think of her, standing in this room, deciding to put those on for me. It’s impossibly erotic.
I move forward and run my fingers over the satiny fabric. Her nipples are hard; I pinch them lightly, and her eyes flutter closed.
“Open your eyes.”
When she does, I do it again. Those incredible eyes hold mine, stay there even as her breath hitches and a flush creeps across her chest.
“Take it off.”
She does, reaching behind her with both hands, then letting the straps slide down her arms. I drop it on top of her clothes and fill my hands with those spectacular tits, like I’ve been wanting to do from the moment I saw her. She reaches up to cover my hands with her own.
“Turn off the lights,” she says, nodding toward the light switch next to the door.
“No.” No way in hell. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever to get her clothes off; I’m not going to make love to her in the dark. “I want to see you.”
I swing her up in my arms and take the few steps to the bed, laying her on top of that ocean of blue and pulling my shirt off.
She looks up at me and reaches one hand out, tracing her fingers over the lines of the compass rose on my forearm. “Pretty.”
I’ve had a lot of ink done over the years, but this is one of the earliest. I got it just before I left New York, to remind me that I know where I’m going, that I won’t get lost.
