by Ren Benton
She arched one imperious brow and hoped he heard a dinner bell that brought him running.
Griff was disappointed in Ivy for playing it safe, but not surprised. Even on the island, she had been determined to convince him he shouldn’t be interested in her.
It hadn’t worked then, either.
On the bright side, his life would remain uncomplicated, just the way he liked it, if she primly and properly took herself home to work on her needlepoint or paint the toenails of her twenty-nine cats or whatever the woman she claimed to be did with her dull, solitary evenings.
He had looked up from his drink at so many incoming patrons, his anticipation wilting a bit each time, that he was forced to admit he wouldn’t have minded her brand of complication.
The blonde — she hadn’t introduced herself before sliding her hand toward his crotch — provided a timely, uncomplicated distraction. She wasn’t shy. She wouldn’t know hesitation if it built a nest between her admirable breasts. She wouldn’t look at him like he’d branded her with a scarlet letter because he thought she’d cheat on a husband she didn’t actually have. She wasn’t on a crusade to convert him to mobile dining. She was precisely his type.
It was no fault of hers that he continued to look toward the door every time movement there caught his eye.
This time, a splash of color drew his attention. He took a moment to appreciate the flow of curves inside the blue dress as the woman stood poised at the top of the stairs. He exhaled, wilted a bit more, and resigned himself to the nameless blonde.
The blue curves hovered at the periphery of his vision longer than any other arrivals, waiting for someone or something, leaning to one side to balance the weight of...
He looked again. Damn, she was such a chameleon, he never expected her to look the way she did when she turned up. Would she have candy apple hair or fawn? Ivory skin, leached of color by an unfortunate fashion statement, or stained red with “blood”? Floral sack, sweat-soaked tee, or mortician’s uniform?
No wonder he hadn’t recognized her at first glance. If not for the purse big enough to smuggle the gross national product of Dangereusia, he might not have recognized her at all.
The arch of her brow sank into him like a hook and pulled him off the stool and out of the blonde’s clutches. “Excuse me,” he said without taking his eyes off Ivy.
He mounted the stairs, trying to memorize her so he wouldn’t be caught off guard again. The soft bow of her lip resting atop the full lower one never changed. Her ruler-straight nose. Those big brown eyes that were warm and liquid as hot fudge. “I’m glad you came.”
Her smile was sweet as aspartame and far more toxic. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
She hadn’t seemed jealous of flirty bikini models, shop girls, or wedding guests, and he didn’t believe her to be now. She was peeved because she’d screwed up the courage to accept his challenge, and by her assessment of the situation, he hadn’t waited ten minutes to throw his gauntlet elsewhere. “You’re not interrupting anything.”
“That’s debatable. If looks could kill, we’d both be splattered across a twenty-foot blast radius.”
He ascended to her level without verifying the blonde’s murderous intent. “In my defense, I did tell her I was waiting for you.”
Her level gave him a height advantage. She tipped her face up to meet his eyes. It was an explicitly kissable angle for her, some geometric phenomenon that evoked an instinctive response from him to pull her close and taste her.
“You’d only need a defense if you hadn’t dropped her like a hot rock.” The stretch of her throat made her voice husky. “What took you so long?”
Not jealousy at all — simple, sulky impatience brought out her bad temper. “You’re always unexpected.”
Those kissable lips pulled to one side. “I should go before you realize I’m entirely predictable.”
He was saved from inventing an excuse for her to stay when the maitre d’ beckoned. “Mr. Dunleavy, your table is ready.”
He ran his hand down Ivy’s arm and took her hand. “You should stay. You can’t leave me at the mercy of a woman who wants to splatter me.”
She grudgingly turned toward the dining room. “It’s too late to spare you from my predictability. You’re already relying on my charitable nature.”
Exploiting it, in fact, resulting in her accompanying him without resistance on a course set by the maitre d’. “I truly am sorry I didn’t put her off longer.”
“Griff.” She imbued his name with gentle exasperation that softened him so guilt could burrow deeper. “Where could I possibly take you that women wouldn’t be pawing you and guiding your face into their cleavage?”
“Where could you take me that they would? That sounds much more fun than tiny, overpriced portions of artfully presented food.”
“There are several such establishments near Lafayette. I can drop you off on my way home.”
He wondered how far her familiarity with those establishments went. A nice girl like her wouldn’t venture into a strip club and risk soiling her pristine reputation if she was seen.
Then again, he knew her to have a wicked streak, and she was a master of disguise. If she had a regular appointment for a lap dance, she could make sure no one ever found out.
Heat collected around his collar at the thought — not the thought about a stripper grinding in his date’s lap, though that would be well worth the price of admission and a generous gratuity. Ivy’s secret life of sin was the subject that aroused his curiosity... among other things.
The last thing he wanted was to be dropped off to look at other women. “I’d rather go home with you.”
He liked the way her cheeks pinkened at every barely suggestive remark nearly as much as the way her responses when she was naked made a lie of that bashfulness.
She changed the subject, as she tended to do when she got flustered. “Why are we here if you don’t like the food?” She whispered so the maitre d’ wouldn’t be offended.
“You’re friendly when I feed you.” He monitored her color closely. “But I still want you to be hungry when we leave.”
The pink deepened. He liked that brand of predictability — an honest reaction she couldn’t hide from him with a disguise.
Her head turned away to follow a tray borne by a passing waiter. “You weren’t kidding about tiny portions. You’ll have to promise me something really good later to keep me friendly.”
He had some prior experience with what she considered good. He could do at least as well when prepared, alert, and not recovering from panic. “I’ll do my best, but what do you have in mind?”
She looked at him, downcast eyes slowly traveling up to his face. At the end of the visual caress, she said, “Fried ravioli from Bleeker’s.”
He knew where to take her on their next date. “I watch a lot of games there. Why haven’t I seen you?”
“You didn’t see me here even when you were looking right at me. I’m very overlookable.”
The maitre d’ stopped at a table and pulled out a chair for Ivy. Griff backed him off with a look and pushed her in himself. He sat and picked up a menu, which he didn’t look at because he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Nothing about her was overlookable. “I must have been distracted by the fried ravioli.”
“Again, no defense necessary. I don’t stand a chance against the allure of anything breaded and deep fried.” She smiled and extended her hand.
He nearly took it in his before realizing she wanted a menu. He passed one to her and reined in his adolescent urges.
Why hadn’t he seen her at Bleeker’s? Maybe she went only during baseball season, which he barely considered a sport. Maybe she went for ladies’ night rather than hockey or football.
Maybe she was a Patriots fan and therefore the enemy, but some questions were too personal even for a third date.
The waiter arrived with water. They both declined his offer of wine. He left with the order for their meals, removing
the menus that had been a barrier between them.
She’d never partaken of alcohol while with him. “Don’t trust me with your virtue if I get you tipsy?”
A furrow appeared between her eyebrows, but he was more interested in the furrow that appeared between her breasts when she rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward. Her voice sounded as soft and silky as that skin looked. “What virtue?”
She didn’t blush at all when it was her turn to be suggestive.
She made a vague gesture with her hand. “Most of it tastes like rubbing alcohol and vinegar to me. I need high stress and peer pressure to imbibe. What’s your excuse?”
To quote his family, he’d had a little bit of a drinking problem in his youth. They had to minimize what an asshole he’d been to justify their decision not to disown him permanently. “Driving.”
Her eyebrows ticked upward. “That was uncharacteristically succinct. I’ll be charitable and change the subject to a more comfortable one.” She laid her index finger in the depression beneath her lower lip, calling attention to her pretty mouth while she considered alternative topics. “I have one. Before I arrived and made all other women obsolete, were you thinking about getting that one naked?”
The subject was more comfortable only in that he’d had his neck in this snare before and knew how to escape. “I would never.”
By which he meant he would never be foolish enough to answer that question honestly.
“Fascinating. Women are led to believe men have a sexual thought every ten seconds, but I’ve never met one whose thoughts weren’t pure as fresh snow on a newborn baby’s smiling face. I’m beginning to take it personally.”
“If you’d asked my thoughts about you, my answer would have been positively sordid.”
“Are you thinking about getting me naked?”
Yes. “Right now, I’m thinking about moving my chair so I can put my hand under your skirt and touch you in front of all these people.”
“But nary a thought about the woman feeling you up in public.” Her fingernails grazed the tablecloth, causing a sympathetic scrape at the base of his spine. “Not that I’m in favor of a man I’m with actually fucking other women—”
Heat coiled under his skin at the sound of fucking on her lips. No hesitation. No blush.
“—but if he had an occasional fleeting thought when an attractive woman squeezed his thigh, it would take some of the burden for his entire fantasy life off my shoulders.”
“Very little of that burden is on your shoulders, sweetheart.”
She laughed, the same throaty sound she made when pleased during sex.
She knew how to motivate a man to make her laugh.
Removed from her natural habitat, she wasn’t shy or hesitant. He’d invited her to play, and she’d brought her own game. He wanted in on it. “What sort of fleeting thought would you approve of your man having about another woman?”
“Say he’s waiting in a bar for me to arrive, but I’m too exhausted by my responsibilities as his personal sex goddess to make it. He is, of course, devastated.”
Having recently been in that position, Griff could vouch for the accuracy. “To put it mildly.”
“Sensing his pain, a voluptuous blonde in a clingy black dress comes over to comfort him.” Ivy raised her glass to her lips and took a ladylike sip of water to moisten her tongue. “And ends up giving him a consolation blowjob.”
The stirring of his dick didn’t have a damn thing to do with the woman from the bar. The head he envisioned in his lap wasn’t blonde, and the lipstick smudge on his skin would match the one on Ivy’s glass.
Ivy had never been to a restaurant as brightly lit that didn’t offer a kids meal with a toy. At Stål, the tiny, artistic food was meant to be seen and admired. Perhaps that was the subject of the reserved murmurs issued by the diners seated around them, scant feet from their table. Even the clink of silver and crystal sounded politely subdued out of respect for the environment.
And there she sat in the middle of all that refined elegance, talking about sucking cock.
Griff copied her pose, crossing his forearms on the table and leaning forward to lessen the distance between them and the need for raised voices. “Even for a fleeting thought, it’s light on details. Where does this consolation take place?”
Men had no imagination. “Behind the bar. He’s waited a long time, hoping his goddess will eventually appear, so it’s late. There are no other customers. The blonde bribes the bartender to take a break.”
“What’s her technique?”
“Wet with lots of tongue. One hand massaging what she can’t fit in her mouth, the other kneading his ass.”
“Mmf.”
Finally. She’d begun to fear he’d developed immunity to smut due to previous exposure and nothing she said would impress him, but that guttural sound gave the impression of approval.
Good to know. She tended to be droolly when she held anything in her mouth for a prolonged period of time and required tonguing breaks and manual assistance to keep the mess to a minimum. “Meanwhile, a couple of late diners come into the bar to order a nightcap.”
“And how does the only partially consoled fellow handle that development?”
“He nonchalantly pours their drinks.”
Speculation narrowed his eyes. “I wonder.”
“How nonchalantly he could tend bar while getting a hummer?”
“I wonder why he walked away from the sympathetic lady with the wet mouth to sit across a table from one so bent on tormenting him, she insists he fantasize about other women and supplies the fantasy.”
Good girls didn’t torment men. Good girls were security blankets for men who had been tormented by other women.
Being a security blanket sucked, whereas the role of tormentor made her unsavory qualities purr until her insides vibrated. “Is it an unsatisfactory one? I can do better.”
“He would be so distraught at being stood up by his personal sex goddess that one mere mortal woman couldn’t alleviate his sorrow.”
If he hoped to shock her, he was in for a crude awakening. She was up to this challenge and then some. “Do you see any particular supplemental mortal who would appeal to him?”
“Yes.” His gaze remained intent upon her face. “But you choose.”
She lifted her hand an inch to point at a woman with big hair and a booming laugh being seated at a neighboring table.
He gave the woman a thoughtful look, then turned it on Ivy. “Interesting choice. Why her?”
He wouldn’t have made that choice. The woman was at least twenty years his senior, for starters. “She’s loud. Discretion is out of the question. And she looks like she has a lot of stamina, which she’ll need to haul him from the depths of his despair.”
Indeed, she had greater endurance than the blonde during the sexual decathlon Ivy outlined for him.
Griff interrupted occasionally to request more detail or question the limitations of human flexibility.
She interrupted herself once with a critique of the appetizer — “It’s a crouton with a shred of cheese on it” — but didn’t want to offend the staff or appear even less sophisticated to her date, so she ate the three teaspoons of food that constituted the meal and silenced her bitterness that she hadn’t eaten the taco bowl for lunch.
The dessert cart stopped at their table. The size of each selection made an Oreo seem of gargantuan proportions. Ivy chose a crème brûlée that was served, literally, in a teaspoon.
“We should split that.”
“I will stab you with a fork.” Her willingness to commit violence over less than a bite of food startled her. “I am so sorry.”
The quirk of his lips contained no hard feelings. “It’s too late to pretend to be civilized.”
Her uncivilized behavior had been successful on two fronts: Griff spent most of the meal looking at her as if he were one well-chosen word away from tossing her over the table and fucking her brains out, and she had
circumvented the getting-to-know-how-boring-you-are chitchat that would put an end to any prospects of brain dislodgement.
As a bonus, the more she talked about fucking, the more she wanted to fuck. Nothing civilized. No intent to cement the foundation of a lasting relationship. Not expressing any emotions beyond I want you and that feels good.
This man hadn’t called because he was interested in dating her. He called because he had an empty evening and knew she was an easy lay.
No other man had that knowledge of her. There was so much he didn’t know, but that one secret drew him close, into a space previously unoccupied. His presence there was nearly sexual in itself.
She dragged a fingertip through the custard and placed it in her mouth. She allowed the dollop of cream and sugar to melt on her tongue before sliding her fingertip out from between her lips, all under his watchful gaze. She nudged the little spoon across the table toward him. “You’re welcome to the rest. I have to powder my nose. Don’t get up.”
His lips took on a wry twist. “That’s very charitable of you.”
The restroom resembled a subway terminal in size and unrelenting use of tile, even on the ceiling. The light bounced off every shiny surface, an invitation to patrons who wanted an even closer look at their food to bring it here.
Ivy closed herself in a stall, which was mercifully painted lusterless black on the inside. She peeled off her thigh shaper and panties and buried them in her bag. She’d be sorry if there was a strong breeze or if she walked for too long with her thighs rubbing together, but for the moment, bare skin made her heart hammer.
The grooming situation between her knees and navel was not as pretty as her wishful thinking. A shaving kit and wax strips had not heretofore been considered necessary inclusions in the Bag of Infinite Holding, as she typically had plenty of notice to prepare herself for naked presentation and, consequently, no need for emergency defoliating.
She closed her eyes and ran a hand up and down one thigh. Past the prickly stage but far from combing her fingers through a pelt. As far as states of unkemptness went, this was arguably the best. With the lights out, she could pass for a woman who allotted time for daily intermediate-level personal maintenance.
