by S. L. Naeole
“Yes,” I told him, one word spoken without hesitation or doubt.
It was all he needed to wrap my hand in his and gently lead me away toward his car. I followed without speaking, my eyes pinned on my hand clasped between his. He cradled it as if it were the most fragile thing he’d ever held, not caring that it made his gait slightly awkward or slowed us down. I didn’t know how to process this change in him. He’d been aloof, then heated. Wooden and then sensual.
And now he was being protective while simultaneously liberating me from a cage I’d cloistered myself in. I was going out to dinner with a man. I was holding hands with a man. I was looking forward to kissing a man.
And that was when I realized, as he opened the door to a car nearly identical to the one that sat in my parking stall, that the real question that needed answering tonight wasn’t who was Michael Alan Lachlan. It was who was Victoria Abigail Oh.
He didn’t ask me questions in the car, and I knew better than to ask them myself. Instead, I sat in the plush leather seat, cradling my purse in my lap as my fingers plucked at my plain khaki skirt and hoped that wherever he took me to dinner was casual enough where I wouldn’t stand out, or look like I should be the one serving the food. A soft, wordless melody played over the speakers, something easy to follow that allowed me to hum along.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Michael smile. He smelled good, and I fought to keep from leaning over to rub my nose along his sleeve and up to his neck. Once again, the darkness was my savior as it hid my blush.
We arrived at a darkened lot filled with smoke, but I hid my hesitancy as he climbed out of the car and wound his way to the passenger side and opened the door. The smell of barbecued meat was met with a grateful rumble. He smiled at me and even managed to laugh as the rumble grew teeth and became a full-blown growl.
Leading me to the entrance, he held the door open as I walked in. The restaurant was brightly lit, a sign telling customers to seat themselves prominently displayed near a stack of menus. Michael grabbed a couple and then, clasping my hand in his once more, led me to a table near the back. The place was busy, allowing me to see dozens of plates of food, offerings of what I might choose to eat.
He pulled out my chair, and as I sat I felt the edge of his finger slide up my back. My entire body shook at the unintended touch, my skin erupting in goosebumps. After pushing the seat in slightly so that I was closer to the table, he moved to his seat, pausing to remove his jacket first and then laid it out on the seat beside him. After sitting, he unbuttoned the cuffs on his sleeves and then meticulously rolled them up past his elbows.
My mouth watered at the sight of his forearms, the sparse, crisp hair shining against tanned skin. Holy fuck, am I getting excited over arm hair?
“I always get babyback ribs here,” he said, completely oblivious to my sudden desire to run my fingers up and down his arm, “but you order whatever you want. If you’re not into pork, their brisket is great. Get the burnt ends if they have them.”
There was a looseness in his posture, his words less wooden, less forced. When the waitress arrived to take our order, a bubbly redhead who introduced herself as Naomi, he gifted her with a smile that made her stumble on her rehearsed specials speech. I almost felt bad for her, except that smile did things to me, too.
“I’ll have the full rack of babybacks with extra sauce, loaded baked potato, cheese corn on the cob, and a sweet tea.”
Naomi eagerly wrote down his order and then turned to me, her pen poised to jot down whatever I said, her lack of interest plain on her face. “I’ll have the same.”
Nodding, she twisted her frame to give Michael one last look and then winked at him before leaving to give the kitchen our order. I had no reason to be upset by the act, but if I was honest with myself then I had to admit that I was. He wasn’t here having dinner alone. He wasn’t here with his octogenarian grandmother or with his tax attorney. He was here with me, and we’d just spent some of the most intimate minutes of my life together.
“You’ll get used to it.” Michael interjected my thoughts and I was forced to look at him with them bare in my eyes. “The flirting, I mean. You’ll get used to it.”
“You say that as if you and I will be spending more time out in public,” I huffed, hating the hope-tinged annoyance in my voice.
My hands were on the table, fidgeting with the paper napkin that our utensils were wrapped in and as he reached over to place his hands over them, I flinched. It wasn’t a response that didn’t go unnoticed. In fact, I was starting to slowly become aware that nothing I did went unnoticed by him. He pulled the napkin out from beneath my hands and then stroked softly against my knuckles, his thumb twirling around mine.
“Is that a bad thing? Us spending more time together in public?” Was that amusement and hope in his voice?
My head began to tip down, my eyes needing somewhere other than his face to look at when he lifted one hand to my chin. “Uh-uh, sweetheart. We’re here to talk and learn more about each other. We can’t do that if you’re having a conversation with the table.”
A million things happened at that moment, not the least of which was the way my heart sped up at the third time he used that word: sweetheart. “Why do you keep calling me that?”
Shit. I’d asked a question. Angry at myself for wasting my one question on such a stupid, pointless, hopeless thing, I tugged my hand out from under his and went to grab my purse.
Again, noticing everything, his hand tightened on mine even as the hand beneath my chin turn up to cup my face and hold it in place. “Why are you running? Talk to me, Victoria. I want to know you, learn you, study you. Let me. Please.”
Panic began to bloom in me, and yet, as I stared into his eyes, saw the soft moss ring that circled his pupils, something else bloomed in me, too. Breaths skittered in and out of me, sweat sprouting like weeds across my chest and neck. “You said I only get one question. I…I was trying to not ask you any because you said once I did I’d never see you again. I—I just asked and—”
“Silly rabbit,” he chuckled, a low and erotic rumble that made my body quiver. “I want you to ask me whatever you want. I was…upset that day when you asked me how I was able to get into the catacombs.”
He knew what the catacombs were called?
“I didn’t have the patience to play twenty questions with you or anyone. I just wanted some peace for a while.”
“And so you came to me,” I said, a statement rather than a question, and when he nodded, warmth trickled through my skin and found home in my cheeks and chest in a flush that pulled out a smile from me.
Michael’s head bobbed once in confirmation. “I told you as much. I wanted an hour of peace. I wanted an hour away from the world, where I knew that I could just be, where there would be no expectations placed on me, no requirements other than to sit, eat, and breathe.”
Whoa.
“And you can do that. With me.”
Our thumbs were still twirling about each other, but he moved his other fingers so that they slowly wedged themselves between mine, twining them. I swallowed. He was holding my hand. We were holding hands. “Yes.”
“But you don’t know anything about me,” I complained. “And I…I’m not good for…anyone.”
As soon as the words left my lips I wanted to pull them back in and run. Mortification drowned me as I struggled against his grip, against my desire to stay with him and the need to leave, to avoid any conversation that would dredge up memories I’d managed to keep buried for so long. He said he wanted peace but he didn’t know the minefield that was my past. And a man who could have—and has had—any woman he wanted, the last thing that would bring him peace was me.
“I’m sorry. I thought…I thought I could do this, but I can’t,” I stammered.
Our intertwined fingers, I became aware of then, were vises on our connection. I couldn’t retrieve my hand if his fingers were wrapped around mine. I couldn’t move if his thumb was stroking the sensitive
crease between my thumb and forefinger. I couldn’t think if he lifted our hands together so that our palms fitted against each other, line for line, crease for crease. I couldn’t breathe if every pulse of blood that moved through my limbs pulled heat and electricity from his.
“Victoria, let me be the one to decide who is and isn’t good for me. And let me reassure you that right now, your hand in mine feels better than good. It feels fucking fantastic.”
He said this with such surety that I felt almost forbidden from doubting him. It was as if my brain had suddenly revolted against the iron grip of common sense and self-preservation and, instead, decided to drift loosely in the warmth of Michael’s nearness. Like a balloon caught up in the heated air of a sunny afternoon breeze.
Naomi returned with our sweet teas, her hand lingering on the mug she’d placed in front of Michael. I once again tried to pull away, but he held firm, his eyes never leaving mine. The waitress took out two straws and dropped one in front of my mug before slowly opening the paper wrapper to his, her fingers suggestively moving down the red tube in a manner so blatant I blushed.
“That’s a very pretty look on you,” he murmured as his gaze dropped to the heat on my cheeks.
“Thank you,” Naomi said, oblivious, before dropping the straw into his mug and then leaving.
Before I could respond, he picked up the straw in front of me with his free hand and tapped one end against the table until the top end was exposed. He brought the end to his lips and took hold of it with his teeth. Slowly, he stripped the straw of its sheath, never dropping his gaze from mine. This shouldn’t have been arousing. This shouldn’t have made me squirm in my seat as a rhythmic pulse danced between my thighs.
Once the straw was bare, Michael placed it in my tea and then picked up the entire mug. He brought the straw to his lips and sipped before leaning forward and placing the straw at the entrance to my mouth. I needed no encouragement. I took the straw into my mouth pulled the sweet tea into me without tasting it, distracted by the fact that he’d made it a point to place my straw into his mouth first. It was an intimate act, one that would’ve been missed by anyone else, but I didn’t have intimate moments or perform intimate acts with anyone.
It was everything.
“How’s the tea?”
Releasing the straw, I told him it was fine, sweet. “You know what’s sweeter?” he asked at my answer.
“Straight sugar?” I replied. “Your fingers,” he said in correction.
Instantly my eyes fell to my free hand before flicking up to his amused gaze. He took this is an invitation and captured my hand in his, bringing my fingers against his lips, almost mirroring what he’d done at MOAT. Instead of pulling them into his mouth, however, his tongue licked the seam between my index and middle fingers.
My body thrummed, my thighs twitching in micro-movements against each other in response. “What are you doing to me?” I panted, confused.
Smiling, Michael returned my hand to the table and then leaned even further across the table, his nearness pulling me forward as well. “I could ask the same thing of you.”
Surprise prickled all over me. “I’m not doing anything to you.”
“Oh, but you are,” he insisted, that smile of his fueling the low flames burning just beneath the surface of my control.
“How?”
Lifting a lone finger and tracing it along my jaw, his smile lowered a notch as he spoke. “When you look at me, it’s not as someone who can give you something. You don’t want things from me that other people want. You don’t need things from me that other people need. You don’t have expectations of me. That’s so goddamn sexy, Victoria.”
“But I do have expectations,” I admitted shyly. “When you asked me to dinner last week, I expected you to have the courtesy to cancel once you changed your mind and not leave me hanging like you did. I expected to be treated like I deserved at least that.”
His thumb stroked my chin as he sighed, his eyes filling with…remorse? Regret? “You’re right. You deserved that. You deserved more, honestly. And I want the chance to explain to you what happened, if you’ll give it to me. I’m asking here, Victoria, for the chance to explain and make it up to you.”
“Then explain,” I told him, not wanting to waste this opportunity because who knew when I’d get another chance.
Exhaling in what felt like resignation, he lowered his hand and flattened it on the table, his other hand still clasped tightly in mine. “When we had lunch and you ordered for me, I didn’t know what to think. I’m not used to other people taking control from me and I was…I was pissed. I told you, I don’t like being handled. I don’t like people thinking they know better than I do what’s good for me. When you did that, I wanted to leave and never come back. But, at the same time, I wanted to stay. From the first moment you spoke to me in your car after the accident, I was intrigued. No one had ever spoken to me like that before.”
“What did I say to you?” I asked, my memory foggy.
He chuckled. “You said, ‘you’re not the boss of me’. No one’s ever spoken to me like that. I thought it was because you’d hit your head, especially after what happened in your apartment. But then at lunch, the way you just took command of everything. It was both off-putting and attractive as hell, but it was also a confirmation of the person that you are. Or, at least, the person I thought you were. Then when you tried to leave and I…grabbed you. Your reaction, Victoria...I knew immediately why you reacted the way you did and I felt like shit. It suddenly made sense why you had to take control, why you had to assert yourself.
“Someone once took control away from you, and in the worst way.”
Slashes of faces crossed over his, just fragments of memories that had slipped through cracks in my mind. Eyes, mouths, teeth. I began to inhale and exhale quickly, the skin of my hand growing clammy in his grip.
“A part of me told me to leave you alone. A large part of me told me that the last thing you needed was someone like me in your life. But, like I said, you intrigued me. And I needed to apologize, so I followed you. Or, at least I tried to follow you. I went to your office, first, and you weren’t there. So I trusted my instincts and went to the catacombs. I knew you were there because I could hear you. You were chanting.”
Nodding, I repeated the words he’d heard me saying, my voice low so that only he could hear them now. His whole hand moved to my cheek, and I leaned into it, into him. The fear I’d felt that day was still there, simmering below the surface of my control, and with that simple caress, everything in me quieted.
Safe.
“You are a survivor, Victoria, and I’m so thankful for that. But I’m also pissed that you even need to have a mantra like that. When I heard it, I wanted to hurt whoever it was that made that mantra necessary. I also wanted to make you forget that it was. You looked so vulnerable. Even bleeding, you hadn’t looked that vulnerable. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to touch you, to erase whatever memories made you so goddamn vulnerable.
“But I couldn’t. I knew that I couldn’t. I knew that the minute I did, I’d lose you, and damn if I hated that idea more than anything else. I don’t understand why, Victoria, but you affect me. You affect me, so when I told you to have dinner with me and you said yes I felt like I’d won some kind of prize. And then I hated myself because that’s not…that’s not what I wanted. You’re not a prize to be won. You’re not a thing to get. And I realized it too late. I left because I was ashamed of myself, and I didn’t call because, for the first time since I think I could form words, I didn’t know what to say.
“I make decisions on a daily basis that affect the lives of thousands of people without a second thought. I don’t hesitate when it comes to business, even when the risks are worth millions of dollars and countless jobs, yet the minute I realized I’d screwed up with you I didn’t know what to do. I don’t even remember the last time I’d felt like that. And if I’m honest with myself, Victoria, I was pissed off at you for mak
ing me feel it.”
He was pissed at me? What?
The waitress, Naomi, appeared then with two large plates in her hands. I settled back in my seat as he straightened, his mouth turning down when our hands separated to make room for our dinner. He muttered thanks to Naomi and then unwrapped his fork and knife from its paper napkin. I gave the waitress a smile and thanked her as well before mimicking Michael’s movements.
He sliced into the ribs, separating the bones until the entire rack was segmented. I did my best to do the same, finding that my knife slipped into the meat so easily that a knife was almost pointless. When he drizzled the ramekin of extra sauce over his meat, I did so, too. When he stabbed his fork into his baked potato so that all of the toppings mixed into the fluffy centers, I repeated the motions.
“You’ve never eaten a baked potato before?” he said with a short laugh as he brought a forkful of it to his mouth. I shook my head and he lowered his fork in surprise. “What?”
Shrugging, I brought my own fork to my mouth and closed my lips over the tines. The salty bacon and creamy sour cream, along with the bite of chives and cheddar cheese, acted like a foil to the buttery potato, and I closed my eyes in pleasure.
“Like that, do you?”
I nodded as I chewed. He waited until my eyes were open before he asked how I’d gone through life without ever eating a baked potato. Smiling, I scooped a bit more of the potato into my mouth, chewing and swallowing before explaining. “We never had baked potatoes as a kid, and when I left home it was cheaper to eat a bowl of rice. My roommates and I tend to stick to pasta or rice dishes now, since they’re quick and easy after long days at work. We also eat a lot of Chinese take-out which, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t really have a lot of loaded baked potato offerings.”
Picking up a meaty rib, I inhaled the sweet, tangy, and smoky aroma and then took a bite. Just a bit of pressure and a chunk of tender, flavorful pork fell off into my mouth. I groaned at the taste and then got lost in my food. The corn on the cob was incredibly buttery and sweet, with butter and juice running down my arm in sticky rivulets.
