by Holly Hart
But there was something else, too, lurking under the surface of her pained, shy smile. It was like a glowing neon billboard advertising that she’d lived a hell of a life since I left town, and not in a good way. I felt responsible, even though no one ever gave me a choice.
But you’ve been free for months…
She looked up at me shyly. “You like it?”
“Like it?” I said, tongue-tied, the words stumbling against each other like clumsy drunks. “What kind of question is that? That’s like asking a starving man whether he wants a damn steak sandwich. I love it.”
And it’s not just the dress, but who’s in the dress.
She looked at me with uncertain eyes that flickered to match my gaze, but then darted away. I wanted to take her in my arms and shake her, to make her understand that she could wear a paper bag, and I’d still want to tear it off her.
“You know,” she said quietly. “This doesn’t mean anything, right? I’ve got –,” she paused, as if she’d meant to say one thing, and decided better of it, “responsibilities.”
My stomach clenched tight as an arc of longing shot through me, an unstoppable force colliding with the immovable object of whatever wringer someone had put my girl through while I was away.
That someone was going to pay.
“I’m just here for dinner,” I lied. It was a white lie. I was here for a whole lot more than dinner – but I wouldn’t make her do a damn thing she didn’t want to. I’d waited two years, and I’d wait two more if that’s what it took.
Though I wasn’t sure the burning tension that had erupted between my legs would last that long.
I stood up, using the movement to disguise the evidence that proved my lie. I smoothed the creases from my pants to hide what I was doing. “You ready?”
She nodded and walked alongside me. I took her hand, and as I did, she winced. “What’s wrong?” I asked with my heart racing. She had a spell cast over me. I felt an insatiable desire to protect her, to shield her from all of life’s torments.
I understood how crazy that was. She’d lived in Alexandria the last two years and done fine without me; lived, at least. But no one ever said that emotion has to be rational. In my case, it normally was – but not when it came to her. Never with her. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she replied. “The question is – are you okay? I can’t believe I didn’t ask.”
I looked at her blankly.
“Your arm,” she pressed. “The dog, Rat. I’ve never seen him like that, so vicious. I thought he was going to kill me! I mean, I knew he was mean, but –“
“He nips a hell of a lot harder than a rat…” I interrupted before she could get carried away again, letting a wry smile dance across my face to show that I was joking.
“No, he’s called Rat. It’s short for –. You know what,” she said. “it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re okay?”
I nodded. “Nothing a tetanus shot and a strong course of antibiotics can’t handle. Trust me, I’ve had worse.”
“You didn’t…” Cara started, wincing.
“Kill him?” I grinned and shook my head. “No, he’s a mean bastard. Like me. I like him. I think I’m going to keep him.”
Cara stopped dead. I took another pace forward before I realized. “You can’t be serious?” She said, open-mouthed.
“Deadly,” I replied, grinning.
“Sorry, wrong choice of word. But I’ve done the hard bit. He knows he can’t mess with me now. Dogs are no different from men, not really. They test the boundaries, sure – but once you let them know who’s in charge…”
I opened my arms and shrugged. “Trust me. He’ll be as gentle as a puppy dog in a week; unless you want me to get rid of him?”
I studied her carefully. I hadn’t yet mentioned the circumstances that led to our reunion on purpose. Whatever the reason that had led to Car’s headlong flight from a snarling ninety pound guard dog; she’d tell me when she was ready. And just by looking at her, I knew she wasn’t. Not yet.
Cara groaned. “Maybe,” she said, unconsciously twisting her ankle in circles and grinding the toe piece of her heeled shoes into the ground. Her head fell back as she thought, then jerked back upright.
“No,” she said firmly, fixing me with a piercing green-eyed stare. I felt like quailing under her gaze, hiding from it. It was as though her eyes were spotlights, shining bright on all the shameful things I wanted to keep hidden.
“No, I do trust you. Hell if I know why, but I do. But,” she paused, and some of her fierce glare fell away, replaced by an outbreak of nerves. Cara shivered and her head fell away, her proud chin crumbling, like an iceberg into the sea. When she spoke again, her voice was reedy.
“Just keep him away from me – that’s all – until you know he’s trained.”
I watched in horror as Cara shrank in on herself, instantly becoming half the girl of the moment before. I wanted the girl with the green-eyed glare, the one who made me tremble in my boots, not the one in front of me now, whose voice disappeared into a terrified tremorous, quivering murmur.
I wanted to grab her, to squeeze her, to whisper into her ear that I’d make it all better, that I’d be the knight who’d fight all her monsters,that I’d be her light that drove out the darkness. But my words failed me, and so I failed her.
Instead, I injected my voice with an upbeat, joking tone in an attempt to snap her out of it. Even as my lips moved, I knew it wasn’t enough. Cara needed more than someone to make her laugh – she needed a protector to keep her safe.
I wanted to be that person, I just didn’t know how. Two years locked away, with a once-daily meal tray for company, had stripped me of my humanity until it was nothing more than a weak, flickering candle. Cara was a stiff summer breeze, at once nursing my soul’s flame back to life, and threatening to feed into a raging inferno. A blaze that would burn itself out too quickly.
Say something, you ass.
“You said you trusted me, right?” I smiled.
“Some…” She replied, face deadpan.
“Ouch,” I said, ducking back and waving my hand in front of my face as if to fend off her insult. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Some,” Cara repeated. This time a smile tickled her lips, though she held it back manfully. “So … ,” she said, holding out her arm, “dinner?”
The elevator ride was torture. Cara’s bare skin burned against my arms. The heat of her body pulsated against my broken, torn skin, and every nerve on my body fired at once. My caveman brain told me that we were alone; that no one was watching; that I needed to jump her right here, right now. That she would bear my children, and that they would rule the earth.
My eyes, though, told me a different story. They saw a security camera in a bulbous black dome, complete with a blinking red light. Someone was watching, probably studying the gorgeous redhead whose arm was linked with mine. I grimaced as a red-hot lance of jealousy lashed me, branding my back. Cara was mine.
“Perhaps,” the filthy half of my brain whispered in my ear, like a devil on my shoulder, “She likes being in front of the camera.”
I groaned. I couldn’t help myself. She was all I could think about. Her perfumed scent in the air – deep and musky – taunted my nostrils. Her heat burned my side. My skin was on fire.
“What’s wrong?” Cara enquired, looking up with an innocent expression, her left eyebrow cocked with curiosity. I felt like a deviant as I looked down at her, as my eyes brushed over the gentle swell of her breasts, and drank in her curves, under the black silk dress. I wondered if she knew the thoughts that raced through my mind, or whether she thought I’d just forgotten my wallet.
I wanted to tell her what I wanted to do to her, to whisper it in her ear a second before I pushed her up against the elevator’s mirrored glass. I wanted to let the brushed steel doors ping open at the lobby, and hear the shocked gasps of an unsuspecting audience as I tore my shirt from my back.
But I knew that I couldn�
��t.
I knew Cara wasn’t ready.
How could she be? I’d rescued her from – something – just hours ago. Her own personal hell, whatever it might be. Could I add to it?
No. The last thing a girl like Cara Winters needed right now was a guy like me. I made my mind up. I’d get through dinner, and then tell her I couldn’t see her again. I’d keep her safe from afar, even if that meant going crazy with lust. But I couldn’t allow myself to have the one thing I wanted more than anything – to possess her entirely, to tear those clothes off her body and throw her against a wall, a mattress, the floor. To relinquish control of the blackness in my mind until it was sated, my body exhausted, my cock spent.
“It’s all good,” I said smiling, molding my face into an impenetrable mask, giving no hint of the turmoil that lay beneath the surface. “Just … hungry, that’s all.”
Oh, I was hungry all right; but food was the last thing on my mind. The elevator slowed to a gentle halt, and the doors slid open. A crowd waited to enter, but instead of seeing a couple in the throes of passion, they saw a pair of damn catwalk models stepping out, arm in arm.
Well, one catwalk model. A beauty. My beauty, for tonight at least. And I was her beast.
The waiting men drank in Cara’s elegant curves, at least until they saw the thunderous look on my face. It was fierce, and jealous and possessive all at once; and not one of them was man enough to challenge me for her hand.
She noticed, but said nothing. Was I imagining it, or did she flush?
Walking beside her, time shed itself of all meaning. My feet were moving, and then they weren’t, and the chair came to rest flush against my back. My date sat opposite me, and a waiter handed me a wine list.
Almost every male eye in the place focused on her, and she didn’t even know it. Then they flickered back to their own woman – guiltily. Cara was the cause of a dozen cold shoulders, of a dozen men who’d sleep on the couch that night.
And you’ll be one of them.
“Will you have the usual, sir?” the sommelier asked, taking note that the wine list lay unopened in my hands. He didn’t know the reason why – that I was drunk in a fog of lust – so I just nodded, glad for once that my notorious ability to waste money was coming in useful.
“Unless,” I gestured courteously at Cara, “you want anything –“
“No, no,” Cara replied, casting little nervous glances around the opulent restaurant. “You choose. I’ve never –“
I ordered my favorite, to spare her blushes, and the waiter sensibly took his leave.
“Is this your first time here?” I asked. It was a stupid question, and I knew the answer already, because if Cara had been here before, I would have seen her. She put every other woman in the place to shame, and they knew it.
Cara shook her head fervently. “Are you serious? I’m more of a ramen kind of girl, you know? Not that I’m not really grateful,” she said, stumbling over her words awkwardly. “It’s only that, I’ve never eaten in a place anywhere like this. Hell, I don’t even come to this part of town – too expensive.” She opened the menu with quivering fingers, as if half-paralyzed with embarrassment. When she saw the prices, her jaw dropped.
“You know, in France,” I said, jumping in to put her at ease, “traditionally the prices aren‘t put on the woman’s menu. You believe that?”
“Why?”
“I guess to make sure they order what they want, instead of getting worried about how much it costs. What I’m saying is, this,” I gestured around the room. “It’s nothing to me. You could order every item on the menu, and my accountant wouldn’t blink an eye. Hell,” I laughed. “With the amount I pay him, he’ll probably write this off as a business expense. He should, anyway.”
“I don’t know what half this stuff even is,” Cara muttered softly.
“To be honest,” I said, glancing down at the menu. “I doubt half the people in this room do either. If you make an appetizer a hundred dollars, some people will offer two hundred just to seem important. What would you have right now if you could – out of everything in the world?”
Cara’s cheeks flushed red, and I fought back an urge to reach over the table and to cradle her dimpled chin in my palm.
“Anything?”
I nodded.
Cara stared at the crisp white tablecloth as she replied, hiding her eyes, but not her face. Her tongue darted to her lips and wetted them as she spoke, betraying what she really wanted.
"I would have a burger; a big fat one, with smoked bacon on top, and heaps of cheese. Can you imagine how people would stare at me if I ordered that here!?"
I held my gaze on her until she met it. To me, she was gorgeous, the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on, and the only woman I'd ever had. Two years locked in a concrete cell does dark things to a man’s mind.
You'd think the first thing I wanted after I got out was a fuck. You'd be wrong. The first thought on my mind was revenge; and until I saw Cara, a woman's touch hadn't even crossed it.
But now it was all I could think about. I snapped my menu shut, and the green leather binder closed with a crack. Cara flinched, startled.
"Burgers it is," I grinned. I glanced around for a waiter. One met my eyes and scurried over.
"No!" Cara hissed, looking like she wanted a bottomless pit to open up beneath her and swallow her up, anything to carry her from the gaze of the crowd. "Don't you dare place that order. How do you think it'll make me look?"
I let my eyes wander around the restaurant. The waiter neared us, and I held two fingers up to stall him. "You know that the second you walked into this room," I drawled, enjoying my date's discomfort, "there wasn't an eye left looking at a plate."
Cara blushed. "You don't need to lie to me to distract me, you know," she said, throwing my own words back in my face. She looked down and indicated herself with a casual flick of her wrist, dismissing herself. "I know I'm nothing special. Two years working two jobs twelve hours a day, my skin's a mess –"
"Don't!" I reached out on instinct and grabbed her wrist.
She paused mid-sentence, her eyes flicking to her wrist like my touch burned. The blood pulsated in my ears as I fought myself for control. I wasn't used to this, all this emotional crap. My world was simple. At least, it used to be. Either I wanted you dead – and you died. Or I never knew your name at all.
Cara was the exception that proved the rule. I'd realized that the second I made the choice to save her, and let my father's man escape instead of putting two bullets in his brain. But hearing her talk about herself like she didn't realize how goddamn beautiful she was, hurt.
"Don't," I repeated, more softly this time, releasing her with a soft caress. I couldn’t help it
"Don't talk about yourself like that. You know, Cara, I haven't touched a woman since our…" I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Cara's gaze re-emerged out of nowhere, her green eyes widening with surprise – and doubt.
The flush warming her cheeks now threatened to overwhelm them entirely. She cleared her throat and glanced to her right. "Um, Val…"
My voice came out a full octave higher than normal when I answered,"Yeah?” I cringed as I heard the strangled sound that had escaped my lips. What the hell's happening to me?
She jerked her head to one side; "The waiter?"
I turned to look at him, and as I did I felt movement underneath the table. Cara's foot came to rest against mine, so lightly that for half a second I wasn't even sure it was there at all. If I hadn't been sitting down, my legs might have given way entirely. I'd been burning up for an hour at her every touch, when she took the menu, or reached for water but this was different. It was sexual, but barely so. It felt tender, filled with longing, and a long suppressed ache to be fulfilled.
The waiter approached and added his contribution to our awkward cacophony of cleared throats. "May I have your order, Madam?
"We'll have two burgers: bacon, cheese, and a heap of fries," I replied, to h
ide Cara from the embarrassment licking red at her cheeks. "And you know what? To hell with it – cancel the champagne, too. I think the lady here would prefer a beer, and I would as well."
"Ah, sir…" The waiter trailed off, briefly closing his eyes as he searched for the right words. I knew what he was going to say: Michelin star restaurants don't just cater to every whim and whimsy of their clientele. I also knew the battle that was going on in his mind. Was he really going to deny one of his newest, best, richest clients?
I didn’t think so.
I raised my eyebrow in challenge. He slumped forward, beaten.
"Two burgers it is."
As he turned to leave, trudging towards the kitchen and, no doubt, a tongue-lashing from the chef, Cara piped up with unexpected humor, an impish smile playing on her lips. "Don't forget the fries…"
"Or the beer," I added, deadpan, resolving to double the browbeaten man's tip. I only did it to see my woman smile.
It worked.
And her foot began to rub up and down my leg from my ankle.
By the time the burgers came I was burning up inside. Every time Cara spoke I imagined planting a kiss on those pinks of hers. Every time she reached over and brushed me with a nervous touch my skin crackled with an electric spark of longing. I couldn't wait for the waiter to set them down and leave us alone. The longer he stayed the more the tension in the air seemed to build, and the more the air itself began to heat up and spark, like the leading edge of a forest fire.
I didn't know if Cara felt it too. I thought – maybe? The way she licked her lips, and the faint raggedness to her breath told me she did. Or is it all just in your head?
"Is that –?" The waiter started, but only just before I cut him off.
"Perfect, thanks," I replied firmly. He took the hint.
"They look… Amazing," Cara whispered. I stared at her delicately made up lips. They seemed to move in slow motion, taunting me. I wondered what she'd do if I leaned over the table and pressed my mouth on hers. "I almost don't want to eat it, you know?"
I could have left the food well alone, but for a completely different reason. The burgers weren't the thing I thought looked amazing, that was Cara. The only thing I wanted to eat – again, it was Cara.
