It took me a second to realize I’d dropped my pen.
I could’ve sworn Lucy sneaked a peek just north of where she was crouched.
“Well.” Lucy cleared her throat and stood. “This tux is better, but I still need to let out the pant hem a bit. Your legs are so long! Take these off while I go see if our seamstress is still here.”
She left the room. David turned from the mirror and walked toward me, swiping an apple from the tray on his way. “Do you really think it’s wise to go drinking wine in strangers’ apartments?”
“I thought you knew Brian.”
He stopped a foot from me, tossing and catching the apple in the air. “He’s a stranger to you.”
“Is he a bad guy?”
“No, but that’s not the point.” David ran his free hand over his face and exhaled loudly. “And in that dress?”
I looked good today, and I knew it, but Brian had only remarked on how well my high cheekbones would photograph.
David was the one who, with a single once-over, made me feel as if I’d be less exposed wearing nothing.
“It’s just business,” I said.
When he stepped forward and inclined, I stiffened. “Do you really find him attractive?” he asked near my ear, pushing the apple into my hand.
My breath caught, but I managed to compose myself. I shook my head slowly and made eye contact. “I suppose some women might think so,” I echoed his words. “But, no. Brian Ayers isn’t my type.”
David only grunted and picked up his phone from the desk.
When he eased back, only a half a foot from me now, a hint of men’s hair product perfumed the air.
Holding the clipboard over my breasts like a shield, I turned the smooth, firm apple over in my hand. “How’s Maria?”
“We can call her and ask if you’d like.” David arched a scolding eyebrow. “Listen, Olivia. I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” he said, his words measured. “But after the way you told me to back off on the roof, you’re going to have to ask if you expect me to open up.”
He’d heard my plea for restraint earlier in the week. I needed to heed my own request. But being bathed in his presence, his hint of cologne, his beauty so here, so unavoidable. Our playful banter had me wishing for just a little more time with him.
I looked into the apple, searching for an answer it couldn’t give me. I even shook it slightly, hoping for a Magic-Eight-Ball miracle.
David sighed and returned to the changing area, drawing the curtains closed.
The image of Maria’s perfectly browned skin and slitted green eyes had haunted me since the night I’d seen her at the restaurant. Did I really need more details to torture myself with?
“So?” he called from the other side of the fabric.
“Okay.” I took a bite of the apple and chewed slowly. “You said she was a friend. Is she your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Do you have sex?”
He chuckled a moment and fell silent. “Yes.”
My heart dropped as my insides simultaneously tightened. Of course I’d known the answer, but instead of picturing her underneath him, I thought of myself looking up at him from the bed. I thought of him over me—fucking.
Through the tiny sliver where the curtains met, his tan skin flashed as he changed, and my blood coursed a little faster.
“We have an unspoken arrangement. Maria accompanies me to some events.” David paused. “We sleep together. But we’re not exclusive.”
The apple crunched as I took more crisp and juicy bites. “Not exclusive?” I asked after swallowing.
He reentered the room in what I assumed were the suit slacks he’d worn here, his upper half still in the tuxedo.
He crossed his arms, positioning himself in front of me. “No. We’re allowed to see other people.”
“I thought you didn’t have time for dating around.”
“I don’t,” David said, lifting his chin fractionally. “I’m too busy to seek women out, but that doesn’t mean I don’t find them.”
Or they found him, more likely. “Brittany?” I asked.
He nodded. If he was surprised I knew of her, he didn’t show it. “My date for the gala tonight.”
“Who is she?”
“Nobody, Olivia. Ask me to cancel on her and see what my answer is.”
I swallowed. A dare—not a guarantee that he’d actually cancel. And why should he?
If I did ask, and he complied, then what? It wasn’t as if I could take her place.
I was headed to a secluded cabin with my husband and our best friends for a weekend of relaxation, time on the lake, and card games by the fireplace.
What, was I going to stay behind to be David’s arm candy? Have him escort me to the museum, order me Merlot, sneak me into a dark corner, kiss me, gather up my dress to my waist?
My chest rose and fell faster. Why me, when he could take anyone? David probably had a little black book so thick that it better resembled a dictionary. “How many women are you seeing?”
“At the moment, technically, none. It’s very casual,” he said. “But I can sleep with who I want, and I do.”
I didn’t know why his honesty startled me. I’d known all along that he was a player—casual encounters and all.
I suddenly felt out of my league, which was becoming an all too familiar feeling around him.
I glanced at his phone as it buzzed.
One thing to be grateful for? He couldn’t notch me on his figurative bedpost like the others.
“Anything else?” he asked.
I forced a smile, a front for the sinking feeling of picturing him with not just Maria but other women. “I think I’ve heard enough.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I set down the clipboard and went to stand. “I should check on Lucy.”
“I read some of your articles online.”
I paused, looking up at him.
His shoulders loosened. “You write very well, Olivia.”
My heart somersaulted, but I shook my head. “I contribute when I can, but I told you, I’m an editor. My mother’s the writer in my family.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re talented.”
“Thanks,” I said, embarrassed that it came out sounding like a question.
My heels sank into the carpet. Had I been leaving? I’d told David we could never be alone again, and yet, he warmed me in a way that made me wonder how I hadn’t realized I’d been so cold.
I didn’t want to go. But this had never been about desire. Wanting David was easy. To be near him, to hear whatever bold, wicked thing would come out of his mouth next . . .
Davena had warned me I couldn’t hide from my desires. And here I was, back in a room alone with David.
If you want something, say it out loud.
I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more in that moment than to be kissed in a dark corner at some anonymous event by David Dylan.
Drawing a breath, I forced the fantasy away. I raised the apple rind and tossed it across the room, sinking a perfect shot in the trashcan. “Three-pointer,” I said.
He looked from the wastebasket to me. “You watch basketball?”
“Bill does,” I said. “You?”
“I’m a Bears fan myself.”
“Football? I could see that.”
“Oh?” he asked.
“Sure. I can picture you as a quarterback, working the field, leaving a trail of cheerleaders in your wake. I mean, for God’s sake, you fit into their clothing. The next step would be a uniform . . .” I bit my lip to try to hide my smile. “Did you play in high school?”
“I did, though I would’ve preferred to focus on the swim team.”
“Quarterback? Linebacker?” I leaned back against Lucy’s desk again, running my hand along the edge. “Tight end?”
“QB.”
“Thought so. I had a crush on our high school quarterback.” I cocked my head. My eyes wande
red down. “He looked a little like you, but not as tall.”
David’s hand twitched, and he tightened his arms over his chest. “What are you doing?” he asked.
I shrugged one shoulder, staring him down. “What?”
“You’re flirting with me, just like on the roof the other day, even though you asked me to back off.”
I couldn’t deny it. My need for him was beginning to seep out of the cage where I’d locked it. Davena had warned me that would happen. One moment, I was in control. The next, I didn’t know what might come out of my mouth. Was this how my mother had felt, unraveling in the weeks before my father and I had left? Fantasies bordering too close to reality?
David’s nearness set me on fire no matter how I tried to douse the embers of desire.
No matter the fact that I wore another man’s ring.
“Olivia, I’ll put on a show in front of your friends, at your work, whenever we’re in public. But I’m growing tired of pretending when we’re alone. Don’t tempt me,” he warned.
His tone meant to scold me, but my body thrilled with his words.
This was pretending? What happened when he stopped?
Lucy burst through the door. “Sorry,” she exclaimed. “I looked everywhere, but the seamstress is gone.”
David stepped back, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. “What now?” I asked.
“I can tailor the pants,” Lucy said, “just not as well as she could’ve. I’ll get the suit ninety percent there before you have to leave, David. Are you okay with that?”
He shrugged. “I’m man enough to walk into a party looking ninety percent good.”
As if David could ever look anything less than a hundred-percent handsome.
My phone dinged. David glanced at my handbag before I went to it, took out my phone, and read a text from Bill.
Bill: We’re pulling up out front. Come down when you guys are ready.
“Your event is soon. Give me your pants.” Lucy hurried into the curtained area and grabbed the pinned slacks. “While I work on sewing this, finish getting ready. Liv can help.”
The moment Lucy disappeared again, my stomach knotted. As I returned my phone to my purse, it started to ring. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I silenced Bill’s call but turned away quickly.
I should’ve been gathering my things to meet my husband. Instead, I was going to stay to help dress a man who seemed to be herding me into his arms every day since we’d met eyes across a crowded room, popping up in my life at each turn, becoming less of a stranger each moment we spent together.
My eyes drifted over him as it hit me. “You were wearing a tux at the ballet.”
He paused only a moment, then picked up a dark leather box from Lucy’s desk and removed a pair of cufflinks. “It’s being cleaned.”
“Is it?” I asked. “Or did you know I’d be here today?”
“How could I have known?” He made a fist around the delicate silver pieces and walked toward me. “You’re mistaken if you think I need to scheme to get what I want, Olivia. I agreed to do the article to spend time with you, and to help you with your promotion—but if necessary, I would’ve found another way to see you again.” He stopped inches from me. “When you walked into Lucy’s engagement party in that tight white dress, I knew with complete certainty I wouldn’t be leaving without you on my arm. I wouldn’t let you get away like I had at the ballet.”
My head tilted back to take him in. When I’d walked in to the party? So those chestnut browns had been on me before I’d even known David was there. Observing me. Learning. Not just watching but seeing.
“Yes, I noticed you instantly,” he said, reading my expression. “I followed you into the kitchen to find out your name, which I did, and to ask you on a date.” His jaw firmed. “Which I did not.”
I touched my chest when my heart fluttered. “And you didn’t leave the party with me.”
“I had no idea you were married. It never even occurred to me to look at your hand,” he glanced at my ring, currently pressed over the same spot the wine stain had been, “because when I saw you, I felt like . . . like I’d found something I’d been looking for. And life wouldn’t be so fucking unfair that it was already taken.”
“Don’t say that,” I said, hearing the rasp in my voice.
“I warned you—I’m dangerously close to dropping the act,” David said. “It’s taking everything I have not to put you over my shoulder and drag you to my event so I can warn the whole world that you’re mine.”
He walked away toward the mirror, leaving me trying to catch my breath and resist from melting into a puddle of need for him.
Jesus. He was wrong. He wasn’t pretending shit. There was no pretending. Not when we were alone.
I said the only thing I could think of that might knock some sense into each of us. “My husband is downstairs.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” he said, back in front of the mirror, fiddling with his sleeve, growing visibly irritated when he couldn’t get the cufflink in.
I walked over and took his wrist, my throat thickening. “This tuxedo, these cufflinks—they don’t belong to you,” I said. “They’re on loan. You can’t just walk out of here with them and never bring them back.”
“I can if I want,” he said levelly. “Lucy has my credit card.”
I pursed my lips. My fingers brushed the inside of his wrist as I slipped the cufflink through its hole. “So, you want something, you buy it. That’s how it works, Mr. Black Card?”
He flexed his hand, and I flinched as his fingertips nearly grazed the fabric over the scar on my stomach. “I want something, I find a way to get it,” he said.
If David could touch my scar, he was too close. Heat radiated from him, or maybe our chemistry warmed the space between us. We’re too close. “And if it belongs to someone else?”
“I doubt he’d miss it.”
“He would,” I said, keeping my eyes on David’s size fourteen-and-a-half shoes. “A lot.”
A deep breath filled my nostrils with his spicy aftershave. David’s stare followed me as I moved to the left cuff, then took a step back and admired him. Aside from wearing the wrong pants and the bowtie hanging loosely around his neck, he was ready for his gala.
With a determined furrow in his brow, he started to fix the tie.
“Let me.” I slipped between the mirror and him. The spicy scent mixed with fresh soap, intensifying as I leaned in. I quickly molded the fabric into a neat bow. With my mom no longer in the house as a kid, I’d helped my dad get ready for many black-tie events in Dallas.
As I pulled the bow taut, my fingers stilled and lingered. I could no longer avoid David’s penetrating gaze. I watched the rise and fall of his chest until my eyes traveled up his exposed neck. His Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed. Even his hair obeyed, every strand in place, starkly black against his olive skin. His mouth slackened, creases fading. Finally, our eyes locked.
In one slow, measured movement, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to him. His other hand rose and raked through my hair, tilting my mouth upward.
My eyes fluttered shut.
His lips touched mine, and everything else fell away. Warmth pulsed through me as he tested the new territory with a purposeful but tender kiss. My mouth parted, and he answered by opening it farther with his lips. An ache blossomed between my legs. My head swam with the hot breath and heady taste of another man after so many years.
He cupped my face and backed me against the mirror as the kiss became needier. His hands moved down my neck and over my collarbone. They covered my shoulders, pressing me into the glass. That throb grew painful, eager for relief.
I took his cheeks in my hands, his skin smooth over a sharp jaw, and moaned on his tongue.
He tore away suddenly and stepped back. “Fuck.”
My heart pounded as I gasped for air, but my throat constricted. Heat vanished, the mirror cooling my back in an instant. I couldn’t move. I
could only watch David, waiting for his direction.
He turned his back to me, shoving his hands through his perfect hair. “Fuck,” he yelled so loudly, I jumped.
He pounded a fist against the wall, whipped open the door, and stalked out.
I covered my tingling mouth. The kiss had happened both fast and slow, the swell of a wave pulling me down into tranquility before it crashed over my head.
God. Oh, God.
I hadn’t meant to do it. I’d gone right up to the line, walked along it, and so had David on the other side. I’d never meant to cross it.
I hadn’t meant it. What had I done? And what did I do now?
Not even footsteps in the hall could move me. My heart fluttered with each solid step of dress shoes against tile. David wouldn’t leave me this way. He’d walk back through the door.
And then what?
I’d slipped just now, but letting it happen again couldn’t be called anything other than intentional.
Falling into his arms, letting myself be devoured . . .
Bill walked in instead, stopping short as his eyes landed on me.
Everything in me ceased to function. Bill could see it on my face. Everything. The betrayal of David lips on mine, the guilt that I’d pulled him closer, the shame that I wished he’d return just now.
“Did you get my text?” Bill asked. “Car’s all loaded up, and we’re ready to hit the road. Where’s Luce?”
I couldn’t respond, afraid I’d choke on the words. What could I possibly say? Any word out of my mouth would be a lie if I didn’t confess. Now.
“I’m here.” Lucy popped up behind Bill, a pair of slacks draped over her arm. “Where’s David?”
They both looked at me.
I could read the slight irritation on Bill’s face that he’d had to come upstairs and we still weren’t ready. He’d have grumbled to Andrew about my not answering his call, his road trip playlist plugged in, The Cure on the car speakers.
My husband. A man I knew inside and out. We had a life. A routine. We had a weekend away with our best friends planned and waiting for us.
And I was—what? Going to admit I’d kissed a stranger, even though it would never happen again?
Cityscape Affair Series: The Complete Box Set Page 16
