by Poppy Parkes
She smiled, a small upturn of rose-colored lips. “Good. I'm glad that's settled. So now,” she swung into one of the chairs facing his desk and spoke over her shoulder, chin tucked coyly into her curls, “what now?”
He moved around her and settled back onto the desk in the position he had assumed when she was first entering the office, no longer seeing it as the position of power now. Instead, those fluttery nerves had re-invaded his abdomen. “I think it's your call. You've earned it, I suppose.”
She flicked her eyebrows up at him in amusement. “Damn straight.” Ruth flashed a full on grin at him, and the sight made him go weak in the knees, a sensation as true as it was cliché. He smiled, both in return as well as in amusement at himself. He didn't know that a person could actually feel weak in the knees, much less that he was capable of it. But the unfamiliar sensation was not unwelcome.
“Here's what you're going to do,” Ruth was saying.
Derek nodded, narrowing his eyes to refocus his mind, trying to pour all of his attention into listening. “Okay. What are we going to do?”
“I have to go back to work now. But you're going to call me later and fill me in on the romantic and, ah, redeeming date you will have planned for us. Then you will come pick me up, and we will go and have fun and start to get to know each other, and it will be a fresh start.”
“A fresh start?” He smiled. “I can do that.”
“And,” she said, pointing a finger at him, “just to be clear, we are committing to now be exclusive with each other, right?”
“Right.” He nodded. “Wait, does that mean we are officially dating?”
“I don't know what label to put on us, and I honestly don't care, as long as we don't leave room for any more of these misunderstandings. But,” she said, blushing a little, “I wouldn't mind saying that we're dating.”
“Okay,” he said, feeling a twist of excitement now in spite of his still smarting sense of betrayal. She must be feeling something similar, he told himself, so get over it. “This weekend really was a disaster, huh?”
“Complete and total,” she said, rising to her feet, smoothing her skirt.
“I'll call you later,” he said, moving to hold the door open.
“I believe you,” replied Ruth. “But – there's one more thing I have to do before I go.” Her cheeks grew pink again.
He frowned. “What is it?”
All amusement faded from her features, and she hung for a moment with her eyes on his. And then, to his surprise, she leaned in and kissed him. He stood frozen in surprise, then cradled the back of her neck with one hand and kissed her back, just as hard as she was pressing her lips into his.
When she pulled away, they stood breathless in each others arms. Derek wondered if his cheeks were as flushed as hers.
“That's all,” she said at last, making them both laugh. “Talk to you later.”
Ruth strode to the elevator and pressed the button, waving at him over her shoulder as the doors retracted. And then she stepped on and the doors closed and she was gone, leaving him with his still pounding heart and Jani staring at him.
“Whoa,” the secretary said, eyes lit up with excitement. She opened her mouth to say more, but he just smiled and quietly closed the door to his office, retreating to his desk chair.
Derek glanced at the clock gleaming from the corner of his computer screen. Only a handful hours until evening. He grinned to himself as he ignored the open client files and instead picked up the phone and began to dial. Ruth had said they were starting fresh, and he had every intention of doing it right.
Chapter 8
Frowning at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, Ruth gave her curls a final scrunch with her hands. She fingered a few individual tendrils, sculpting them with a touch of mousse.
I can't remember the last time I spent this much time primping, she thought. She was rather enjoying it. Or maybe she was enjoying it because she was excited about whatever Derek had planned for them that night.
He'd texted her a few hours ago: 6 PM. Your chariot will await.
Ruth shivered in excitement, recalling the digital words. She knew that it was nearly six now, that he'd be arriving any moment.
She headed back to the bedroom to give herself a last once-over in the full length mirror there. She was wearing a bright turquoise dress that clung to her curves from her breasts through her hips to where the garment fell just about her knees. Its cap sleeves were pieces of the same turquoise fabric that clung to her shoulders in just the right way to offer the illusion of hanging perpetually on the edge of slipping off. Her legs looked longer than usual in the black tights that stretched over them, no doubt helped by the black patent leather pumps that Padme had brought by before. Ruth smoothed her hands down her belly, wondering if she was brave enough to wear this uncharacteristically sexy outfit out for anyone to see – and particularly for Derek to see.
But no. She'd purchased this dress on a whim when she'd seen it in a Brookline shop window a few months back. The turquoise – her favorite color – had caught her eye as she'd been heading to the T after meeting her friends for lunch at a nearby cafe, and something had made her go inside the shop so she could trace her fingertips over its fabric. Then she'd tried the dress on, in spite of its rather exorbitant price tag, and from there she couldn't say no to it. It nestled up close to her skin in ways that were both sensual and yet exceedingly comfortable, with nothing tight or restrictive about the dress. It was as if it'd been made for her.
So she'd purchased it, and then the garment had hung in her closet ever since. It wasn't like she had many – okay, any, she admitted to her reflection – opportunities to wear such a dress in her life.
But tonight, with Derek's promise of a night out glimmering at the forefront of her mind, she'd opened her closet and her eyes went straight to the turquoise dress, and she knew that it was time. She'd phoned Padme for help with shoes, who had brought over the pumps.
“Am I brave enough to wear this?” she'd asked her friend, modeling the dress.
“Damn,” Padme said, shaking her head as she took Ruth in. “You need to wear that. Not for Derek – for you. I feel like . . . like it's showing me a deeper part of you. Your inner lioness.”
Ruth had laughed. “Lioness? I feel more like a cub. An overly dolled-up cub.”
“Well, you're not. I can hear your roar, girl,” Padme had replied. “That dress is practically a manifestation of your soul, I think, if you'll let it be.”
A manifestation of my soul, Ruth thought, gazing at her mirror image. She felt unrecognizable in the vibrant dress, wearing more makeup than usual, although she'd still kept it pretty natural and fresh looking. Her dark hair complemented the turquoise perfectly, curls tumbling around her face and over her shoulders.
She tilted her chin toward the bedroom's overhead light – and froze. There, as she stared into her reflected self, she caught a glimpse of something in her eyes that she'd never seen before. A flash of brightness that had nothing to do with the bedroom lighting. Something like fire.
Maybe Padme was right. That the dress was her, somehow, a representation of her inner self. Which, she thought wryly, doesn't exactly match my less-than-exciting outer life.
Until Derek.
Was this what he'd seen that night in the bar, that had captured him in spite of his free-wheeling ways and the fact that the bar had been populated by plenty of women who were easier catches than she was? And this new boldness she'd been feeling and letting unfurl, was that all born of that spark of something she'd just spied?
Lioness.
She smiled at herself, the curl of her lips feeling like the languid, powerful grin of an actual female lion. A small but compelling voice seemed to speak from within: yes.
* * *
Derek took a deep breath as he stood before the door of Ruth's apartment, clad in a flawless black suit and cradling a single white rose. He hated that the one and only other time he'd stood here, the door had open
ed to reveal what felt like betrayal, even though he knew (now) that it was not.
But she'd promised a fresh start. He wanted to believe her. He would believe her, damn it. There was no reason not to.
He knocked.
The sound of footsteps came from the other side of the door. He recognized the rhythmic click-click of high heels, and then the door swung open and he gasped, inhaling her vanilla scent as he did so.
Ruth was – the word “transformed” did not feel strong enough to describe the change that had come over her. She wore a beautiful turquoise dress that matched her complexion perfectly and showed off her body like nothing else. But it was more than that, too. Something about her eyes. Or maybe in her eyes. He swallowed, hard, his throat suddenly dry.
“Wow,” he said.
She smiled, tilting her head at him, luscious curls cascading forward. “Thanks. Come in while I grab my coat and bag.” He entered and she shut the door behind him.
“This is for you,” he said, holding the white rose out to her. “To fresh beginnings.”
“Hear hear,” said Ruth, smiling even wider as she accepted the flower. “And thank you. It's lovely. I'll put this in water before we go.” She headed to the kitchen and Derek followed, watching her produce a vase from a cupboard and run tap water into it. He wanted to wrap her up tight in his arms, to kiss her hard, to carry her to the bedroom and peel that dress off her.
But he also wanted to simply take her hand in his and hold it delicately, lightly, as if it was made of something precious and rare, to rub his fingers over its smooth skin, to sit with her in silence, to lay his head in her lap and let her trail her fingers through his hair.
And, when he finally did go to bed with her, he didn't want to just have sex with her. Well, he did, but he wanted something more, too. Something more like making love.
Derek swallowed again, hard. He knew he was falling for this woman against all of his habits and better judgment. But – making love? He had always been terrified of that word. He'd considered it to be worse than any of the curses a woman might fling his way.
“There,” she said, slipping the flower's stem into the water and setting the vase on the kitchen table. “It's lovely.”
“You're lovely,” he said, taking her hand in his, smoothing his thumb over the back of her hand as he'd just imagined doing. “More than lovely. Radiant. Transcendent.”
Ruth blushes, looking down. “Oh, it's this dress. It's very me, Padme says.”
Shaking his head, he said, “No. It's more than that. I don't know what, exactly, but it's not about the dress making you gorgeous. You are making the dress gorgeous.”
“That's a beautiful thing to say,” she said, cheeks growing even pinker.
“I'm just telling it like it is.”
“So,” she said with a playful smile, spinning away from him and grabbing a black handbag from where it rested on the table and then shrugging into a faux leather black jacket, “I heard that my chariot would be awaiting right about now. Is it?”
“You bet it is,” Derek said, returning the smile. He offered her an elbow, which she took with a strong and graceful arm. “Shall we, m'lady?”
“Indeed, sir,” she said in a mock haughty voice that he thought quite suited her even as he laughed at her teasing.
Derek led them out of the apartment, leaning close into Ruth's vanilla scent as she locked the door. Something deep within him quivered with anticipation at the night he was about to share with this woman who had somehow captured him so deeply. The idea of love didn't seem so repulsive anymore.
* * *
They emerged from her apartment building into the cool of the deepening evening, Ruth's arm still wound through Derek's. She loved the powerful, solid feeling of his muscled limb beneath the smooth rough of his suit jacket. Ruth thought that this was an arm that could hold any weight she could lean on it.
An expensive looking black town car waited at the curb, a driver sitting in the front seat. “Your chariot, darling,” Derek said in an airy voice, sweeping his free arm at the vehicle.
Ruth gaped. “Is this yours?”
“For the night. I rented it,” he said. “I wanted to be able to give you my full attention for the entire evening.”
“Wow,” she said, shaking her head as Derek opened the door for her. “This is just – wow. I haven't ever been ferried about by a private driver before.”
“Well, you said you wanted an all-out night,” said Derek as she ducked into the back seat. He followed and closed the door. “We're ready,” he said to the driver, who nodded and then closed the partition between the front and back seats.
“Swanky,” she said, not sure what else to say.
“I hope it's a good start to our fresh beginning.”
Ruth snorted. “I'd say it's an amazing start. So, how else are you going to pamper me tonight?” She leaned into him for a moment, playful, inhaling the alluring scent of his cologne and the salty manliness that lay beneath the cologne's more polished fragrance. She thought she wouldn't mind drowning in that smell.
“Well, I thought we'd head to a performance of Phantom of the Opera --”
“Ooh!” she interrupted, squealing, not caring how silly she might sound. “I've been so wanting to go see that!”
Derek smiled. “I'm glad I picked the right show, then. It was between that and Hair.”
“Hair would have been good, too. And really, anything would have. But Phantom is the best choice in my book.” She leaned in close again and stayed there this time, the firmness of his shoulder beneath hers both comforting and thrilling. “Okay, so an evening of classic musical theater. And then?”
“Dinner, of course,” he said, leaning his head down close to hers so she could feel his breath on her neck. She shivered.
“Mmm,” she purred. “That sounds nice.”
“I'm glad. I'm not very good at this dating thing, I'm afraid.”
Ruth laughed, pulling back to face him. “Not good at this? We're in a private chauffeured car, heading to a showing of a musical I've been dying to see, and then we get to visit over dinner. Plus, we are both looking excessively gorgeous. I mean, you're always excessively gorgeous,” she added, blushing, “but now I match, and we are all glammed up.”
“Ruth,” said Derek, frowning as he brushed his hand against her cheek and tucked a curl behind her ear, making her quiver again, “you are gorgeous. A beautiful woman. And your luminosity goes much deeper than your skin. Can you not see that?”
“Oh,” she said, tugging at the hem of her coat, her tongue suddenly feeling thick and clumsy as she tried to speak. “Well, I don't know. What woman these days believes in her own beauty?”
“I hope you,” he murmured. “If not now, then soon. I hope I can help you see.”
His hand rested on her cheek for a moment again, and she cupped it in her own. “Thank you,” she said.
All of a sudden, a thought hit her, and she sat bolt upright, snatching her hand away, his own hand falling back to his lap. “I have to tell you – I'm not going to sleep with you. At least, not tonight.”
Derek blinked once, twice, at the sharp turn the conversation had just taken, brow furrowed. “Oh. Well. I can't say I expected –“
“I know I slept with Sam the first night I met him,” Ruth interrupted, talking very fast now, chin wrinkled. “But that was so not how I usually am. I don't want to rush things with you, especially not after everything.”
“Ruth.” Derek laid a hand on her black stockinged knee, and the touch calmed her, stopping the flow of stammered words tumbling from her lips. “You don't have to explain. I know my past, ah behavior doesn't make me the ideal choice for a more serious relationship. Or, um, any kind of relationship, really. Normally I'd just take woman to bed for a night or two and that would be it. But you're different. Or maybe it's that I'm different when I'm with you. Or that you make me want to be different, somehow.” He shook his head, confusion creasing his forehead. “Whatever it
is, I don't want to just get you into bed. This thing that's between us feels more real than anything else I've experienced. I want to see why.”
“I know I said we'd start fresh,” Ruth said, “so it's probably unfair of me to bring up your past – er, routine with women.” She fumbled for the right words, feeling her neck grow red at the effort.
“I don't think it's unfair. You're just staking out your boundaries, your territory.” He smiled.
“Like a lioness,” she murmured, more to herself than to Derek.
“A lioness,” he repeated. “Sexy, beautiful – and powerful. I like that. It's an apt description of you.”
“Is it?” She crinkled her nose, half wishing she hadn't let the word slip. “I don't feel very powerful, even if I can manage to feel sexy and beautiful at times.”
