“I don’t know any other way to be,” I tell her, because it’s the truth. I might traffic in illusions, but they all first come from truths. From who we all are deep down, from what makes us tick. That’s my stock-in-trade. I take another swallow of my scotch, the ice cubes clinking against the glass. A waiter passes by bearing small salads for another couple at a nearby table, but I barely notice them. I put the glass down, touch her cheek, then thread my fingers through her hair. “Now it’s my turn to ask you a question.”
Her eyes widen with worry then she takes a breath as if she’s steeling herself. “Okay,” she says tentatively.
“Do you remember the night in the car, the first time I made you come?”
She nearly spits out her drink. “You cut to the chase.”
“I do. It seemed as if you were saying it was the first…” I let my voice trail off, tilting my head to the side to see if she’ll let me get to know her. Get to see inside her.
She doesn’t answer right away. Just takes a drink, fiddles with her napkin.
“I want to get to know you,” I say and run a finger along her arm. “That’s all.”
She looks afraid. She looks lost. But she parts her lips and sighs. “I’m not a virgin, but I haven’t been with anyone in a long time,” she says quietly, as if it’s the first time she’s said that out loud.
I want to reassure her that whatever her history is, it’s all fine with me. “That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I haven’t been with anyone since my high school boyfriend. I mean, I kissed a few guys in college. And please don’t go all protective caveman and get upset that I’ve kissed people. Because I’m not the Virgin Mary and don’t want to be treated as such.” She holds up a hand, dropping her vulnerable self to return to her tough-as-nails one.
“Duly noted.”
“It’s just that…”
“It’s just what? There’s nothing wrong with that. Unless it’s for a particular reason?” I ask, carefully, because we’re treading on sensitive terrain here for her.
She simply shrugs.
“Jill,” I say, keeping my voice low but steady. I don’t want to scare her. I don’t want to let on exactly what I’d do to someone who hurt her. But I need to know. “Did this guy hurt you?”
“No,” she says quickly, and she looks away from me. She swallows then looks back at me. “The opposite. I hurt him.”
Her eyes are wet, and she looks like she’s about to cry, and all my instincts in reading people’s emotions are turned upside down right now because she’s so hard to figure out. But I also know she’ll only let me in so far at a time. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I think that’s all I can manage for now.”
“Well, whatever it was, I think you have to forgive yourself for hurting him. I’m sure even if you did break his heart, or whatever happened, that he’s managed to move on. I did after Madeline. She’s the reason I didn’t want to go out with an actress again. We were very serious about each other, and then she left me in the lurch when her career took off.”
“Would you think it’s terrible that I’m glad she left you?” Then she moves in and silences any more conversation with a kiss. I can taste the Belvedere on her lips, and I can taste her, and it’s the most delirious sensation in the world to have her here with me. She pulls apart for a moment. “I know I said I didn’t want anyone to see us kissing, but I’m just going to hope there’s no one here who knows us because I’ve been wanting to do that since I walked in the door,” she says, and it’s one of the first times she’s talked to me like this. As if she’s shedding all the ways she protects herself. “I’ve been wanting to do that since my roommate helped me pick out this dress this afternoon. I’ve been wanting to do that since I thought about you on the way over in the car, like you wanted me to.”
For a moment I feel as if the ground is swaying, as if we’re being rocked by unexpected waves. I thought I could protect myself. I once stupidly thought I could stay away from her. I even toyed with the idea that I could keep this strictly physical. Those days are long gone. The more I get to know her, the deeper I fall. She is the most complicated and sexy and beautiful and vulnerable woman I’ve ever met. Maybe she’s hurt someone in the past, and maybe I’m next in line, but there’s a part of me that is willing to sign up for it because it’s impossible to stay away from her.
Especially when she gives me a very sexy grin. “Do you want to know what I’m wearing under this dress?”
“Now that you mention it, I think I’d like to find out.” I slide my hand below the hem of the dress, feeling the soft na**d skin of her legs under my calloused fingers. Then I move my hand to the underside of her thigh, taking my time as I explore, enjoying her invitation to find out what she has in store for me. I watch the expression on her face change as she hitches in her breath and parts her legs the slightest bit. She makes an audible gasp when I reach that delicious part on a woman’s body when her leg meets her ass. Then I cup her between her legs, and she’s na**d against my hand, her body already hot and wet.
“Now you’ll really see why I picked this table,” I tell her.
Jill
I wonder if he knows I’ve shared more with him than with anyone else. That I give him more glimpses than anyone before. Maybe it’s because he’s asked. Maybe it’s because sometimes I feel as if he can see inside me, as if he senses things about me, as if he knows that there’s more than what I let on. I’ve kept the past with Aaron hidden—literally hidden, under lock and key—but he alone seems to be able to see through all my defenses, all the ways I’ve built up this persona, and he can gently pull back the curtain, bit by bit, in a way that doesn’t rip me apart. Because he’s so patently open with me.
No faking, no pretending. Only truth.
Which makes me wonder if that’s why my body responds like it belongs to him. If there’s more to this thing between us than just his amazing hands, or the way he kisses me both rough and tender, or how he talks dirty in one moment and then romantic the next. If I’m feeling things for him that go beyond these sensations that send me to another world with him.
But right now, I let go of all those questions because he’s learning that I wore nothing for him, so he could do just this, so he could touch me under the table.