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“I’ll get my extra big pair of scissors.” She rubs a hand over her face and then steps back from me, turning and going to sit down again. “Yes. Food would be good. Thank you.”
I ordered Omani food. There’s a new place that was opened by a chef who lived in Oman and wanted to bring the unknown dishes of the area to the West. This is what Ryder told me, anyway. Anything to do with indulging the senses and I’ll take his word for it. Except for women. He’s got a problem there.
The contemplative expression on Scarlett’s face as she finished her Kabsa, an aromatic saffron rice dish with red spiced chicken, was a delight. As is the sweet bliss that blossoms when she finishes the ice cream I also ordered.
I’ve never found someone else enjoying their food erotic, until now. But with her, that enjoyment is definitely erotic, and it only makes me wonder what else she savors, and how she’d bring that to bed. Or wherever fucking her might take place.
Work is done and I’m finding things to do, which I can’t stop myself from doing. Yes, I need to go over things because that’s how I am, but I know it’s her.
She keeps me lingering. Making me keep her lingering.
I have another drink. Too much and I might cross lines I’m not yet willing to cross. She makes that hard without alcohol. But I feel good, there’s a latent lethargy spreading through me, belying the coiled predator within.
“That was all…amazing.”
I glance at her. “Said like a woman who’s only eaten at the in places.”
“Yes, well.” Her small smile slips and a darkness shadows her eyes as she glances away. But when she looks back it’s gone. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
“I don’t know you,” I say, even though I’m beginning to, and I do in a lot of surprising ways, but that’s not what she means. “That’s the point of all this.”
She shuts down the iPad and sets it on the coffee table. I admire the way her top stretches just a little to show her form beneath. “I think we’re done for the night.”
“Are we?”
Her gaze skitters over to me and her cheeks turn pink. She swallows. “I didn’t mean—”
“You did, you know,” I say, setting down my glass and leaning in toward her. “You have a habit of overstepping all kinds of boundaries. That doesn’t make you the best well-bred society girl out there.”
“And what does it make me?” she snaps.
“Interesting.”
The word sits, and with it, the tension rises and I slide my hand up over her cheek, her skin impossibly soft and warm. “Oh.”
“There you go again. You accuse me of back and forth and here you are, doing it yourself. Your Scarlett brand. You’re nothing like any of the women I’ve met from your world.”
“Is that a compliment?”
I smile. “Take it as you wish.”
Christ, I want her mouth again. It’s calling to me and I’m not strapped to any mast at all. Kiss her again and I might not be able to help myself.
I trace along beneath her bottom lip with my thumb and I’m rewarded with her sharp little intake of breath and the lean into my hand and my touch. It’s enough to give me a raging erection.
“Hudson…”
My name is a revelation from her lips. It’s full of need and promises and longing and yeah, that does things to me, too. The way she says it.
“You really are different. I can’t put my finger on it,” I say, shifting a little closer to her, wanting to breathe her in again. “Bixby never really spoke about you.” Bixby was by the book and still is. We’re not close, but… I try to fit them together as a family and can’t. Her side must be something to behold. Or else it’s her. An outlier in that microcosm world. “Tell me about your family.”
Everything changes.
Scarlett suddenly goes still, eyes wide. And she pulls back then, from my touch, jumping up to her feet.
“I think I’ve got the hang of it all. I mean, I do. And as you said, we have a busy week and lots to do on all fronts. I need an early night. I’ll get a cab.”
Without another world, she spins and races out the door.
