Page 45 of Pay the Piper

Her kittenish punch makes us both laugh as the server deftly moves the second set of silverware to her new place beside me and recites the evening’s specials. Once we agree to share a bit of everything and she orders Diet Coke instead of a cocktail, I ask her again what she meant.

“Well…you’ve just always seemed more grounded to me. Like a ‘burgers and fries’ kind of guy, not so much caviar and Wagyu. I mean, your condo is very nice, so it’s not that I didn’t think you could afford it.”

She laughs again as she sips her soda. I have a glass of water, and that’s all I’ll be imbibing tonight. After a lifetime of danger, I know better than to be under the influence of anything when outside of the compound. Even then, I prefer to have my senses about me. I need to be able to protect the person who matters most. Before, it was Mila. Now…the flame-haired siren who continues to scoot closer and closer to me in the booth.

“But I wouldn’t have expected this from the man who waxes poetic about gummy candy and has such strong opinions about sweets. You contain multitudes, sir.”

Fuck if that doesn’t make my cock twitch.

“I do contain multitudes,” I joke, feeding her a bite of an appetizer and noting that she doesn’t like the lobster as much as the eggplant. Filing that away for later, I try to explain. “I was born as poor as you can imagine a human could be, but I haven’t been in quite some time. It’s a funny thing, working your way up out of poverty. When I came to America, I was a growing teenager, and I gorged myself on sweets and junk food as if it were all a finite resource. It took years to feel safe enough to trust that my next meal was coming. Once the circles I moved in got fancier, I developed a taste for a few of the finer things.”

“Hmm,” she murmurs. “Well, this place is very fine. I like a nice restaurant as much as the next girl, but there was nothing like this where I grew up. We were very middle class. I had to learn all about all the silverware on my own when—”

Something flashes behind her eyes, gone so quickly that I might have imagined it.

“When I grew up. But a good poutine on the couch with a movie is just as romantic to me as a fancy dinner. You don’t have to work so hard to impress me, you know.”

Ah. My woman doesn’t understand that it’s not about impressing her. It’s about putting her on the pedestal she deserves.

“I’m not sure what the hell poutine is. It sounds disgusting—”

“It’s literally fries, cheese, and gravy, and it’s delicious. You’re so dramatic—”

She quiets on a shaky inhale as I lean in, crowding her and running my nose down hers before meeting her gaze.

“I don’t have to work hard to impress you, lesnaya. I want to. I want to work hard to make you want me so that you’ll keep me. I want to work hard to ensure that you know that no other man can give you what I can. And I damn sure want to work hard to anticipate and handle all of your needs before you even realize you have them.”

The server’s appearance with the dessert menu is the only thing that stops me from doing something incredibly stupid, like pinning her down in the booth and providing the other patrons of this establishment with a dinner show they don’t deserve to witness.

“Abby,” I purr, never breaking eye contact. “Would you like dessert, or would you like to go home?”

“Home, please.”

“Jesus, fuck. You’re killing me, sweetheart.”

Abby’s breath whooshes out of her lungs as her back hits the inside of my front door. The drive back from the restaurant was a blur, all the blood that should have been in my head already feverishly heading south to my cock. I’m on autopilot, disabling the security system with my palm and biting her neck hard enough that I hope I leave a mark. Her legs are squeezing my waist as if she never wants to let me go, and that’s fine by me.

“Surely not,” she teases. “You’re strong enough to carry me with one arm and my bag with the other all the way from the car. How could a little thing like me kill you?”

My soul soars at her cheeky grin, and although I hope she stays comfortable enough for me to continue showing her what sex is supposed to be like for a woman, I have no expectation. It takes everything in me to set her on the kitchen island and take a half step back.

“You might actually be the only person in the world with the power, Abby. And the only one I wouldn’t even fight.”

She reaches to pull me back for another kiss, but I capture her hand and press a kiss on the back instead.

“I need you to know I don’t have a single expectation of you tonight, lesnaya. It’s none of my business what happened earlier this week, but this is all at your pace.”

“That was so fucking embarrassing.” She drops my hand and blushes, looking anywhere but at me. A single finger under her chin brings her gaze back to mine, and my resolve deepens to erase any motherfucker who still breathes and was responsible for making her feel this way.

“Hey. It wasn’t. And I’ll never mention it again if you don’t want to talk about it. But what I want, darling,” I say, moving an inch closer so that she has to spread her legs to accommodate me between them, “is to peel this delicious dress off you, make you come until you cry, then sink my bare cock inside you so deeply that you only feel me for the rest of your life. I need you to know, before I do that, that I’m clean. And I also need you to know that I also want, almost as badly, to rub your feet while we lie on the couch and watch Mean Girls.”

“Again?” she whispers.

“It’s a classic,” I say with a shrug. “What do you say, baby? You’re calling all the shots here.”

There isn’t a hint of consideration as she sits up a hair straighter. Whatever she’s decided, she’s confident and sure of herself.

“I say,” she begins, one finger looping through my belt and pulling me even closer. “That I’m clean, and on birth control, and I’d also love for you to sink your bare cock inside me so deeply that I only feel you for the rest of my life.”