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Electra
“HOLY SHIT!” I exclaimed. “Your backyard is huge.” And manicured like the grounds at a nice hotel. Not that I had been to a lot of them, but I had been to some since moving to Dallas.
Slipping my hand from where it had rested on Champion’s arm, I moved away from him to get a closer look at his pool. It was big, like him, and started with an elevated spa beside his detached three-car garage and ran the entire length of his enormous house. Potted bushes with fragrant white blooms and dark greenery surrounded the pool deck, and a grouping of manicured trees with twinkling white lights were in the background on the far side of his immaculate lawn.
“Do you swim?” I asked, turning to look at him. His backyard was nice, but I preferred looking at him.
“Yeah. I’ve been swimming since Darren Moville became my personal think-and-eat-right trainer.”
Champion studied me closely. The backyard was well lit with strategically placed copper fixtures everywhere. There was nowhere for me to hide. But even if there had been shadows to retreat to, he was too observant for me to conceal anything.
“How do you like my place so far?” he asked.
“It’s very luxurious,” I said truthfully but carefully.
“Meaning?” He arched a brow.
Nope, he wasn’t going to let my careful answer stand. He wanted more than a careful answer, and I wanted to give him more.
“I come from a small rural town in the panhandle,” I said. “Now, I strip for a living. I’ve never experienced anything this luxurious. It’s a little intimidating.”
His dark blond brows drew together. “You don’t like it.” I could hear the disappointment in his tone.
“It’s not that,” I said as I went to him. If he was upset, I wanted to soothe him. It wasn’t how I was anymore after the accident, but it was the way I was with him. “It’s just so perfect.”
Like him in a lot of ways. Me with my external and internal scarring? Not so much.
He gave that some consideration. “Wanna go inside?” He gestured.
“Yeah, sure.” I set aside my reservations about this night and the harm it might do to me.
“Good.” The creases smoothed from his brow. “C’mon then.”
He took my hand. Intertwining our fingers, he led me across the level lawn. I went with him more readily than I wanted to admit. I was curious about where he lived, eager for the insight his space would give me about him.
Three concrete steps took us up from the lawn onto a covered porch. In an L shape, the deck traced the footprint of his house. He used his phone to unlock a glass slider. The frame for it was taller than he was.
“Come.” He gestured, then did something with his phone that lit up the interior.
“Wow! This is fancy.”
Inside, I clutched my purse close to my body and turned in a circle, taking it all in.
Modern like something from a magazine, the room had a fireplace with bamboo planking that matched the flooring around a fireplace with no mantel. A large gathering space held an off-white leather seating group that looked like it came straight from the display room of a high-end furniture store. On the opposite side of the room was a modern kitchen with off-white cabinets, stainless steel appliances, and marble countertops.
“How tall are the ceilings.” I asked, tilting my head back to look at the beams.
“Twelve feet,” he said, his deep voice bouncing off the pristine walls.
Twelve feet that made me feel smaller than I already did.
“I like the windows,” I said, finding something nice to say. My mother would have been proud that I remembered my manners. “It’s very open and airy.” It was just that all that openness felt empty. “I’ll bet with all the windows that it’s spectacular in the daytime.”
I wandered to the kitchen. Floor-to-ceiling sliders ran along the entire back side of the house, providing unrestricted views of his backyard. I could even see a shorter length of the house where it curved toward the garage.
“What’s over there?” I pointed.
“My office and gym.”
