Delaney stopped trying to push me away as we paused just outside the glass doors. I eyed our dark reflection beneath the long awning and my fingers instinctively tightened on her neck, my pinkie twisting around a loose strand.
“You’re going to walk in there looking like I just pulled my coupe over to the side of the road and pushed your skirt up to your hips to bury my tongue between your legs,” I continued to whisper. “You’re going to walk in there looking like your cheeks are flushed from throwing your head back in the blistering sun reflected off my hood. You’re going to walk in there looking like you didn’t bother buttoning back up your cardigan, because you’re still hot from coming, fist pounding at the windshield, fingers clawing at the leather seats.”
I grinned against the delicate, sensitive skin just below her ear as I saw her nipples harden deliciously beneath the wafer-thin material that provided as much coverage as a stream of water.
Finally I licked my lips and whispered, “And you’re going to act like you don’t give a fuck who sees you like that, debauched and sensual and oh, so satisfied.”
I watched Delaney look at her reflection in the glass door. I wondered if she could see what I saw: a woman who could get a king to kneel before her.
Delaney turned her head slightly to glance up at me. “I don’t know,” she said in her thick southern accent. “They’re going to sniff me out like a raccoon sniffs out a trash can in a trailer park.”
I hid a laugh at her hick-ass references and patted her cheek.
“Listen, love,” I said when she bit her lip apprehensively, “you’re just going to do exactly what I tell you and you’ll be fine. Okay?”
Delaney managed a nod and stared warily back at the doors. I stood there waiting for her to move until I realised we were starting literally at ground zero. Baby steps, Ronan, I told myself. Baby steps.
“Alrighty then, why don’t we start with a step forward,” I said, nudging her a little with my arm. “Don’t hesitate at the door. Walk at it like you know it’s going to open for you and there’s going to be hell to pay if it doesn’t.”
Delaney sucked in a breath as the doorman inside swung the doors open for us.
“Mr O’Hara,” the man said in a hushed tone with a tilt of his head. “Miss.”
I whispered quickly in Delaney’s ear, “Say ‘Harry’ like he’s your ex.”
“Harry,” Delaney said, monotonous and flat.
As the maître d’ guided us to my usual table, Delaney kept her eyes forward but whispered up at me, “I have no idea who that guy was.”
“I know,” I said, grinning. “But now he thinks you do. And now he thinks he should know you. He’ll be asking everyone around about the sexy American.”
“Drinks, Mr O’Hara?” the maître d’ asked as he held Delaney’s chair out for her.
“Champagne,” I said, dragging a chair to prop up my feet on.
When the maître d’ slinked away with a slight bow to weave through the dimly lit dining room, I eyed who was there that early evening. I was satisfied to see that it was already full of socialites not eating, dirty politicians not paying, and billionaires definitely not getting jerked off underneath the table. There was a full audience, just what I wanted.
Delaney didn’t know it, but this was her debutante ball. And I intended to make her coming out to high society one they wouldn’t forget.
“Don’t fidget,” I told Delaney, not even needing to glance over at her beside me to know that she was doing just that.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
I craned my neck over to see her confusedly messing around with her silk napkin, seconds away from tucking it into her camisole. I snatched it from her and tossed it on the tall back of the chair where my weary, weary feet were resting (this was, after all, more work than I’d done in a day since… well, since ever).
“For heaven’s sake, Delaney,” I hissed. “We’re not at a bottomless shrimp buffet at the Blue Lobster.”
“Red Lobster.”
I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. “That’s not information I wanted in my brain,” I grumbled. “I feel violated.”
A waiter brought our champagne. I slapped Delaney’s fingers away when she went to grab her glass to hold it up for the waiter to pour into.
“You’re a lady, not a drunk beneath a leaking keg,” I whispered into her ear. “Make people come to you.”
Delaney’s fingers bounced nervously on her knees as she watched the bubbles dance in her glass.
“Can I drink now?” she asked once the waiter had left, leaving us with menus which I perused.
I grinned over the top of the menu at her. “Drinking in high society is highly encouraged.”
Delaney’s delicate fingers wrapped around the stem of the glass.
“Do I sip a certain way or…?”
I laughed and shook my head, returning my attention to the menu. “Trust those sumptuous lips of yours, Delaney,” I said. “I’d bet money that they know exactly what they’re doing.”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
I swung my feet off the chair seat and cozied up to Delaney. “Ah, there she is,” I said, grabbing my own glass of champagne. “To that dirty little mouth of yours, love.”
Delaney ignored me and sipped her drink, glancing nervously at the tables around us.
“You said you were going to tell me what to do,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth, like we were spies with opened newspapers on a park bench.
I slung my arm over her shoulders again and leaned against her, raising a finger in front of the flickering candle. “Indeed I did.”
Delaney eyed me and then whispered, “Well?”
I nestled closer, leaning my head in conspiratorially. “Well, the waiter is going to come back to take our orders, and I’m going to order for you. Then we’re going to drink our champagne and talk about classy things like bow ties and Scottish terriers, pearls and old bonds on yellowed parchment, raised pinkies and oriental rugs.”
Delaney was clinging to my every word as my eyes scanned the patrons sipping their expensive soups, stabbing their expensive meats, pushing expensive peas around their expensive plates. I grinned and slid my gaze back to her.
“Then,” I whispered, leaning in even closer, “then… Delaney, are you listening?”
Delaney nodded and whispered back an earnest, “Yes.”
“Good.” I brushed my thumb up and down the length of her neck. “Good, good. Then… Remember what I told you… that you all you have to do is listen to me?”
“Yes.”
“That all you had do was exactly what I tell you to do?”
“Yes.”
I practically felt Delaney holding her breath close beside me.
“Then this is what you’re going to do…” I said, dragging out the pause with a long sip of champagne. “Delaney, love, it’s simple: you’re going to slap me in the face and storm out.”
Delaney
“Ex-fucking-cuse me?”
This is what I intended to blurt out when Ronan told me he wanted me to slap him in the face and storm out. “Ex-fucking-cuse me” would have been my precise words had Ronan, putting on a ridiculously over-the-top southern accent, not beaten me to it. Since he took what I was going to say, all I could manage to do was stare at him and stammer incomprehensibly.