“She’s beautiful, of course. All women are beautiful.”
Christopher raises an eyebrow. “So she’s ordinary?”
They’re baiting me. I know they’re baiting me, and still it works. “Non. She is perfection. Delicate and pale and covered in freckles. Everywhere, freckles.”
“I do love freckles,” Sutton says with a wistful sigh.
“And she has a smart mouth that presents itself at the most surprising times. When I think she will be most scared and cowering, that’s when she tells me what’s what.”
Blue grunts, because he enjoys a woman with attitude. “Nice.”
“And there’s something about her—the strangeness of her staying in that hotel, for one thing. Her past. Her secrets. I want to unwrap them as much as I want to take off her clothes.”
“Which is a lot,” Christopher observes, his voice dry, but I’m not fooled.
He loves secrets as much as I do, with his neat suits and obsidian eyes. He was the last addition to the Thieves Club, one we never expected. But when he went into business with Sutton, he slid into our group as if there had always been a space waiting for him.
With his cold ambition, there is no one better suited to join us.
Plus he brings the most excellent brandy.
I take a sip, savoring the spice. “Most likely she won’t call again. She will find some handsome traveler in the hotel bar, who will finally convince her to leave the safety of her little nest.”
The thought turns the brandy sour in my mouth.
“Or not.” Blue turns the amber beer bottle in his thick fingers, studying me. “If you really upset her that much she might be too afraid to try again. You might have fucked her up.”
I choke on my next sip and set the crystal down. “Thank you for that.”
“She’s going to call again,” Christopher says, raising his finger for the server. The Den has a full bar, of course, but we can bring our own liquor, especially if we have a special bottle. The brandy he brings for me. Obscure craft brews for Blue. His business partner, Sutton, prefers Patron.
He drinks only wine himself, the kind that must be purchased at auction.
There is terrible hope inside me at that, because Christopher is usually correct.
“Because she wishes to cry again?”
“This is a woman who has spent her whole life behind bars, essentially. Even if they are bars of her own making. She wants to feel something. That’s why she called the first time. It’s why she’ll call again.”
I turn to stare into the fire as the server attends to refilling our drinks. Absolute privacy is assured in the Den, but I still would not speak of Bea in front of a stranger. In fact I do not usually tell the Thieves Club about any of the women I’m with, but she’s far from usual.
And of course there’s the issue of L’Etoile, but I have no intention of telling anyone about that—not even these men. They don’t need to know that I have a darker purpose for wanting to go back to the hotel, to get closer to the woman who lives there.
When we’re alone again, I lean forward. “I want to see her again, which is enough to convince me that I shouldn’t. I don’t have feelings about my clients. I pleasure them, they pleasure me. That’s all.”
“It’s clear this has gone beyond that already,” Sutton says. He wears a white business shirt, rumpled from a day’s use, the sleeves rolled up. They dress alike, he and Christopher, in their high-rise real estate office, but they could not be more different.
“And I’m worried that if I go again, I’ll have sex with her. Of course I will. But how can I do that, knowing she cried when I only made her come? How do you take someone’s virginity?”
“Don’t ask me,” Blue says.
He’s the only one of us in a committed relationship. He loves his wife, who had a very rough childhood. Enough that he didn’t take her virginity, even though they met as teenagers. I’ve met Hannah and she’s impossibly sweet; it’s heartbreaking to think of her hurt.
“No idea,” Christopher adds, but I happen to know he holds a deep fascination with his stepsister. She’s the reason he moved to Tanglewood, though he would not admit that.
Even Sutton puts up his hands. “Who wants that kind of responsibility?”
Mon Dieu.
“I am in very big trouble,” I announce softly.
The group drinks in silent agreement.
Chapter Seven
The next Saturday night I come prepared. The paper bag in my arms isn’t about seducing her, at least not about having sex. I already know she will do that with me, but I want to seduce her in other ways. Her mouth and her mind. Maybe then I will be comfortable taking her body.
She opens the door, and her eyes widen. “What’s this?”
“I told you I was bringing dinner,” I say, stepping over the threshold and heading into the kitchen.
“I thought you meant takeout from downstairs.”
“But no. Tonight I will cook for you my favorite meal.” Inside this bag is everything I need: half a chicken that has been marinating overnight and roasted before arriving, vegetables, an onion, garlic. An array of spices from my pantry.
Her brow furrows. “A tagine?”
“You remember?”
She ducks her head and hides a shy smile. “I don’t think I’ll forget anything about that night.”
It’s rather uncomfortable, having a boulder sitting on my chest. I remove it by clearing my throat. “You can help me by chopping vegetables, if you’d like.”
“Of course,” she says, picking up an onion.
I take it away. “No need to make you cry so early in the evening. Start with the cauliflower.”
That makes her laugh, and I feel myself relax. I have never cooked with a woman, certainly never a client, but we fall into a pattern of quiet preparation.
“Like this?” she asks, showing me the cherry tomatoes in quarters.
Her technique is clumsy, because this tiny kitchen leaves no room for cooking anything but the essentials. It reminds me of the way she kisses, all eagerness, no finesse. “Perfect,” I say. “Keep going.”
She flashes me a brief, nervous smile before turning back to work. My stomach feels lighter than it should, almost fluttery, and it takes me a moment to realize what this is: nerves. Dear God. She’s turning me into a schoolboy.
It’s perhaps with too much gusto that I break down the chicken, letting the slice of the knife break the strange tension in the air. The meat comes apart under my hands, tender and fragrant.
“Tell me about your day,” I say, my tone coaxing. I need to get us back to solid ground. We are shallow and flirty, that’s fine. But we will not be nervous. There is nothing more at stake here than a fun night together.
“I played for a while. And then—”
“Played what?”
“Oh.” She makes an embarrassed face. “I forgot you didn’t know. I’m a pianist.”
I have to bite my tongue so I don’t ask her to play for me. It’s not her job to perform for me. It’s mine to perform for her. Finished with the chicken I settle the pieces into the dish and wash my hands in the sink. “That’s incredible. You play every day?”