Doe would only give me a shy smile. She didn’t push me or make me feel as if I had to fill the silence. There was no awkward void, just the nearly suffocating sexual tension.
She stood close to me as we waited to be shown to our table. I kept my hand at the small of her back, needing to touch her. The place was bustling with other patrons, but from the moment we’d walked through the door, those who were already waiting for a table had gone silent, their gazes drawn to Doe. She’d shyly held on to me as we’d checked in and then moved to a corner to wait.
“Do I have something on my face?” she whispered when everyone continued to watch her, not a single one of them saying a word. Her blue eyes glanced around nervously, causing the others to quickly shift their gazes. But as soon as she looked back at me, their eyes were trained on her again.
“Just beauty, little lamb,” I murmured. With my hand on her hip, I turned her so she was pressed against my front, keeping her back to the room so she didn’t have to see everyone gawking at her. One of her hands pressed into my chest, and she snuggled against me trustingly. I dropped a kiss to her forehead and was rewarded with a soft sigh.
I could practically feel the envy of every motherfucker in the room, wishing they were me so they could hold and touch her as freely as she was allowing me. I knew without a doubt how lucky I was that she was giving me such an honor, and I made a silent vow never to make her regret it.
Over her shoulder, the guy directly across from us dropped his eyes to Doe’s ass. He didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was checking out my girl. Gritting my teeth, I turned us so that her back was against the wall and I was blocking her from view. Shooting the fucker a glare over my shoulder, I saw the woman he was with slap him on the arm before hissing something at him. It was obvious she was pissed, and a moment later, she stormed out.
The guy grimaced and followed after her, causing a few people close by to chuckle at them.
Doe was oblivious to it all as she shifted the hand she still had on my chest, her fingers tracing downward over my muscles through my shirt. When they reached my navel, I captured her wayward hand and brought it to my lips. Her bottom lip pouted out ever so slightly, the sight making my rock-hard cock weep for attention from that lush mouth.
I wanted her soft hands all over me, but if I let her touch me now, this night would be over before it even began. After how fast I’d moved with her the evening before, I needed to slow things down. I wanted to show her that we were more than just a little bit of fun. No matter how blue my balls got, I wasn’t going to let things go further than what we’d already done until she understood how much I cared about her.
“Carling?” the hostess called out.
I tucked a lock of hair behind Doe’s ear and entwined our fingers as I turned to face the woman. She gave me an impersonal smile as she picked up two menus. “This way, please.”
Violet had advised me that this was one of Doe’s favorite restaurants. From the smell of the food alone, I could understand why she liked the place so much. The tables and booths were spread out a good distance from one another, offering a little privacy. As we passed one crowded table after another, people stopped eating. As with the people in the waiting area, every gaze that landed on Doe seemed to become transfixed, making it impossible for them to even speak.
The hostess stopped at our table for two. I pulled out Doe’s chair and waited for her to sit before going around to my own. The woman handed over our menus then assured us our waiter would be right with us before walking away. Slowly, the conversation around us started back up, but people were still casting looks our way. Mostly the men.
Grasping her hand, I kept it in mine as I looked over the menu. “How about an appetizer?”
“Loaded cheese fries?” she suggested, her tongue skimming over her bottom lip.
I groaned in appreciation. “Perfect. I’m starving.”
“Their steak is really good here. And the brisket is amazing.” The waiter appeared beside us, and she ordered a sweet tea as soon as he asked what we were drinking.
“Same,” I told him before he could suggest a beer or something harder. “And the loaded cheese fries.”
Doe gave me a bright smile as the waiter walked away to get our drinks and put in the appetizer order. “I love this place,” she confided. “When I was younger, my brothers and I used to beg to come here every Saturday for lunch if they didn’t have a baseball game.” She pointed to a back corner where a circular booth was. “It’s pretty family-friendly during the day but obviously not so much at night. We would always sit there, and our parents would take the table right in front of it. Jackson and I would play grown-ups. The waiter would go along with it and bring me grape juice in a wine glass and Jackson’s sweet tea in an old-fashioned glass.”
The glow to her face when she spoke of her brother seemed to light her up from the inside out. She was already beautiful, but when she sparkled like that, it took my breath away. “I can see you two doing that. Jackson definitely seems more mature than Bryant and LJ.”
“You have no idea,” she said with a laugh. “Do you have any siblings?”
“Several half siblings,” I said with a shrug. “My dad got around back in the day. We’re all around the same age, and we all have different moms. None of us grew up together. I didn’t even know about any of them until my late teens.”
The waiter dropped off our drinks and a basket of bread, then took our order, distracting us from the topic of my weird family life. I was thankful for it. Not because I didn’t want to share it with her. I’d tell her anything about myself that she wanted to know. It was just difficult for me to go down that road. My parents were both pieces of shit, each for different reasons. It wasn’t long after I’d been introduced to Howler that I found out I had brothers and sisters. When I met a few of them, I was excited, thinking I might be able to have a family. But they had squashed those dreams pretty quickly.
If Pixie hadn’t come along, I wasn’t sure how my life would have turned out.
I thought about telling Doe about her, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. It was a complicated relationship, but Pixie was really all I had. She was important to me, and I wanted Doe to know everything. But it was difficult for me to talk about. Every time I had to go down that particular road, it always brought up all the bad memories, and I didn’t want to ruin my time with Doe by getting into such a heavy topic.
By the time our appetizer was placed between us, we were sharing other things about ourselves. Favorite movies, books, music, little details that might not mean much to some people, but they were what made her Doe. All through dinner, she confided more about herself to me, and I got to see parts of her she’d kept hidden. The more she revealed, the more I knew that she was made for me.
“How about some dessert?” our waiter offered as he stopped to clear away our empty entrée dishes. “We have a twenty-four-layer chocolate cake that couples like to share.”
“Oh,” Doe said, licking her lips. She hypnotized me every time she did that, making it impossible to think as images of her on her knees licking my cock with that delectable tongue overran my mind. “No, thank you. I’m so full I couldn’t possibly eat another bite.”