Or perhaps I’m annoyed that I was so easily dismissed and I want to put her in her place by seducing her.

Turning her hand so her palm is facing upward, I lower my eyes and begin tracing a blue vein in her wrist, noticing how pale and soft her skin is there. “No doubt. But my father taught me good manners, you see, and old habits die hard.”

“What if I say no?” she asks, raising her chin as if she’s challenging me to change her mind.

I lift her wrist to my mouth. “I’d do it anyway.” I kiss the spot on her wrist where life flows through her veins and wait for a slap on the cheek that never comes. Instead, I feel a tremor run through her and it makes the bastard in me smile. Not so cool now, huh?

She stares at me for a moment and I take pleasure in the fact that she doesn’t remove her hand from mine. And then she smiles. A small smile that barely lifts the corners of her mouth.

“Go ahead, then, even though I should slap you for your forwardness.”

“You won’t, though, because deep down you know you love it.” I smile cheekily. Releasing her hand, I grab the door handle and open it. “After you, unless …”

We hear the buzz of people talking inside, beckoning us to go in. A man excuses himself when he walks past us, but neither of us seem to care what’s happening around us. Eyes on each other, we war silently.

The world stops spinning.

Time comes to a halt.

Tension crowds the air we breathe.

I watch the small bump in her throat move ever so slightly as she swallows unsaid words. Then, she licks her coral colored lips, and images of her mouth wrapped around my cock flash in my mind.

“Unless what?”

“We don’t go inside and go somewhere else.”

“Where would that somewhere else be?”

I lift a hand and pull her hair to the side, revealing her porcelain-white shoulder, and caress it with the back of my hand. “My apartment.”

“And what would we do there?”

I lean down and kiss her shoulder. “Take a guess.”

Short of breath, her chest rises and falls rapidly. “I’m not in the mood to play games.”

“Yet I can practically smell you getting wet.” I close the space between us until I can feel her soft and supple body grazing mine, hardening my cock, and whisper in her ear, “But if you want me to spell it out for you, beautiful, so be it. If you leave with me now, we’re going back to my place to fuck. And it won’t be nice. And it won’t be pretty, but you’ll love every second of it.”

She takes a step back, putting some space between us. Placing my hands in the front pockets of my jeans, I watch her run her palms down her dress, smoothing imaginary wrinkles. It allows me to admire how graceful her movements are. With her icy beauty, she reminds me of a Russian ballerina, from the curve of her pale neck to the elegant curves of her body hidden behind black silk. Briefly, the thought crosses my mind that I’m asking a complete stranger to go back to my place to fuck, but I came here to forget and that’s exactly what I plan to do. With her or with someone else.

I’m thinking that she’s going to tell me to go fuck myself when she looks up.

“Let’s go then.”

After we get in the cab and I give my address to the cab driver, she reaches for my hand. She leans her head back on the leather seat and turns to face me, her features made indistinguishable by the darkness surrounding us.

“I’ve never done something like this before.”

I squeeze her hand. “Me neither. Are you afraid?”

She nods.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We can go back, go on our separate ways, and pretend like this never happened.”