I dip my chin in thanks to Jamie before gesturing for him to fuck off with a stern glare. Once he’s out of earshot, I pour two doubles of whiskey into the glasses, then spin to face Isabelle. Her eyes are holding the same amused sparkle Jamie’s were, but she also looks confused.
“It will help with your headache,” I explain to her shocked expression, using the first excuse that popped into my head.
I down my shot before encouraging Isabelle to do the same. She appears hesitant, but within a nanosecond of my tongue delving out to make sure I didn’t miss a drop of liquid on my lips, she tosses back her shot like she isn’t a novice to drinking hard liquor.
Her ruse would be more effective if she didn’t grimace through the brutal wheeze of her lungs. It’s clear her throat is on fire, but she slams down the glass onto the glossed countertop before raising her bloodshot eyes to mine.
“Another?” I steal her chance to reply before refilling her glass to the top, then sliding it to her side of the bar. Since my serving is as generous as my bank accounts will forever be for my family, whiskey sloshes over the rim.
It glistens on the clear varnish as adeptly as Isabelle’s eyes when she asks, “Are you trying to get me drunk, Mr. Holt?”
I’ve always loved my name, but she just catapulted my affection to a new level. Her throat is still burning, so my name came out husky and raw, and it has me imagining how it would sound when shescreams it in the midst of ecstasy.
Needing confirmation the tension teeming between us isn’t one-sided, I ask, “Would it make it easier to get into your panties?”
The veins in her neck throb as her pupils dilate, giving me the exact response I was aiming for, meaning it kills me to say, “I’m joking.”
Only during our intense staredown did it dawn on me that I’ll need more than an hour-and-a-half flight home to get my fill of Isabelle. If her pussy tastes anything like I’m imagining, I may even need a few days.
Isabelle throws a stack of wood onto the pile in my stomach when she sighs a disappointed sigh. She doesn’t seem like the type of woman to throw herself to the wolves like she just did, she is merely surprised about our immediate connection.
I’m just as stunned. Warning signs are flashing, advising me to slow down. It’s understandable. With how fast we’re racing for the finish line, if I don’t pump the brakes, we’ll get into a wreck.
Recollection of the last time I had thoughts like this force usinto a long bout of silence. I’ve always been a little cocky, and rarely do I feel remorse, but those traits are nonexistent when it comes to the regrets of my past. Deceased girlfriends have a way of fucking with your head, but when you throw in the possibility she was pregnant with your child when she died, it wholeheartedly destroys any chance of you moving on without guilt.
The remorse eating me alive gets a moment of reprieve almost ten minutes later. The napkin I used to make an ice bag for Isabelle’s bump has disintegrated, leaving large smears of black in its wake. Not thinking, I lick the pad of my thumb before lifting it to Isabelle’s face. I’ve barely rubbed away the smudge when a scent unlike anything I’ve ever smelled teems into my nostrils. It is a sweet, honeysuckle smell that reminds me of cotton candy on a hot summer’s afternoon.
When I stray my eyes to Isabelle, certain the smell is coming from her, the scent I’m sucking down like an addict doubles. Her erotic smell causes my unusually impenetrable shield to crack. It has me willing to risk everything just for the chance to sample it one more time, but before I can, the shrill of my cell phone breaks the uncomfortable silence shrouding us.
I almost send my caller’s call to voicemail, then I remember if I had trusted my intuition the night Ophelia died, things could have turned out starkly different than they did. I honestly don’t know if we would still be together now if she hadn’t died, we lived separate lives more than any couple I knew, but I would have preferred for our relationship to end any other way than it did. It was brutal and solely my fault.
With my mood snappy, so is my tone when I drag my cell phone out of my pocket and press it to my ear. “Yes.”
My already nosediving temperament dips even lower when the humored voice of Hugo booms out of my phone’s speaker. “Hunter said you needed some pointers. Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.”
As my eyes snap to the camera dome in the corner of the bar, aware that is most likely the cause of Hugo’s spying, Isabelle shifts hers to my watch. Her already massively dilated eyes expand a fraction more before she slips off her barstool. “Thank you for your assistance, but I must go, or I’ll miss my flight.”
When she snatches her satchel off the countertop, my brain screams at me to let her go. My life is as complicated as it gets, so bringing in a stranger is the worst thing I could possibly do, but for the life of me, I can’t let her go. It could be arrogance, hell, it may even be stupidity, but it honestly feels right when my hand shoots out to snag her wrist before she can get two steps away from me.
Relief softens Isabelle’s features before worry takes hold. She’s as uneased as me, which once again has me pushing on the brakes. I don’t slam my foot down as I did earlier. I merely apply the slightest amount of pressure that will see us coming out of the wreck we’re veering toward with perhaps a scar or two instead of total disfigurement.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Isabelle licks her dry lips before bobbing her head, genuinely thankful for the sincerity in my tone. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”
I take a few moments to count the frantic quiver of her pulse before letting her go, aware she may have won our first battle, but I will utterly annihilate the second round.
Nobody enjoys a knockout in the first round—not even someone as cocky as me.
2
As I wait for stage two of my ploy to commence, I peer out the window Isabelle will be seated next to shortly. My mood has somewhat calmed from what it was when she dashed away from me without so much as a backward glance. I can’t thank Hugo for my relapse to normality. As far as he is concerned, he was the cause of my snappy attitude. I want to keep it that way. He’s a man you need to keep on his toes. If he grows bored, he causes trouble. Since I’m knee-deep in controversy, I’d rather skip another bout.
Isabelle’s frantic dash is the reason I requested Hunter to place her in the window seat. My flight was booked out, and it took Hunter hacking into the airline’s website to boot a paying customer out of their seat, but I asked him to do whatever necessary to weaken Isabelle’s ability to escape. Since she will have to straddle my lap to do it, I’m confident I have all my bases covered. Business-class seats are generous, but so are the span of my thighs when I want to keep someone contained. They’re almost as undogged as my ability to withhold climax until I’m ready.
I’ve not yet had the chance to showcase my skill to its full effect—why would I when I was merely with my bed companions to get off and leave—but I have a feeling I’ll need more than an ability to abstain when it comes to Isabelle. The fact she evaded me without the final glance most women in my presence doexposes I need to up my game.
It’s a game I shouldn’t be fielding but tell me one self-made millionaire who hasn’t dabbled in the occasional recreational sport they shouldn’t have. My hands are clean, they always have been and always will be, but that doesn’t mean I’m disinterested in seeing how grubby I can make them before they’ll need to be scrubbed.
