“Great. I’ll make a booking, say, six thirty?”
Clearly Cynthia didn’t have any qualms with Fox making plans. At least Jag assumed so, considering what was happening. He wouldn’t mention what Cynthia said to Steff.
Cynthia was being a good friend to Steff, and she needed them. But Steff also had him now, and he had no plans on letting her go.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Steff smootheddown her new dress. The one shoulder navy blue dress skimmed her curves. It finished just before her knees. It was simple, elegant, and casual enough for the Italian restaurant they were going to. She looked attractive if she did say so herself, and she hoped Dalton thought so too.
She was excited for the dinner with Fox and Cynthia. She and Cynthia had gone on another outfit shopping trip that morning and had had a lot of fun. They’d laughed and joked, and Steff had felt like the way she’d been prior to her kidnapping. She wanted to keep that feeling, because it was so much better than how she’d been living the last couple of years. She hadn’t even had the urge to feel pain, which was a huge step forward for her.
As much as she’d planned to approach Cynthia about what she’d said about Dalton, she hadn’t bothered. They were having too good of a time, and why bring something up when she and Dalton had already talked about it?
A low whistle had her gazing over her shoulder to find Dalton leaning against the doorframe, looking deliciously sexy. He wore dark blue jeans and a gray button-down shirt which had the top two buttons undone, giving her tempting glimpses of his hard chest.
She knew how he looked beneath that shirt, and the temptation to release a few more buttons so she could touch him, coursed through her. Steff should be stunned at the direction her thoughts were going, but she wasn’t. It was a relief to have them. To know that her panic attack from a couple of nights ago hadn’t tempered her desire for Dalton. Not that she thought it would’ve, but the mind worked in mysterious ways, so she wasn’t sure if a mental block had been put in place when it came to intimacy and attraction to Dalton.
“You look beautiful Steff,” he husked, and a little shiver rippled down her spine.
“Thank you.” She twirled around. “I loved it the moment I put it on. And you look very handsome too.”
She closed the gap between them and placed her hands on him, the fabric of his shirt soft beneath her fingertips.
Letting herself feel instead of think, she went up on tiptoe and pressed her lips against his. This was the second time she’d initiated a kiss between them, and it was empowering. Dalton’s arms curved around her, bringing her tighter against him as he took over the kiss, teasing her to open for him. She did so willingly. Enjoying the freedom to lose herself in the moment.
Desire pooled low in her belly, and she pressed her hips against him, reveling in feeling his erection and knowing that he wanted her. That he hadn’t been turned off by her panic attack.
She moaned her disappointment when he pulled away.
“Believe me, I don’t want to stop, but if we don’t leave now, we won’t leave at all.”
Another shiver trickled down her spine, and Dalton’s eyes narrowed as though he saw the slight tremor.
“Fuck, I didn’t mean to scare you, hon.” He made a move to hug her, but stopped as though worried it would freak her out even more.
She grabbed his hands, holding them tightly. “Dalton, you didn’t. It wasn’t fear that caused that reaction. It was desire.” Her cheeks heated after her confession, but she wasn’t ashamed of it. He always talked about being honest with her, so she needed to be the same with him.
“Steff.” Her name a tortured whisper, and he brought her hands up so that they were resting against his chest. A place she loved being. “You’re killing me here.”
“You look pretty alive to me,” she sassed as she raked her gaze up and down his body, lingering a moment on his hard length visible beneath the denim.
“Keep looking at me that way, and everyone in the restaurant will know that I can’t get enough of my sexy girlfriend.”
Girlfriend.
They hadn’t given each other labels, and she turned the word over in her mind. “Girlfriend, I like that.”
His lips curved upward, and her stomach flipped at how it made him look even more desirable. “Me too.”
“You know what that means, don’t you?” She played with the buttons of his shirt, again tempted to slip the plastic discs through the little holes.
“No, what does it mean?”
“It means that you’re my boyfriend.”
“Damn straight I am.” He kissed her hard, as if cementing the word to her lips permanently. She had no problems with that at all. It was over as quickly as it started, and when he pulled away, she was breathless all over again. “We need to leave now, because if we don’t, we never will.”
Steff didn’t have a problem with that, but she kept the words lodged deep. She didn’t know what was going to happen tonight when they got home, but she wanted it to progress further than it had a couple of nights ago.
