I pull away slowly, but I feel like I’ve been scalded.Holy hell. He’s so warm. And strong. And big.I’m not sure what he’s suggesting. “Most likely Iwillhave to wear them again,” I remind him. “Tomorrow.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.”
I don’t know what he’s trying to do here, but I know for a fact I’m not going to be able to resist this man and it’s an addictive, out-of-control rush.
“Trust me, you won’t want your job after the day we’re about to have.”
“The day we’re about to have,” I repeat, a little sassily and still breathlessly, because this is crazy. Idon’ttrust him. Ofcourse I don’t. And how dare he detonate a bomb in the middle of my pitiful livelihood? I should refuse whatever it is he’s offering. But he’s just so unbelievably sexy, it’s messing with my equilibrium. Something about the absurd degree of it doesn’t seem fair. “And what day are we about to have?”
“A helicopter is waiting. Have you ever seen New Orleans from the air, Amelie Thibodeaux?”
“Um. No, Dallas Wilder, I have not.” I don’t know why we’re using each other’s full names. Maybe we’re challenging each other. I can practically see the sparks zapping between us.
“Now’s your chance.” As if the tall, dark and mysterious wasn’t bad enough, the playful edge behind it that I get the wildest sense is for me and me only makes me feel unnervingly like putty in this man’s hands. And I know for a fact I don’t want to be putty inanyone’shands.
Except maybe his. They’re freaking big. Sun-tanned and inked. They are without a doubt the most appealing man-hands I have ever seen.
My craving to have themon meswoops in from left field like a herd of stampeding mustangs, wild and uncontrollable.
I’ve already made my decision, but I’m about to cross a rubicon, that’s how it feels. Because once I’ve taken that first step, my life will never be the same, I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Damn it all to hell.Dallas’s slow smirk has become my new Kryptonite, go figure. He’s turning my insides into primordial ooze … of warmth and wetness and a lush, voracious longing.
That cocky dark-eyed sneer is going to be my downfall, I can feel it.
“After the helicopter ride, we’ll get lunch at Maison Rêve. I hear it’s good.”
“It is good.” My dad used to take me to Maison Rêve on my birthdays when I was little. When the budget still allowed for indulgences like that. And when he still remembered my birthdays. It was a long time ago now. “At least it used to be.”
“Then we could do a dinner cruise on a Mississippi riverboat. Have you ever been on the Creole Queen? We can do something else if you’ve done it a thousand times.”
“No. I’ve never been on a river cruise.”
“Well, then, it’s a date, Amelie Thibodeaux. I want you to show me your city.”
If there are a lot of red flags here, I might as well be a feral bull. My decision was mostly locked into place, but that last line seals the deal. Not the helicopter, even though I’ve always wondered what it would be like to fly. Not Maison Rêve, which makes my heart beat in a complicated rhythm because it kicks up both good memories and veryun-good memories. Not the four temp workers Dallas Wilder hired with the casual logistical thoroughness of a man who solves problems for sport. Not even the hot stranger who can make me come in my dreams. It’s theI want you to show me your city. Like what he’s interested in, more than anything, is the way I see things.
We click, and I have no vocabulary for how or why. I know almost nothing about him except that right now his dark gaze is feeding the new craving he lit last night and fanned into flames in my dreams.
I know he’s dangerous, mainly because I’m pretty sure I’llgive him anything he wants. I’m also pretty sure I know exactly what hedoeswant.
And it’s the same thing I want. To continue the dream where we left off.
This isn’t going to be a slow burn. I’m an Aries, for God’s sake. I can do abstinence when there’s nothing around that appeals to me, but when something does, I have no control over myself.
Equal footing, he called it. Then why do I feel like my hard-won, well-informed modern feminism and my staunch, icy forcefield have melted into puddles at his feet?
Then again, fuck it. Who says you can’t be divinely feminine and a sexy throw-all-caution-to-the-wind hellcat all at once? Maybe—just maybe—they’re actually two sides of the same coin.
I wouldn’t know. All I can hope for is that he doesn’t break me even more than I’m already broken. I don’t think I’m capable of bouncing back twice.
He offers me his arm.
After the briefest hesitation … I take it.
At least this time, the fall will feel sweeter and more …climacticthan anything ever has.
15
