I cleared my throat. ‘Want to grab a drink somewhere?’ I tried to sound casual, but to my ears I’d just asked him back to my place to shag his brains out.
The sun disappeared behind a dark bank of clouds. I tried not to read too much into it. We stopped at a red light. He removed his sunglasses and hooked them into his breast pocket.
‘Or we could do something else.’ His voice was low.
I swallowed. Was he thinking about my skin idea? Even without the dark glasses I couldn’t read him.
He shoved the gear into first and we burned the other cars.Easy tiger, I wanted to say,I haven’t said yes yet.
Spoiler alert: I was definitely going to say yes.
‘What did you have in mind?’ I said.
‘You’ll have to trust me.’
My neck prickled. ‘Can you be more specific, please?’
‘I don’t want to scare you,’ he said, his voice low, ‘but how do you feel about doing something... public?’
Bloody perv. That’s it, I was going to jump out of the car at the next set of lights. He wasn’t the only one with hands. I had a couple of my own and a nice private bedroom.
‘You know what, Nick. I’m flattered and all, but you can find someone else to play with tonight.’
We’d been going at a steady 30 mph, but he suddenly swerved into a side road and braked to a stop. I had to brace myself against the dash to stop from flying forward.
He took off his seatbelt and leant his elbow on the central console. It meant his whole body was tipping towards me. He looked up at me through thick lashes. ‘You’ll wake up tomorrow a different woman.’
Oh my God, this was the corniest seduction routine I’d ever been subjected to. I was actually embarrassed for him.
‘Now hold on one minute, Nick—’
I didn’t get any further. He was smiling. Grinning, actually.
Oh.
There was a teensy possibility that I’d jumped to conclusions and that Nick had been playing me like the damn fiddle in ‘Come On Eileen’.
‘Karaoke. I’m going to take you to a karaoke bar,’ he smiled again. ‘What did you think I meant?’ He was really enjoying this.
‘You know exactly what I was thinking,’ I told him, but my indignation had dissolved. ‘And you did it on purpose.’
His eyes went wide with fake innocence. ‘I have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.’ He flicked his gaze to the back seat then slowly back to me. His eyes were far from innocent.
Oh my.
My breath quickened. This was bad.
Or he was having me on again.
‘Come on, then,’ I said, playing it safe. ‘Where’s this karaoke bar of yours?’
*
The answer to that question was a basement near Victoria. A well-lit basement, I was pleased to note. It had padded walls, but in a cosy way, not Hollywood-mental-hospital style. The only problem was that everything was in Japanese.
‘A bit of help with this menu, Nick? I’m sure you can read Japanese.’
‘Tell me what you want and I’ll order it.’
