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Chapter Five
- Gabriel -
An average man whowas fucked.
Who the fuck was this guy? It wasn’t that I didn’t mean every word I said, I did. But I had to stay focused. I needed that trust; I needed her towantto talk to me. I needed information I could use against her brother.
Fuck. Why couldn’t she be the shallow, bitchy type? Why couldn’t she be dull and lifeless, or nasty and spoiled?
I knew how to treat a mean girl.
I had no idea how to handle a good girl like Suzanne St. Valentine.
With the exception of my mother, my sister and her best friend Noemi, I had never been this interested in what a woman had to say. When Suzanne laughed, I wanted to hear her laugh more. When she smiled, I hated it when she stopped. When she talked, I embarrassed myself by wanting to know more, all while I had trouble focusing on her words when my entire body was focused on everything else about her.
I told myself to go slow. It’s what she needed to feel comfortable while I needed time to build the facade of a relationship, even if she had no idea the man in front of her was a phony. I couldn’t tell her who I really was, but I could be the man I’d become in her presence. At least, I didn’t have to fake my response to her, a beautiful, sadistic torture that left me spinning, trying to get even one foot grounded. I dropped the heavy conversation and focused on mundane topics like favorite movies and ideal vacation spots. Sticking to neutral topics was more about my sanity than it was a genuine interest in such minute details.
Discussing which movies did not actually earn their accolades kept my brain occupied through dinner. I had to look away every time I glimpsed her mouth closing around a forkful of risotto. I went through a bottle of wine pretending I didn’t notice how her cleavage was revealed when she leaned forward to argue about whether Pacino or DeNiro was the greater actor. My money was on Al, but she argued viciously for Bob.
When dessert came, I felt a sense of relief that my agony would soon be over.
But when she licked the sticky toffee pudding off the end of her spoon, my entire body felt it. The hair on the back of my neck tingled, and my stomach tightened as if I had the right to expect more, as if I had any rights at all where she was concerned. My body insisted that I did, that I owned pieces of her already. She already belonged to me – every inch of my body wanted to own her, like I was reclaiming a connection lost in another lifetime...
And I couldn’t take my eyes off that damn spoon. I couldn’t possibly be jealous of a piece of silverware. I had more class than that.
But I was.
Inscrutably, insanely jealous.
I wanted to trade places with the shiny silver bowl of the spoon as the tip of her tongue dipped into its recess, claiming the stickiness of the syrupy sweetness and making it hers as her eyes closed with the pleasure of devouring such a decadent treat.
I averted my gaze so she wouldn’t see my lustful thoughts. They had to be as plainly revealed in my eyes as they were in the way my body responded to her beneath the concealment of a restaurant table.
She was nearing the end of her dessert, which meant soon, I’d have to pay the bill and stand up in such an embarrassing condition. This shit hadn’t happened to me since I was a teenager.
“That was really good.” With a dreamy smile on her face, she set the spoon down. “If I weren’t afraid of embarrassing myself on a first date, I’d order a second one.”
Oh, fuck no. If I had to watch her eat another bite, I’d have to excuse myself from the table and take care of matters in the men’s room of one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Suzanne St. Valentine was nothing more than a pawn, someone I could get close to for information. And right now, none of that mattered because after an hour in her company, watching her soulful brown eyes light up with laughter as the prettiest smile any woman had ever worn covered her face, I wasn’t thinking about business or the reason I’d ever brought this woman into my life to begin with.
All I could think about was how much I wanted to fuck her before this was all done.
I hadn’t expected that from this girl.
She was the wrong one. The wrong type.
It shouldn’t have been her that sent my heart rate into overdrive.
It shouldn’t have been anybody... but definitely nother. Yet here I was again. Completely entranced by her. Watching her eat like I was a starving man waiting for his share, but it wasn’t the food I wanted.
Suzanne’s soft voice interrupted my carnal musings.Fuck, she got to me.
“This was wonderful. Thank you for dinner.”
I cleared my throat. “You’re welcome.”
She looked around the restaurant, admiring its elegant interior. Sleek tables. Dimly lit sconces. It had all the bells and whistles of an intimate setting. She leaned across the table, and I again had to fight off the allure of her scent.
