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“This is really good,” I said to break the silence. I was talking about my food, but Dean made eye contact with me and smiled in a way that said he wasn’t talking about anything but me and the night we’d had.
“It was amazing,” he said.
18
DEAN
By the time we made it back to our hotel room, we were both tipsy from the wine. Pearl was in a rare and very enjoyably good mood around me. I kept finding myself smiling because I hadn’t had a conversation like that in a long time–maybe ever. Usually, the women I dated wanted to talk about the designers they wanted to wear or the exotic places they’d been or the people they knew. It was always a pissing contest.
Nobody ever stopped long enough to give a shit to ask about me or to be open when I asked about them. Talking with Pearl was refreshing as hell.
Pearl was holding my arm as we came in the room. We both laughed when the toe of her shoe caught on the metal partition beneath the door and she almost took a spill. I caught her and pulled her up, accidentally spinning her until her chest was pressing into me. One of my hands was interlaced with hers and the other was on the small of her back where I’d reached for her.
She felt good in my arms. Damn good. And not for the first time, it occurred to me that I didn’t like the idea of some other man holding her like this. Maybe what we had was supposed to be pretend, but I wanted to keep pretending, if only so I’d know I was the only one who got to hold her like this.
It didn’t help that I felt like I was getting to know her better, too. She might be a firecracker on the inside, but she was a bundled mess of nerves just beneath it. Knowing that made me want to be there for her down the line–to make sure she was taken care of. I sure as hell didn’t like the idea of her heading off to be with some other asshole who wouldn’t see her for what she was. He’d miss her value like the ones before apparently had. He wouldn’t treat her right, and the thought of it made me want to pull her closer and whisper that I wasn’t going to let her go, pretend or not.
Pearl ran her tongue across her lips, big eyes lifted to meet mine. “Are you planning to let me go, Dean?”
“I was actually enjoying holding on to you.”
“Nobody is watching.”
I thought she must’ve meant the words as a reminder. After all, we didn’t need to pretend to care for each other when we were alone. I pretended to interpret her words another way. “You’re right. It’s just us. That means nobody is here to call us on breaking our own rules. Just this once.”
“Is that all it would be?” she breathed the words, each syllable a hot little puff of air on the skin above my collarbone. “Just one time.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Pearl seemed to think this over for a long while. I held her there, feeling the soft but quick pace of her breathing from where my hand held her back–my fingertips just barely giving me a taste of the curve at the top of her ass like how I’d held her in the lobby before the restaurant. I wasn’t sure I’d ever wanted someone the way I wanted Pearl at that moment. I’d never needed someone. And I felt myself hanging onto the silence between us, desperate to hear some sort of invitation, because I wasn’t sure what I’d do if she turned me down.
“It can only be this one time,” she said carefully. She was breathing even harder now, so the temptingly soft flesh of her cleavage was drawing my eyes as it pulsed with each intake of air. “Just this one time. And we both have to agree not to… start feeling things for each other.”
I was far too desperate for jokes or caring about the circumstances. All I heard was “yes”. My cock throbbed between my legs, so ready to be inside her that it actually hurt.
“Just this once,” I agreed. “No feelings,” I added, even though I wasn’t certain I could hold up my end of the agreement on either count. Maybe that’s why I was the kind of asshole women never settled down with. It was exactly why I wasn’t the right person to take care of Pearl the way she deserved. But tonight, I only planned to borrow her. I’d give myself a tease of what being with her would be like and I’d avoid all the pitfalls of an actual relationship.
Just a taste.
With how serious she looked, I almost expected Pearl to lead me to the table in our room so we could draft up an iron-clad “no attachments” contract. So when she reached up and took my tie to tug me down to her mouth, it took me a moment to react.
