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I consider that for a moment and study her closely. Brice is right, if I want to make inroads with these rich people and their power brokers, I shouldn’t start out by challenging them on their own turf. I need to slowly slip my way into their ranks and once I’m already established and deeply enmeshed in their world, then I can start making waves, because by then it’ll be too late. I’m letting my hate for their kind blind me to the mission, but Brice somehow manages to keep me on track. An interesting observation I’ll have to remember for later.
The waitress comes over, explains the tasting menu, and I instruct her to send a bottle of their best wine to Maisie’s table. Brice frowns at me once the waitress leaves.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Good will gesture. I think you’re right, I shouldn’t be as aggressive as I usually am. This isn’t my world. You’re the one that knows it.”
Her eyebrows raise. “You mean you’re actually taking my advice?”
“Like I said, you know this world better than I do.”
“I’m honestly shocked.”
“I bet you are.”
“Carmine Scavo admitting he doesn’t know absolutely everything.” She puts a hand on her heart. “My god. I think I might’ve died and gone to—heaven, maybe hell, I’m not sure.”
“Definitelyhell, if I’m here, filthy girl.” I grin at her as the waitress drops off the bottle at Maisie’s table, says something to them, and points toward me. I nod and raise my glass to the couple, and they seem satisfied by the gesture, and I even get a little gesture in response from Maisie herself.
“Well played,” Brice says and crosses her legs. I glimpse thigh and feel a thrill run down my spine. “Maybe you’re not a lost cause.”
“I may be a feral beast most of the time, but I can be tamed if you work hard enough.”
“Unfortunately, I have no interest in working hard to tame you at all.”
“That’s probably for the best. I think you’d much prefer it if I remained as beastly as possible.”
Her cheeks turn pink, no doubt thinking about what abeastcan do to her if she’d only uncross those legs and spread them wide.
The meal comes and we spend the evening chatting about the society people she knows. I get a rundown of names, relationships, businesses, and start to see the inner workings of her blue-blood society. There are twisted, braided friendships and relationships and money suffusing everything, and the connections spread out in all directions to all levels of influence from politicians to cops to union leaders and more. She navigates the complexities of that reality with a seamless ease while I have to ask a thousand questions just to start to understand how each family connects with all the others.
At the end of dinner, I sit back, sip whiskey, and watch her eat a small, delicate chocolate cake. I admire her lips and her tongue, the pinkness in contrast to the deep brown of the dessert, and I think about those lips wrapping around me, those lips taking me, those lips kissing me and moaning my name. I don’t know how eating cake can look so fucking erotic, but Brice manages to pull it off. It’s the way she takes small bites and does it so carefully, so self-consciously, that there’s absolutely no mess at all: it’s constant perfection.
All I want to do is ruin that mouth of hers.
Take all that perfection and make it filthy.
I want to smear the chocolate all over her breasts and lick her clean—I bet that would drive her fucking insane. She’d hate and love every single of it in equal measure.
“Did you have a nice time?” I ask as we leave together. She’s a little unsteady from drinking several glasses of wine.
“Definenice,” she says, grinning. “I had an acceptable time. I didn’t want to kill myself anyway.”
“That’s a win.”
“I’ll admit something else.” She stops outside and turns to me, her hands on my chest, her eyes shining with a loose alcohol-inspired excitement, and my heart starts to hammer with a sudden and raw intensity. I want her close to me, I want her as close as I can have her, and suddenly the thin layers of clothing that separate our bodies are too fucking much. I want to tear the slit in her dress higher, rip it up over her belly, off her breasts, tear the damn thing in half. I want her quivering on the sidewalk, moaning my name.
“Go ahead, I want to hear it.”
“I almost had fun.” She grins a little. “Almost. You were actually listening to me a bit back there.”
“Like I said, you’re the expert in all this rich people bullshit.”
She sighs and bats her eyes. “That sounded something like a compliment, except you’re always so crude. You’ll have to tone it down, you know. Myrich people bullshithates that sort of talk.”
“I don’t think I can, filthy girl,” I say softly and put my hands on her hips. She shivers slightly under my fingers. “Fact is, you’re much too sanitized already. You have your nice, neat, clean little world, with all the nice, neat connections all mapped out in your head. But do you even know who’s fucking who?”
She looks away. “That’s not appropriate.”
