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It takes me a full five seconds to even piece together what she’s asking me.
But when I do?
Holy shit. Is Mandy jealous?
Denial clamps around my throat so swiftly, I feel like I’m speaking through a straw. I lunge toward Mandy, flattening her to the seat and grinding our foreheads together. “Don’t you dare ask me about other women. Ever again. Is that understood?”
The fire remains in her eyes. If possible, it spreads. “Why not?” she demands.
I catch her face in my hands. “I wasn’t even breathing until you found me. Allowing meaningless encounters to take up air, take up any space between you and me? That does us a disservice. I won’t have you jealous. I won’t have a single doubt in your head that I’ve been waiting for you to let my heart start beating. No doubts, Mandy. None.”
Her eyes have softened slightly. “Then answer the question,” she whispers.
“I know about the church orchestra because on opening night, they went over the legal seating capacity and my house was called to shut it down. That’s how I know.” I slide my hand down to her throat and wrap it in a hold, loving the way her pupils dilate in excitement. “There was nothing before you but an endless desert. You brought the rain. You brought everything.” I squeeze her, capturing her gasp against my palm. “Don’t forget that ever again.”
“I won’t,” she says, wetting her lips. “I promise.”
“Good girl,” I murmur against her mouth, my thumb stroking the notch in her throat. “Gorgeous girl.”
“Maybe…” She swallows, her eyelids fluttering closed. “Maybe you should take me home and we could go to the church another time.”
Triumph sizzles in my blood.
I’m a bad man. A very bad man.
I’ve already admitted that to myself. But I ascend to another level of evil when I shake my head no, seizing the opportunity to get what I want—Mandy living back in my house. Eating my food, wearing the clothes I bought her, smiling only for me. “You were promised a date,” I say, slipping my tongue into her mouth ever so slightly and watching her squirm on the seat, eager for a full kiss that I barely resist giving her. “That’s all you’re getting tonight. I want to do this right. Treat you right.”
Stepping back, closing the door—and locking it—is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But the reward for my agony is going to be so sweet, I can take a night of suffering.
Mandy
I sit on Bobby’s lap in the rear pew of the church, my throat permanently constricted due to the magic surrounding me. It’s dark in the church, except for a multitude of candles. There is a pianist, several violists, a cello and a harp playing together in perfect harmony and I’m quite simply overcome by the beauty of it all. When I said I loved safe adventures, this is exactly what I meant and Bobby has given it to me.
Now, I look up at him and my heart jostles sideways, squeezing. He’s not watching the orchestra, he’s staring down at me, stroking his thumb along my cheekbone, brushing his fingers down the back of my hair. Somehow, he’s even more handsome and mysterious looking in this light, a shadow darkening half of his face, candlelight making the blue of his left eye even more piercing than usual.
“I love this,” I whisper. “It’s perfect.”
“I love you,” he says, dipping his head to kiss my neck. “You’re perfect.”
His praise, combined with the romantic setting, is making my heart spin. My breast feels tight with emotion. “This can’t be the kind of music you listen to on a regular basis,” I say, hoping a conversation will stop me from swooning clear onto the floor.
“Not even close,” he says, grinning around my jaw. “I like the kind with words.”
“Like what?”
“A little country, a little rap. Depends on the mood I’m in.” He tickles my ribs. “Barry Manilow has a song called ‘Mandy.’ Been listening to that one a lot, lately.”
“No, you haven’t,” I giggle.
Slowly, he grows serious. “I think I might be downloading some classical after tonight. Just so I can remember you like this.”
“Like what?” I whisper.
“Happy. I love you happy.” His hand slides up beneath my dress to caress my hip, playing with the thin waistband of my panties. “What else makes you smile, gorgeous?”
“Mmm.” As usual, his touch is distracting me. Being as close to him as possible is like a compulsion I can’t shake. But I can’t straddle this man in a church full of people—even if we are the only members of the audience sitting in the back row. That would be grounds for being arrested, wouldn’t it? At the very least, we would get kicked out.
Why do I want to straddle him anyway?
Did his firm refusal to take me home for sex make me want it more?
