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“Eh, you’re not missing anything. I don’t think so, at least. But full-disclosure, I’m happy to be out of the city. I didn’t enjoy living here as much as I assumed I would when I was younger, and now that I’m gone, there’s not much I miss at all.”
Her small frown reversed course, turning up in a grin, and he breathed in relief.
“Can I tell you a secret? I don’t like it either. Everything is so expensive. Expensive andhardto do! Everything is so hard! Every time I have to go grocery shopping, I don’t know what I’m more afraid of — taking the bus and struggling with my bags through the crowd or walking and having one of them break. Standing and waiting for a train at night in the rain is . . . it’s demoralizing.”
“There is nothing worse than trying to flag down an adaptive cab in a surprise thunderstorm,” he agreed, chuckling. “It’s hard enough to find them on a sunny afternoon. At night in the rain? Forget about it.”
She laughed, a musical, self-deprecating burst of color. Her laughter made the flame on the small tea light at the center of the table bounce and waver, and he was certain the candle couldn’t produce even a tiny fraction of her glowing warmth.
“Sometimes I feel so small and invisible here . . . I thought it was going to be so glamorous when I came here for grad school, but I was imagining someone else’s bank account, I guess.” He watched her sigh; her eyes turned down again as she shrugged.You’re not invisible to me. “But that’s just between us. Don’t ever tell my mom that.”
“Cross my heart,” he murmured. He was going to spoil her rotten. He couldn’t think of anyone more deserving than this sunny, sweet young woman with her perfect hands and chirping voice. She was here all alone with no support system and a dubious paycheck, buthecould make sure she was well taken care of. The mere thought made him giddy, and his cock twitched in his pants.Grocery shopping isn’t the only thing that’s hard.
They would eat in every single restaurant, café, and pub Cambric Creek had to boast, shop in every single boutique, go to every single exhibit and gallery and performance. And then, for good measure, he would take her back to Bridgeton and do it all over again, just so that she didn’t feel as though she had missed out on her experience in the big city.
“I eat out far too often, I’ll warn you now. Wait, maybe that’s not true. Does it count as eating out if I get takeout? Iamtechnically at my own table, so that feels like I should get a pass.”
“It absolutely does count,” she giggled, her eyes sparkling. “If you’re not struggling through an online recipe that’s ten paragraphs of random backstory and two sentences of instructions, I don’t think you get an eating at-home credit.”
He shook his head, tsking. “I’m not so sure about that. I want to run this past a higher authority. And you don’t need to worry about my sweet tooth. I happen to know this place makes an excellent cassata cake with fresh strawberries. I am more than happy with the menu options. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably take a piece to go, eat it tomorrow at home. Then I can tell my neighbor I baked.”
She was still laughing when their server came to the table, a human, unsurprising considering humans vastly outnumbered all other species in Bridgeton. A quick, dubious look between the two of them, the man’s face remaining impassive, but Rourke hadn’t missed it.
“So, you know this area pretty well? Did you live very close by? When you lived in the city, I mean.”
Here we go. “I did. At least, not far from here. I was over on West Bower, facing the park.”
Her eyes widened again, a deer-in-the-headlights look, freezing her for a moment. “Oh, I, um . . . I think I know what you’re talking about. Those row houses?”
Rourke nodded, watching her throat bob as she swallowed hard. Now that he knew the area she lived in, he had an idea of the sort of building she called home. This was a nice enough corner of the city, he supposed. Safe, if one kept their wits about them, within walking distance of decent restaurants, which was apparently the only thing he ever cared about when leaving his house, he realized with a huff. Her building was likely full of students from the nearby university or former students, or else retirees with the benefit of rent control. She was about four blocks north of what was considered a worse neighborhood and six blocks shy of the affluent little pie wedge he had called home.She’s probably doing the math in her head on what rent looks like three blocks further in, let alone on the park.
“Townhouses, yes. My ex-wife kept it in the divorce, and my business is in Cambric Creek, so I haven’t had much need to be back in the city since I left.” There was no point in tiptoeing around it, he decided. She was going to ask, and being evasive wouldn’t get him anywhere. “Until now,” he added quickly, lifting his eyes from his wine glass, meeting her smile with one of his own.
“What happened?”
The words came out of her in a rush, and Rourke watched as her lip trapped between her teeth again, eyebrows raising as if she were shocked with herself. He chuckled, knowing well the feeling of words tumbling out before he could properly vet them.
“It wasn’t any one big thing,” he answered truthfully. “No one cheated or anything like that. It was just . . . one of those things. We wanted different things, and we grew apart. She wanted to travel, and I had just started putting together my business. I was always working, and all her friends were single. We were living different lives. We were strangers who happened to live together by the end.”
He watched her nodding slowly and swallowed down the bubble of regret that clogged his windpipe whenever he was forced to reflect on his failed marriage. “In any case, I was far too boring for her.”
“Well, I have great news for you because I’m the most boring person I know.”
The human couple in the corner turned at the sound of his laughter, but he could not help the way it poured out of him. Her cheeks pinkened adorably, and her smile was nothing if not a promise. Her hand had just left her glass, right there within easy reach, and Rourke could not help himself. He hooked her pinky, sliding the pad of his thumb against her palm once more.That’s also a promise.
“You don’t bore me. Not in the slightest.”You don’t bore me at all. You make my cock hard. I want to put you in the middle of this table and eat you out in front of everyone else here, and then I want to hear about the place you grew up. He wanted to take things slow, hedid. . . but he wanted to take things slow and lick her pussy until his face was a mess and the dessert had arrived. Surely there was room for both at the table of slowness?Variety is the spice of life; why should we restrict ourselves to rice cakes?
He felt as though he were being led on a leash as he walked her to her door that night, the dictator in his well-cut trousers pulling him along, nudging him closer to her door. She was going to invite him up; he could tell. The shape of it rested there on her lips, just waiting to be breathed to life, and it would be too easy to accept.
He could follow her upstairs, accept the glass of cheap wine she might offer, and then fuck her on her kitchen table, legs in the air as he stood between her thighs. Or else, put her on her knees in the center of her bed, her face against the mattress, dark curls spilling across the sheets as he mounted her like the bull he was, letting his fat testicles slap into her clit on every thrust.No! We’re taking it slow!The little bull on his shoulder was snapping his hips, fucking thin air, and he growled, shaking the terrible influence away.
It had been a nice night, and he enjoyed her company. He wanted more of it, wanted to learn more about her degree specialty and what kind of job it was she was seeking, wanted to learn her sense of humor and whether or not she would be willing to order half of the sample spoons at the scoop truck for him.
He wanted to know what she tasted like coming against his tongue, wanted to learn how breathy her voice would be when he pumped into her. He wanted to wake up beside her and see her bedhead and kiss her morning breath, but there would be time for that. They already had an exaggerated sense of intimacy with no backbone, no foundation, and he wouldn’t light a match into the smolder they already shared, only to watch it flame out in short order.You are taking things slow this time, getting to know her first.
His suppositions about where she lived were proven correct when they arrived at her doorstep, andthenRourke was resolute. He wasn’t just older than her; he was in a vastly different place in his life. That didn’t mean they were incompatible, but itdidmean he needed to be very conscious of how he proceeded from here.
He’d worked a corporate job, started his own business, and bought his own home. He had been married and divorced and unlucky at being single, but she had barely begun to find her actual place in the world.She would probably be further along on her life path if the job market hadn’t shit the bed in every sector.She was old enough to enter into this relationship with open eyes, though, and he’d not infantilize her.You’re going to spoil her rotten, but she needs to call the shots.
