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I’d picked the nicest restaurant I could think of in Redmond, exposed brick walls and soft romantic lighting, and requested a table in the back corner when we arrived.
Because it was a weeknight, it was fairly quiet, and we were able to sit next to each other in the booth they’d selected for us.
The conversation was easy while we got our drinks and perused the menu. We had similar tastes in music, and neither of us spent much time watching movies or TV.
She liked historical fiction or biographies if she read a book.
I liked war memoirs and the occasional mystery.
We both ordered steak—but she preferred a medium rare filet and I got the rib eye.
Her manners were impeccable, and I watched her cut her steak with a smile hovering over my lips.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she said evenly.
“I can’t help it. You’re so prim and proper. Makes me think about all the ways you’re not.”
Ivy sighed, like she was terribly put out. But her lips curled up when she placed another bite of steak in her mouth.
Ivy tilted her legs toward me underneath the table as she sipped on her wine. “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m sitting like this voluntarily.” Her nose wrinkled, then she gave me a sidelong look. “It’s your fault.”
I laughed quietly, setting down the glass of whiskey I’d ordered to study her more openly. “Yeah?”
“Please. You know exactly what that suit does for your upper body.” She sniffed, a haughty tilt to her chin that had me half hard already. “If you’re on the opposite side of the table, I can’t touch you inappropriately when the mood strikes.” She arched a brow. “Unacceptable date practice.”
My arm settled easily behind her back along the top of the booth, and she angled into my side even further. Much more of that, and she’d be on my lap.
“I’ll have to agree with you there, duchess,” I told her easily. With a quick glance around the restaurant to make sure no one was watching, I ducked in and teased her lips with my own. She softened immediately, opening her mouth to lightly touch her tongue to mine.
The wine was what I tasted first, and I forced myself to pull back, unwilling to make a scene at the restaurant.
We decided to order dessert to go, a slice of rich chocolate cake that we could share while she sat on my kitchen island, and I stood between her legs. We did most of our eating that way all week, and it was rapidly becoming my favorite way to have breakfast.
“Why do you still call me that?” she asked.
“Does it bother you?”
“No,” she said on a sigh. “Even when I pretended it did, it didn’t.”
I smiled. “You told me in the elevator that no one ever teased you. I probably liked knowing that a little too much.”
She hummed, taking the last sip of her wine. “I know, I could see it in your eyes every time you said that. I was convinced you were part sadist because you wanted me to haul off and slap you.”
With a laugh, I watched while she picked up my hand in her own, turned it and slid her fingers along the inside of mine.
“Everything in my life was so serious,” she said quietly. “Serious and scripted.” Ivy wasn’t holding my hand. She simply traced the lines in my palm, dragging her fingertips over the calluses there. “And I’m trying to figure out if this—you and me—feels like a rebellion, or an emancipation.”
It was natural that this date might edge us closer to a conversation we’d never planned on having, and Ivy avoided eye contact while she made those admissions she probably didn’t intend to make.
And I had a feeling that if it was her intention, she wasn’t looking for me to help her make up her mind.
“Doesn’t the first sometimes lead to the second?” I asked.
“I suppose it does.” Her eyes finally met mine.
The server left the bill on the table, and I shifted forward to pull my wallet out of my back pocket, tucking my credit card into the sleek leather portfolio.
“Thank you for dinner,” she told me. “It was delicious.” Then she eyed my face. “Company was passable, too.”
