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“That is… not what I’m used to,” Shoshana said, playing with her fork. “With regards to the congregation I mean. I don’t think I can wrap my brain around always being available. How do you recharge?”
“I find ways,” he said, taking another bite of his food. After a moment, he swallowed. “Burnout is a real thing. And burnout happens. So, I make it a point to be as present as possible with people. If my phone isn’t ringing, I can’t be focused on where else I might be needed. Does that make sense? I can’t do my job if I resent it, you know?”
“How much therapy have you had,” Shoshana said, half joking. But the way he laughed told her he took her question seriously.
“More than you might think.” David gestured to her plate with his fork, she’d barely made a dent in her meal. “Before we walked in here you were starving, you just going to leave that there?”
She felt her lips pulling into a steady smile. There was something about his eyes, she couldn’t look at him without feeling wholly seen. It was a heady feeling, and she could happily develop an addiction to it. “Would you believe I was distracted by the conversation?”
“I’m flattered,” he said, using his fork to spear the final curl of crepe and steak and pickle on his plate. He swirled it expertly in the sauce and lifted it to his lips, finishing with the barest hint of a flourish.
“Don’t be, it's a symptom of my inability to multitask,” she said, winking at him as she reached for her water glass. He laughed outright. The laugh was low and bold, and she couldn’t help the shiver. If he caught it, he gave no indication, only slid his chair around the table so that he was sitting closer to her.
“Shoshana,” he said, and he was saying her name that way again. That way that made it sound like her name was a sigh, something he said all the time. Her name was familiar in his mouth. It fit there.
“David. You’re joking,” she said. He smirked, reaching for the fork resting against her plate. Now she was the one laughing.
“No, I’m not,” he said, his tone completely serious, “You need to eat.”
“Why? Am I going to be exerting myself?” She blushed as soon as she said it, shocked at her own boldness. It was okay though, because he was laughing with her and she found herself transfixed by that mouth again.
“If I dangled sexual favors as a means of bribery would you eat your dinner?” He used the fork to break off a piece of the crepe and spear one of the blackberries. He dipped the whole mess in the whipped topping.
“Depends. What sexual favors are we talking about here? Be specific,” she said, resting her chin on her hand. “Do I get to make suggestions?”
“Take a bite and I’ll let you. One bite, one suggestion. That’s the rule,” he said, lifting the fork. She bent closer to it. Her eyes caught by the teasing intensity in his eyes.
“You like rules?” Shoshana said. The fork was so close to her mouth she could smell the berry.
“My job is about interpreting rules,” he pointed out. She smirked in a way that could have meanttouchéjust before she closed her mouth over the forkful of her dinner. Somehow the fork was making its way back to her plate. He was loading it again. But there was more color in his cheeks now, she was sure of it. The crepes were amazing, she had to admit that.
She swallowed the bite she’d taken, rested her chin on her hand, knowing that putting her elbow on the table was incredibly rude but unable to stop herself. She just wanted to look at him. “Do I get to offer suggestions as we go, bite for bite, so to speak, or are you going to keep a count and let me rattle them off at the end of the meal?”
“That first one, I think,” he said. His free hand had fallen under the table, his fingers brushed her knee, and she felt desire start to pulse inside her. “It’s only fair.”
“Fair is definitely important,” she said conversationally, though she was very much aware of the featherlight touch of his fingers. “The first night we met, before you texted me, I was touching myself.”
The fork clattered against the china plate.
He recovered quickly, spearing a strawberry and lifting it again as though nothing had happened, and he simply let the cutlery slip from his fingers. He made a sound that was almost, but not quite, a cough. He covered it by shoveling a bite of her crepe and a large strawberry in his mouth. It took him a moment to chew and swallow.
“Really?” he coughed once, then reached for her water. She let him.
“Really. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to have you in my mouth,” she said. His hand hadn’t stopped its caress on her knee. If anything, it was more tantalizing now, rather than less. Interesting, because most men would have just settled that hand on her knee and started the slow creep up her thigh after a pronouncement like that, wouldn’t they?
“Is that your first suggestion?” he said, and his voice was almost brittle. He was focusing very hard on loading the fork with another piece of crepe, methodically loading it with fruit and swirling the whole lot in the whipped cream.
“Yes, I think it is,” she said, reaching for his hand. Her fingers closed over his wrist and she very deliberately brought the fork back to her mouth, her lips closing over the ripe flesh of the strawberry. He visibly swallowed. Eyes flicking back to the plate. She didn’t protest when he helped himself to another bite. He met her eyes.
“Next?”
* * *
“Next,” she said, her eyes catching his in the low light from the very trendy Edison bulbs overhead, making him think of phrases likebedroom eyes, “I want you to kiss me, really kiss me. With tongues.”
“Just kiss you?” He asked the question as though he were disappointed, but he was far from it. The idea of kissing Shoshana Goldman had been taking up too much space in his mind already. He needed to do something about it soon or he’d embarrass himself. He used the fork to scoop some more food from her plate.
“Same suggestion?”
