Dating and Other Dangers

‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked eventually. ‘You’ve gone very quiet.’

Well, she couldn’t talk when she was so busy inhaling all the cream. But now she was a little sugared up her fighting spirit revived. A divine dessert wasn’t going to soften her attitude. ‘I’m composing my write-up of this date for my blog.’

Something flickered on his face and he set down his cutlery and pushed his plate away.

‘What are you going to write about it?’ she asked, sweeter than her pastry. ‘I’m so looking forward to our next date where you “nail” me.’

‘I’m looking forward to that too,’ he answered, utterly unabashed.

‘My choice for the date, though, isn’t it? You wanted to go to the movies for the first.’

‘Okay, so what do you want to do?’ He conceded surprisingly quickly.

‘A day date, I think.’ Safe and out in the open, where lots of people would be around. She didn’t want to drop-kick him out of touch until the very last date, which meant she was going to have to play the first two just right.

‘A day date?’ Ethan sat back so the waiter could clear their plates.

‘Sunday afternoon suit you?’ Nadia asked. The sooner it was all over, the better.

‘Sure.’ He refilled their glasses. ‘I’m really looking forward to spending more time with you. You’re really good company.’

She suppressed a giggle at his not-quite-hidden sarcasm. Instead she lifted her glass and challenged him. ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to try to impress me.’

‘I guess it’s habit.’ He shrugged, but let loose that smile.

‘You always compliment?’

‘Always.’ He gazed intently at her. ‘And you don’t think that’s okay.’

‘It’s not necessarily a bad habit,’ she mused. ‘But it is if you don’t mean what you say.’

‘But I do mean it.’

‘Always?’ She put down her glass and frowned.

‘Sure.’

‘Really? Don’t you sometimes do it because you know it’ll make the other person feel good?’

‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘It is if it’s not honest.’

‘All right,’ he said softly, and leaned across the table. ‘You want honesty? Here’s some for you—I think you look fantastic in that dress. I think you look really fantastic. I don’t want you to. It would be a lot easier if I didn’t find you attractive, but honestly I think you look.’

‘What?’

‘It’s indescribable,’ he said roughly. ‘Maybe you should feel what you do to me? Can you handle that kind of honesty?’

His hand shot out and grabbed hers, and before she could blink he’d pressed her palm to his chest. Through the cotton she could feel the heat, the fast, rhythmic pounding. Suddenly she could hear it too, thudding in her ears. Her own blood was pumping in time with his. And that wasn’t her body’s only reaction. She breathed more quickly, shallow. And worst of all was the softening—that warm, melting sensation happening in secret deep inside her. The readying for full possession by a body so much bigger and harder than hers.

She stayed frozen for five seconds too long, until awareness of their surroundings slowly returned. She was stretched across a table in a fine French restaurant, gazing into this guy’s gorgeous cinnamon-brown eyes like as if was mesmerised. She was feeling this intense, intimate thing …

Then she remembered her rule.

Don’t be too sexual.

And this was all about the rules. She swallowed, battling to return to the right regime. But every movement was sexual. Everything about him was sexual. He was a complete magnet and he knew it. But she was going to disarm him—be the one piece he couldn’t pull.

‘Oh, you’re good,’ she said, forcing coolness into her voice, sliding her hand out from under his and bringing it back to press her fist hard against her belly beneath the table-edge. ‘You like to have the women want you, don’t you? Maybe that’s the real reason you compliment so much—it’s not their need you’re filling, it’s your own.’