“The food? You’ll love it,” he says. “It’s sublime.”
“Being treated like a king,” I correct, with a nod toward his plate, already heaped with the first course—the chef’s selection based on John’s tastes and preferences. Which, of course, they already know.
There’s a long pause, during which I flash a glance at him, wondering if I’ve struck a nerve.
But far from looking annoyed, John only seems pensive. Then he chuckles under his breath. “You know, I’m so used to being treated like this, I forget…”
I arch an eyebrow. “What, you think everybody gets this kind of treatment wherever they go?”
He shakes his head. “I just forget it’s not common, that’s all.”
“Believe me, I have never had anyone fuss over me this much,” I respond with a laugh.
But that makes his face shift into a more serious expression. “Well then, I’ll have to change that, won’t I?” he says softly. At the same time, his hand slides over to me, concealed beneath the long tablecloth. His palm comes to rest over my knee, squeezing gently, just hard enough to send a spark through my veins.
It’s enough to make me jump, that sudden contact, the unexpected touch. When I do, I’m still holding my cocktail in hand, the one I’ve yet to take a sip of, so it’s filled nearly to the brim. It splashes out across the tablecloth and my lap, making me gasp.
But John just grins, unrepentant, as I pat myself dry. “Yes. We’re definitely going to need to get you accustomed to being spoiled.”
My cheeks flush with heat again, and I manage to flash him a glare. “If it winds up with me spilling half my drinks in my lap, then I’d rather not, thanks,” I reply.
He only laughs and lifts his own glass in a toast.
When I do manage to actually try a sip of the cocktail rather than throwing it across myself, it’s delicious. Light and fruity, with just a hint of alcohol… That’s the kind of thing that could prove dangerous. Not like those shots we were doing in Vegas where you feel every burning sip of the booze. No. This is a sleeper drink, the kind where you don’t even notice you’re drinking it until suddenly you’re drunk.
I set it aside, resolved not to drink too much around John. Not again. God knows what would happen this time. We’d probably wind up buying a house, or with me getting pregnant.
My cheeks flush bright red at the thought. Why am I thinking about babies all of a sudden? I have got to stop this. I must be ovulating or something.
Still, the thought leads to thinking about how that baby would get made, which leads to yet more flashbacks to the last time he and I were completely naked together, in the most expensive hotel room I’ve ever seen, but far too focused on each other to even notice our surroundings…
I clear my throat, mostly to get those memories out of my head. When I glance up, I find John watching me closely.
“Why were you in Vegas last weekend?” he asks, and I swear it’s like this man can read my mind sometimes. I wonder if he learned how to do that in business school or if my face is too easy to read.
Or maybe he just gets me, adds a voice in my head. The way nobody else I’ve ever met has seemed to…
“Oh, I…” I shrug one shoulder. “It was on a dare. Lea wanted me to let loose, have some fun for once.”
He chuckles. “Ah, so I’ll have to thank her the next time I see her.” He flashes me his own left hand, and my eyes widen. Somehow, in all the time that’s passed since that weekend, I hadn’t really noticed his ring. But there it is, a band of gold with… is that a layer of green beneath?
I frown. There’s something familiar about that… Something that brings back a flash of fuzzy memory from the weekend, something I’d all but forgotten. A pawn shop, dingy lighting, but we were too drunkenly happy to care, laughing it all off. And… “Wait, did I give that to you?” I ask.
“Give is a rather nice word.” He laughs. “Don’t you remember how hard you struggled to force it onto my finger?”
I grimace. That doesn’t sound familiar, yet it sounds sadly believable, given the state I was in. “Sorry. Clearly I couldn’t afford actual gold.” I hold out a hand and he lets me take his hand, tracing my fingers over the metal. I glance up at him, my cheeks bright red again, for reasons I can’t quite put a name to now. “You don’t have to wear it, you know,” I say.
“I know,” he replies, those dark eyes fixed on mine, inscrutable, impossible to tear my gaze away from. “But I want to,” he says, so simply that it feels like a bolt to my chest, a spark of sheer desire that ignites me.