Opening my own door before Louis could get around and do it for me, I stepped out into the night. It was starting to get chilly out, but we were still in the swing of summer, so I could get away with the short sleeved dress I’d worn today.
“A restaurant?” I asked Louis with a raised brow, though restaurant might have been stretching things a bit. Inside there were a total of three tables and a bar that wrapped around three of the four walls in the place.
Louis said nothing, just pointed towards one of the tables tucked away in the back. There was just enough light for me to see that a tall, dark, and dangerously sexy man was sitting there.
I sighed. Ethan. “Will you be joining us tonight or do you prefer your peeping Tom status?” I asked Louis.
He dutifully ignored me, but escorted me to the table and even pulled out my chair for me. Louis, like Ethan, was the oddest mixture of gentleman and asshole I’d ever encountered. I even found myself saying thank you to Louis when he tucked me into the table.
I thought I saw a twitch of a grin on his mouth, but it was gone as quickly as he was. “What? He doesn’t eat?” I asked Ethan when Louis had done his disappearing act.
Ethan shrugged. “Mexican isn’t really his thing.”
“What if it’s not mine?”
“Then you’re going to have a long night of watching me eat,” he answered easily.
I rolled my eyes and reached for a menu, but Ethan snatched it quickly from my grasp. “Hey!”
He waved me off. “I’ll do the ordering and you’ll eat whatever I get for you.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I sat back in my chair and waited. What a jerk.
When the waitress came by—wearing a skirt so short that I saw the underside of her rear and a shirt so tiny, her breasts looked ready to make their escape any moment—he ended up ordering in Spanish and sending her off with a swat to her ass.
“Really?” I asked indignantly.
“I’ve known Maria for a long time. She’s very supple.”
I let out a disgusted groan. “Is there a woman you haven’t slept with in this town?”
He pretended to think about it. “There are probably a few. I’m not into grandmas.” He grinned broadly at me and let his eyes drop to my chest where my cleavage was pushed together by my crossed arms. “Just milfs.”
I tried to be offended, but instead my body flushed and my heart skipped a beat. There was always a carnal look in Ethan’s eyes when he stared at me. Like seeing me made him hungry. It should have been off-putting at the very least, but instead I found my body reacting to it every time we were in the same room together.
Trying to ignore my body’s reaction, which he had to have been trying to invoke in me deliberately, I cleared my throat. “So dinner. That’s new. You’ve never been the wine and dine type before.”
He fell silent then and I watched as his expression became thoughtful and just a little sad. Like he was remembering something from a while ago, a memory that was bittersweet. He was like that sometimes, usually during our bantering portions of the payment schedule. He’d never told me why and I’d never asked, because I told myself I wasn’t interested in the little details about him.
But I found that more often now, I wondered.
“I usually think it’s a waste of time,” he said finally. “Everyone’s just in it for the sex anyway. Why not just skip to the entertainment portion of the evening?”
I laughed a little. “Wow, cynical much?”
He raised a single dark brow at me. “You’re the one here to make a payment,” he pointed out.
I pursed my lips together and looked away from him before I saw him do something annoying like smirk at me. He was right, of course. I was here to do the dirty with him and be done for the night. But that didn’t mean it was what I wanted.
Right?
I don’t even know anymore.
Before we could get into more details, the food came. It was hot and spicy and smelled like the south of the border that came with long vacations and fun in the sun. Although I wanted to hate the food just to spite him, he’d chosen dishes well. There were tortillas and some sort of meat smothered in spicy red chili. The sides were seasoned rice, salsas, guacamole, and a few other things I didn’t recognize, but tried anyway.
For a while, we were blissfully silent as we both ate. But as we slowed, I was surprised when he asked about my day.
“Business good?”
I looked at him over a drink of water. “Yeah, it’s been good. Really good, actually,” I admitted after a moment. I wondered what his angle was, because there was always an angle, but I didn’t push it. “I’ve had a bunch of new customers, mostly from out of town, just stopping in to—”