“Bite me.” She sipped her wine.
“You want round two?” I raised my eyebrow in question, a flash of lust prompting my cock to twitch yet again.
She put down her fork and reached for a bit of pizza. “Now, it makes sense. You brought me here to fuck me, knowing you could entrap me with food after so I’d have the energy to do it all again. I bet you weren’t really planning on dinner or cooking, were you?”
“Sweetheart, you’re lucky I like you as much as I do. Or we’d be at your house and I’d have already crept out.”
“You’re such a gentleman.”
I motioned to the spread of Italian food on the table in front of us. “Did I or did I not order seven different dishes from the restaurant because you couldn’t decide?”
She opened her mouth, paused, and sighed. “You did.”
“Right, so let’s summarize the evening: I made good on my promise to fuck you blind, fed you, wined you, and didn’t complain when you got sauce on my shirt.” I looked pointedly at the pocket. It didn’t help matters that she was braless and I could see her hardened nipple through the fabric.
She looked around, nibbling on the pizza. “That’s what happens when you let a three-year-old wear your clothes.”
I laughed, leaning back and swinging my feet up onto the chair between us. “A grown ass woman with the habit of eating like a three-year-old.”
“Got any cookies?” she asked, mouth full.
“You’re such a lady.”
She clapped her hand over her mouth and dropped the pizza. She did a strange half-laugh, half-choke, that wasn’t even remotely close to ladylike, but was highly amusing. I sipped my beer as she smacked herself in the chest and reached for her wine with her eyes watering.
She’d already dirtied one of my washcloths by removing her makeup. Both beige and black was smeared all over a white washcloth, and there was even a little on the towel she’d used to dry her face.
Except the lipstick. Somehow that godforsaken red lipstick was still perfectly in place, bar one tiny fleck on her lower lip. It had to have glue as a main fucking ingredient, because the way I kissed her earlier, I should have kissed it all off.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen her without that lipstick on. As much as I loved it, now I was looking at her without makeup on, I wanted to see her completely bare faced.
Her lashes were just as dark and long as they were with mascara, if a little less curled. Her skin wasn’t as flawless as the makeup made it look; a tiny mole hid on her hairline, and freckles dotted over her nose and upper cheeks, making her seem even more beautiful than she normally was.
What color were her lips under that war paint? Were they light pink? Rosy and dark? Somewhere in the middle?
Would they be just as tempting?
Would they feel just as soft against mine?
Why the fuck did I care?
I didn’t have a place caring. Shit, I didn’t have a place giving her my shirt so we could order food and talk. I had no damn place sitting opposite her at my fucking table in nothing but sweatpants while examining her clean face.
Had no fucking business thinking about anything but business.
I should have been thinking about one thing: how to use this newfound relationship to my advantage. To wrench that damn bar from her grip. I should have been thinking about how I could use this to manipulate her into getting what I wanted, but I wasn’t.
I was thinking she looked damn cute sucking up spaghetti and getting the sauce all over her. That she was fucking adorable sitting cross-legged at a table wearing nothing but a shirt because she’d informed me in no uncertain terms that she was not putting that dirty underwear back on.
I was thinking that I didn’t care much about the fact that dirty underwear had been cleaned in my bathroom sink and was now hanging off the shower door to dry.
And I also didn’t give much of a fuck that it probably meant she wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon…Like until tomorrow morning.
“How are you so messy when you eat? And why do you not get this messy in public?” I darted my gaze over her face. There was now pizza sauce on the collar, she had some sauce up by her eye, and I’m pretty sure there was cheese in her hair.
“I eat very, very carefully when I’m in public,” Dahlia answered, noticing the cheese. She peered down and pinched it, pulling it out with her bright, red nails.
I stared at her, expressionless. It still didn’t answer my question. The last person I’d seen eat like that was my niece, and I hadn’t seen her for three years.
She sighed and grabbed her wine glass. “Look,” she said, focusing on me with those big, blue eyes, “I can’t be everything. I can’t be smart, rich, and a clean eater, too.”