I’m at the restaurant at 9 p.m. sharp and find Ian standing by the doors, hands in his pockets, a pitch-black suit the color of his hair hugging his body in all the right places. I remember the night Ian had dinner here on his own as he greets me by brushing his lips across my cheek in the briefest kiss.
As Ian leads me inside, I spot François, the maître d’ I texted not too long ago, and the tall, dark Frenchman’s eyes widen when he sees me.
“Miss Sara?” His gaze slides and rises to meet Ian’s gaze. “And Mr. Ian Ford.” He smiles to himself and waves us forward. As we head to our table, I discreetly turn around and shoot a warning glare at François. “Not a word of that,” I quietly hiss.
Ian frowns at me as a smiling François pulls out my chair.
“You two looked cozy.” Ian pulls his napkin open and stretches it over his lap.
I pull mine open too. “I was practicing my French.”
Our waiter appears, introduces himself as Jacques, and hands us our menus and describes the evening’s specials. Ian orders a bottle of wine from the sommelier, and we peruse the menu while we wait for it to arrive.
“What will you have?” Ian asks.
“I’ve never been here. I’ve made a thousand reservations but never actually come here.” I eye the place, marveling at the elegant setting.
“I’ve got you. Don’t worry.” He peers at his menu, and then he tells me something in French.
“Excuse me?
“Practicing French.” He raises one challenging brow.
I groan. “I texted him recently. I wanted your name. And a repeat. I didn’t want him to tell you that I’d been hunting you down.”
His eyes flare ever so slightly, and the fire inside them suddenly feels too hot for the room. The city. The whole earth.
Shifting forward as he digests my confession, Ian’s voice drops a decibel. “You wanted a repeat of your panties in a little wad in my pocket, or what happened after?”
“Both.”
He looks at me, daring me with those dark eyes. “Why don’t we start by you handing over your panties in a tight little wad right now?” He extends his hand.
I reach for my panties beneath my dress and ease them off. I reach out and take his hand, pushing them into his palm.
He takes them and sneaks a peek before sliding them into his suit pocket.
I’m biting my lip and flushing all over, laughing inwardly. “So it seems that casually dating also means recklessly flirting.”
“There’s nothing casual about anything relating to you, Sara.”
Our wine arrives. After Ian gives it his approval, the waiter pours me a glass. I smile and drink it, enjoying the evening. At Daniel. With the best wine. And the hottest man in the city.
“Watch the wine. I wouldn’t want you drunk before the first course.” He teases me after I’ve had two glasses.
“Of course not—you want me drunk by the last.”
He laughs and tuts flirtatiously, and I laugh too. A little too giddy.
“You were a gentleman that night,” I admit, then my eyes tease him. “Maybe in your own interests, too. I bet you’re so full of yourself, you don’t like doing a woman and having her forget. That wouldn’t do for your ego.”
“That’s right, Dancer. If I’ll be remembering and dedicating a few to that evening with you, the least you can do for me is remember and do the same.”
His smile is wolfish, and his stare penetrating, and I’m enjoying this far too much for it to be casual. Like Ian just said about me, there is nothing casual about this or my feelings for him. I try not to get too involved in the way he looks across the table. And the way his gaze stays focused on me.
“How are you liking your new home? Are you liking it better than the Four Seasons?” I ask him.
“I can’t say I do. No sexy concierge to lure to my bedroom.”
I smile again. How does this damn man do that?
“How was your friend’s business launch?” He sounds interested, sobering as he shifts forward in his seat.
“Phenomenal,” I say happily. “Orders exceeded our expectations and the service is spectacular. I ordered this little dress and what do you know. I found the box on my way into my apartment today.”
“Let’s have a look.”
“Like you didn’t look already.”
I blush but go ahead and stand and twirl; then I glance around to be sure I didn’t draw too much attention and sit back down. Ian smiles and takes my hand over the table. It’s so warm and large compared to mine that I feel as if he’s enveloped me whole.
“Did you purchase it thinking of putting it on, or me taking it off you?” His voice is husky now, intimate. Like the setting.
“A lady never tells her deepest musings.”
“Doesn’t she?” His thumb caresses mine as he smiles to himself, waiting for my reply.
“Who am I kidding? I’m no lady. I want you to take it off me tonight,” I admit in a sultry whisper. I lift his hand to my lips and kiss the knuckle of his thumb; then I lick it out of impulse.
I’m hungry. What can I say?
“Hands? Tongue? Teeth? How do you want me to take it off you?” He scrapes his thumb across my bottom lip, the caress causing my temperature to rise.
“All of them,” I admit.
He dips his thumb into my mouth again, extracting it when the waiter appears with our first course.
“Bon appétit,” says François, who accompanied him to the table. He leans close to Ian. “The lady has quite the eye for you.”
“François!” My fork clatters against my salad plate.
“I only say it, Miss Sara, because the gentleman has the eye for you. See, I know these things.” He winks.
I groan and shake my head. “Obviously that’s what we get for flirting so openly. People think this is serious.”
“That’s their problem. Not ours.” He eyes me. “I’m serious about that dress, though.”
“I enjoyed you tonight.”
“You’ll enjoy me even more in a bit,” I promise as we walk the streets of New York. It’s chilly, and I find myself pressing up against his side as he hails a cab.
“I got the sheets I promised. Pots and pans so you can make me some eggs in the morning,” he says in my ear as we walk to the curb.
“Right. You’ll be bringing me breakfast in bed.”
“It’s my bed. Little Sara.”
“That’s right and I’m the guest. That’s how guests should be treated.”
We both smile as he swings the back door of the cab open for me.
When we’re settled in the back, I run my fingers up his muscular thigh as we head to his townhome. “I want to fuck you upside down, sideways, and every way possible, Sara,” he says, turning my face to him.
I catch my breath and shift, stroking his erection as I tilt my head and press my breasts to the side of his chest. “Yes, please, and thank you,” I say in his ear.
He grabs my face to him and groans as he eases a hand between my thighs, surprising me by stroking one finger across my wet sex, reminding me that my panties are in his pocket. “I could do you right here, right now, kitten. But it’d be a shame for me not to remove this slinky little gold dress.”
We are both hot and frantic by the time he shuts the door of his townhouse behind him. He reaches for the back zipper of my dress, letting it fall in a pool of gold at my feet.
“Now let’s see what this pot of gold holds.” His rasp tickles my ear as he nibbles my earlobe and caresses my bare shoulders. He drags his hands down, down, down my bare arms, to scoop me up and carry me upstairs, where he tosses me onto his bed, where we fuck the living daylights out of each other.
Ian
I wake up with a sore back, a stiff neck, and a Cheshire Cat grin on my face. I shift and crack my neck to the side and discover the reason: Sara. She looks like a wet dream, lying on my mattress, spooning my side, her head under my arm, her dark hair over my bicep. I reach out with my
free hand and stroke a strand of silken hair, wrapping it around my index finger.
It’s been a long time since I slept with the warmth of a woman next to me. I remember when I was a teenager, eager to steal Cordelia into my bedroom and feel her warmth, her heat, her love.
I haven’t wanted her love in a long time. Anyone’s.
I’m not so sure now.
This girl is into me. I can see it. Feel it.
I’m addicted to it. I’m addicted to her.
How the hell did this happen?
Was I looking for her? Did I want to get entangled with another woman after Cordelia?
No. But now her scent fuels me. Now the numbness is gone and there’s only fire and hope.
Now there’s Sara. Where this is going, I cannot be sure. I’ve been a bad judge of character before. Too caught up in work to step back and take notice of what was going on in my own home. All I know is that this is what happiness feels like.
I just didn’t remember.
Didn’t remember waking up with more to life than another film, another script, another project. Waking up wanting to fuck life the way I want to fuck the woman lying next to me.
I groan and shift, adjusting my dick before getting out of bed.
I can’t get enough of her.
The way she flirts back, giving me fire for fire.
I’ve got her lying in bed and I can’t wait for more of her.
I step out and phone Jake to check up on the LA projects and his upcoming flight to New York.
Leaving a message, I head to the shower. I rub the back of my neck and relax my muscles, feeling the little she-cat’s claw marks on my back. I twist the knob and make the water cold, trying to cool down the hard-on I got by merely waking up next to her, sleeping naked and smelling like a goddess from above. I step out of the shower, wrap a towel around my hips, and head back into the bedroom. The sound of me shutting the bathroom door behind me stirs her, and her eyes flutter open.
Her breathing hitches as her gaze clears, her breaths becoming more rapid as we lock gazes.
I run my eyes along her lips, drinking in the way she smiles at me from my bed. That adorably innocent smile and those harmless honeyed eyes pack a punch. Fuck, it’s hard to breathe at all.
“Good morning,” I say.
She sits up and pulls the sheets around her. I run my eyes over her smiling lips again, addicted to the sight.
“Good morning.” Her voice is raw with sleep and confusion.
Hell, I’m just as raw and just as confused by all of this.
This is casual. I’m still married—not that it’ll be for long. But still.
“I’ll take care of breakfast.” I jerk my chin toward the hallway leading downstairs.
She nibbles her lip, her eyes gleaming in amusement. “Coffee, too?”
“Espresso.” I’m teasing her.
She winces and watches me dress in plain gray boxers, black slacks, and a crisp white shirt. I zip up, button up, and grab my phone from the nightstand.
“I don’t take—”
“Espresso. I remember.” I smile at her, and she comes out from under the sheets. I watch her eyes widen when she realizes she’s naked, and she quickly laughs and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you have a sweatshirt I could wear, or…”
“Help yourself to my closet. I’ll watch out for the coffee delivery. Meet you downstairs.”
I head to the kitchen and decide to show off my French toast abilities.
When she meets me there, I tell her, “Considering you’re into everything French, I’ll make you French toast.”
She smiles and peers into the fridge. “Good. I’ll show off my perfect hardboiled eggs for you, too.”
I chuckle and shake my head as we get everything cooking. We serve two plates and set them on the kitchen counter and have breakfast in silence with Sara’s leg draped around one of my thighs, my hand on her knee.
“You make a badass French toast,” she says. She takes a sip of coffee and pushes her empty plate aside as she boosts herself up on the counter. I stand and wedge myself between her legs, parting them to make room for me.
Our eyes lock, hold. “So you think you’d like to do this again?” I set my coffee aside.
She seems flustered, but typical Sara, she tries to hide it behind sass. “I might if you wash the dishes.”
I sass her back. “I have people coming in to do that.”
She laughs. I pry her coffee from her grip and set it aside, gentling my voice. “Answer me, Sara.”
She meets my gaze. “I had a great time last night,” she says softly.
“So did I.” I wrap my hands around her waist. She smiles and reaches out to set her hand on my arm, and my muscles tighten.
My entire frame tightens. Hell, I’m in an odd, bewildered state where I’ll do anything she tells me.
She’s breathing fast, looks wound up and ready to be loved, and a heat rises up in me as if I were exclusively made to accommodate her.
We share a look.
I’m quiet but turned on.
I want her senseless, panting like she was last night. Our tongues twined.
The idea of some other guy being able to give her something I can’t hits me.
Images that whip through me of her together with someone else settle like an ice-cold shard at the pit of my stomach. No. Hell no.
I move her closer.
I catch her chin and draw her face to me and when a gasp leaves her lips, I bend my head and take it, take that gasp, that mouth, that moan that follows. Tasting my toothpaste on her mouth.
“I’ll see you tonight, then. Be good, Sara.”
“I’m always good except with you.” She hops off and winks at me past her shoulder, and I watch her climb the stairs to get dressed.
You’re fucking done for, Ford.
If it were any other girl, I might be drastically concerned. But it’s Sara. The girl who puts this smile on my face that I just can’t seem to get rid of.
Sara
“Where have you been, Miss Hot Shot?” I ask Bryn as she steps into the living room where I am painting my toenails after a blissful sleepover and morning with my yummy motherfucker.
“You’d never guess where.” She lifts her hand, and I frown because I can’t be seeing what I’m seeing.
The flash around Bryn’s finger isn’t some big, sparkly bling. Is it?
“We’re getting married,” she says, her smile a mile long.
“What the…? When did this happen?” I drop my feet to the floor and stand, shocked.
“That night. The same night we made up after the House of Sass launch. It was all so fast. I picked out a ring this week.”
Dumbly, I walk over and stare at the elegant emerald-cut diamond on her finger. It’s simple yet gorgeous. “Bryn! Oh my God!” I cover my mouth to quell my squeals of delight. “This is amazing!”
“Yes.” She’s giddy, her voice shaky as she bounces up and down on the balls of her feet.
“Does Becka know?” We pad over to the couch and settle down, where I stare at the gorgeous ring once again in bewilderment and excitement for her.
“I told her after you left that morning after the launch; you were so quiet… I didn’t want to tell you until I noticed you were back to normal. Is everything okay? You left before I could ask.”
I sport a grin of my own. “I’m over the moon.”
“Wow… I can tell! So what’s got you over the moon and putting that spring in your step? Aside from my fabulous engagement ring, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Did you get an audition?” she prods.
“Nope. But I got fucked really good.”
“Sara!”
I laugh. “Repeatedly. My Workaholic is ravenous. Yummy fucker.” I shake my head and try to get a hold of myself, but I feel too relaxed and happy today to succeed.
Checking that my nails are dry, I pad to the window. The city will soon light up for the ni
ght and it already breathes and crackles with possibilities. I plan to take it up on that promise. The city, I mean, on the promise of adventure.
“So what’s the plan? Are you going out?” she asks me as she pulls out her laptop.
“Yes,” I answer.
“Where to and with whom? Who is this guy?”
I’m not sure I’m ready to tell her that I’ve been seeing Ian, that I haven’t been able to stop. But on the other hand, who can I talk to about him if it’s not her and Becka?
“I might be seeing Mr. Ford,” I grudgingly admit.
She stops scanning her retail order form on her computer and sets the laptop aside. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Has the divorce gone through?”
“Not yet, but I know that he and his wife are done with each other and it’s only a matter of time. I really like him, Bryn.”
“I know you do—and does he like you?”
“He’s not the kind of man to pussyfoot around things. He wants us to see where this goes, to casually date and in the meantime have yummy sex.” I beam on that last part.
“Sara! When did this happen?”
“It’s recent. With the House of Sass launch and you and Christos back together…”
She leaps to her feet and comes over to grab my shoulders. “Don’t ever, ever not share important things with me because you think I have too much to deal with. I don’t. We’re friends; I want to be there for you.”
“And you are. We’re talking now, aren’t we?”
“We are! But I need the details, starting from… that day in Central Park and every instance afterward.”
I groan, but laugh and promise to catch her up. “Only if you give me the details of your and Christos’s makeup. One day you’re broken up and the next you’re getting married.”
“I know. I still can’t believe it!”
We spend the twenty minutes catching up on each other’s lives. I hear about the way Christos proposed and how excited, scared, and in disbelief Bryn still feels.