CHAPTER 7

HOW COULD ANYONE RESIST SOMETHING this intense? Gigi hoped Ann would understand because it had been a foolish promise from the onset. She hadn’t meant to kiss him in the gallery or the insane orgasm he’d given her afterword, surrounded by the artwork he’d created. Gigi’s rules were a flimsy fortification at best in the face of their ongoing flirtation; they may as well have been straw because he was the big bad wolf.

She only meant to flirt before continuing with gentle resistance. She also didn’t regret that it happened and wouldn’t let him either. She owned her actions without shame or hesitation. She had since the first liberating fling. Roman would be no different, at least not that way. The need to prove that fact had her sitting across from him in this little restaurant sharing a piece of lemon cream cake. Another rule bites the dust—dinner dates and sex did not go together when you don’t do relationships. Her date might get the wrong idea.

Hours of shared laughter and life stories over a bottle of wine and divine pasta had gone a long way towards lighting up the darkened corners of her soul. When she met up with her gentleman callers, it was sex and nothing else. No dinner after or talking softly while holding hands. Right now, her left hand stretched out across the table, his fingers entwined with hers—another broken rule for the tally. Was this what relationships were supposed to be like? If so, she could become addicted. Which was exactly why she should put the brakes on whether she wanted to or not, before it was too late. That was the whole point of the rules.

“Penny for your thoughts?” His low words and dark eyes burned across the candlelit table between them with warmth and a hint of concern.

She offered him a thin smile and a spoonful of cake, which he claimed from her with a deliberate slowness that felt like a sensual promise. “This is nice, being with you like this.” She couldn’t quite keep the breathy note of longing from her voice, but she gave it a valiant effort.

“This isn’t the only date I’m ever taking you on.” She looked away and he reached out, turning her face back towards his so that his dark eyes could probe hers. “We don’t have to label this yet.”

Still, there were things he deserved to know. “I might seem like it, but I’m not the kind of girl you take home. You see that, right. You see past the front and the limit that puts on us?”

Roman was quiet, just looking back at her. His expression was openly appraising. So much so that his gaze was more like a physical touch, gliding across her cheek and then her open collar, searching out the small bare pieces of her. She held perfectly still, allowing him to take his fill while she siphoned off her open pleasure from the visual caress. It took the edge off the needling voice her anxiety raised over this newness.

“I see that it limits you.” His voice was low and somehow challenging without losing the gentle persuasion that got her this far. “I see you. Not the things you’ve done. I’m not interested in that. Just interested in you.”

Her shoulders slumped with relief. His head tilted and his eyes narrowed in thought or confusion at her reaction. She didn’t want to worry him, not yet. She wanted to enjoy him just a little longer. It wasn’t fair but she was ultimately a creature selfish with her pleasures.

Wisely, he changed the subject to safer ground and he slid his cash into the black leather folder for the check. “Tell me about your name. It’s unique like you. So I’m sure there has to be a story there.”

They rose from the table and he helped her with her coat before they walked to the door. The restaurant they’d chosen was in easy walking distance to her place. It was enough to make her steps drag to prolong the evening.

The stars were bright in the cloudless ink overhead. Even the glow from the street lamps couldn’t hide all of the tiny pinpricks of light. She lifted her face to the sky, soaking them in as Roman slipped an arm around her waist. Instantly she felt his warmth chasing away the slight chill in the air. It may be uncommonly warm for March, but enough bite remained to remind you spring may be coming but it wasn’t here yet.

“You still haven’t answered me.” He prompted as they started down the sidewalk.

Gigi leaned her head against his shoulder. “There’s a little something to it,” she admitted at last. “My mother loves all things French. Her favorite movie is Gigi. It’s about a young French woman who falls in love with a wealthy family friend. She transforms herself so they can be together. Only he doesn’t like what she turns herself into. He loves her for who she’s always been.”

“That’s beautiful, like you.” He whispered it against her temple and placed a soft kiss there.

She shrugged. “I wish my name was something more normal like my brother John Jr.”

Roman stopped and grabbed her arm, spinning her to face him. “Gigi, you’re special and your name reflects that. Nothing else would have fit. I think your mother knew exactly what she was doing.”

How did a heart not melt with words like that? It couldn’t. She was in so much trouble.

The kiss that went with that declaration was reverent and soft even as it built in intensity. When he pulled back, she was dizzy with the intoxicating scent of his aftershave and the swirling hormones he’d sent buzzing through her system all over again. He pulled her back into his side and she was blinking in confusion as they resumed their walk to her place. She was still in a daze when she realized they were standing in front of her building.

Oh god—was he going to kiss her again. She really hoped he would kiss her again.

Would everyday be like this if they were together for real? She could see dinners and dates at the art history museum. Snuggling in bed late in the morning. She would cook him breakfast and they’d make love in the shower. Were these things he would want too? She needed all of that with a sudden wave of intensity that left her reeling. She never dreamed of anything like this. It had never been in the cards of her imagined anything, but now it wouldn’t stop playing on repeat in her mind’s eye. She could burn her little book for a man like Roman. She could do it only for Roman.

Gigi leaned against the doorframe, as she had the other night. He held her like a woman and not like a toy. She hadn’t known there would be a difference until he showed her tonight. She liked it. Roman braced a hand over her head and brought his lips crashing down on hers, stealing a moan from low in her throat. God, the things this man made her feel. Warm slick need already spread through her core, further adding to the ruin of her favorite pair of lace panties.

He pulled back, leaning his forehead against hers. Already it turned into a familiar gesture—one she enjoyed. Perhaps like her, he needed a break from the thing building between them but couldn’t stand to sever contact.

“Goodnight, Gigi.”

“It doesn’t have to end here,” she whispered, her pulse racing with the urges he kept bringing to life inside of her. “You could come upstairs.”

Roman groaned. His face contorted in a wince of pain. “God, I’d love that, but not tonight.”

Now it was her turn to groan in pain. God, her pussy already ached with need. He hadn’t even gotten off when he’d played her body earlier. She couldn’t imagine why he’d deny them both like this.

“I know, beautiful, but I told you I don’t want to rush this more than I already have.”

He took her lips again in a burning kiss as he moved to shield the view of her body from the street. He reached between them, cupping her sex, rubbing her through the thin material of her leggings. Her already primed body, flush with need and the denial he’d flung up between them, shuddered immediately with the contact. Dear god—he’d brought her to an immediate climax, fully clothed, right there on the goddamned street, swallowing her scream of pleasure with his kiss.

It barely took the edge off.

“Better now, baby?” he asked as he laid teasing kisses along her jaw.

Her own question came out breathless as she tried and failed not to pant like a bitch in heat under his ministration. “What about you?”

Roman leaned back, smiling that sexy leer at her. “I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

“I don’t doubt that. But I want to take care of you.”

He stepped back from her as he took his hands off her body. “Then you have something to look forward to on our next date.”

“Sneaky bastard,” she muttered as he started back up the sidewalk away from her.

His deep laughter split the night but he kept right on walking.

This evening went so sideways. Gigi sighed and let herself into the building before dashing up the stairs to her second floor apartment. Her keys were in the door when her phone dinged with an incoming message. She smiled. He couldn’t even make it home before he messaged her. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. Let him sweat it out a minute.

She kicked the door closed behind her and shucked her jacket, letting it drape haphazardly on one of the magenta pink club chairs. Yes pink—no doubt Roman would have had a laugh about that if he’d come up. That assumed he’d have a chance to look. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she dropped into the emerald green sofa.

This was her fun room and her bright furniture her first adult purchase. Her apartment should have been the one place she could pull back the curtain and be totally unreserved. She held her ground—mostly. Her mother decorated the bedroom—the polar opposite Iceland—as a gift. Really it was a direct response to her father’s appalled reaction to the way Gigi had done her living room. They’d dropped by unexpectedly and the next thing she knew boxes from West Elm started showing up. Another not so subtle attempt to direct her life in the direction her father felt most appropriate.

Gigi’s head lolled back against the cushions, arms flung out wide, with her feet up on the walnut coffee table. Her mind wandered into the happy randomness in the odd gallery arrangement of paintings climbing every bare wall in her living room. It wasn’t random. Not really. The logic behind it had more to do with the unseen, the reason she chose those pieces over so many other options. This was her happy place. Her art. She’d gone so far as to paint her walls a brighter white than the basic that the landlord had done, to better highlight her collection. The result being a bright wave of colors large and small to make her smile—her adult version of an infant’s mobile—a vibrant distraction.

The washed out red windmill against a Parisian night sky drew Gigi’s eye—the water color that started her passion for art. A vacation to Paris at fifteen, her mother’s favorite city, changed the course of her life. There had been the usual tourist bait of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe—fine, fine but boring. When the artist spun tales of the can-can dancers and courtesans, her interest sparked. The discovery of the story hidden inside those pictures—the meaning—sparked her curiosity at a time when cheerleading tryouts and who was taking who to spring formal absorbed her world view. Thanks to that little old man with his toothless smile, she’d walked into the Louvre with an open mind. It had been a bonus that her father had been horrified she purchased a painting of the Moulin Rouge.

The irony was not lost on her that her first piece of art depicted an upscale brothel masquerading as a dance revue, while her life was a performance designed to hide, using an assumed role to hide that she liked sex and to hide from love behind that sex. She could even draw comparisons between the dance hall and Ink Spinners. So many layers, like paint, overlapped to create the full story. Most of her gathered pieces were like that—street vendor art with hidden depth.

The phone pinged again and her smile spread. Maybe, she should call Roman back—invite him up. Or maybe a little tease over the phone, something to let him have his satisfaction. He’d taken care of her so thoroughly. She was down with whatever. Pulling a pillow into her lap, she hugged it to her chest and rifled through her purse with her free hand. She held up her phone and scanned the waiting text.

Dick Pic: Need to Talk. 10 Min at Red Barron.

Not Roman. The ice bucket challenge just dropped on her right there in her living room. The smile fell from her lips. Shit. Ignoring Dick Pic clearly wasn’t working.

Chad hadn’t stopped messaging her since dinner at her parent’s house. Most of the messages had been mildly pornographic. Thankfully, none of them were threatening. He would suggest they meet and she would never show. He’d try sexting or sending her videos of himself jacking off. She always told him no or asked him to stop in her responses. Then she saved it all. If this got any worse, she’d have to get a restraining order and she’d need evidence. She didn’t want it to come to that.

Now, it was time for a stronger approach. Good thing he’d picked a fairly public place. She stepped back out the door, relocked it, and then started towards the bar where she’d first asked him to pick her up over two weeks ago.

Despite the stalker boy toy and the epically awful sex, she’d met Roman. He was wonderful enough to make up for the shit show this joker wouldn’t stop putting her through. The one evening of non-sex she was having with Roman made all her other sexual experiences pale in comparison.

Yeah, she had to get rid of Chad fast. She didn’t know how this thing with Roman would play out or what she wanted from it. Chad could ruin it all if she let him. She wasn’t going to let him. She picked up her pace on the sidewalk and hoped to God that Roman hadn’t decided to come down here for a drink. This would be a bad time to run into him.

She stepped into the dimly lit bar. She liked it for its anonymity and the fact that she could walk there made it simpler to leave with her gentleman callers. It was a standard place as bars went, with the neon liquor signs, dark spaces and the pool tables one expects from such dives. On first glance, she didn’t look like she belonged. Few would guess she was more comfortable in her skin here than any swanky piano bar or urban nightclub others might expect her to frequent—not that she gave many people the chance to know this or anything else about her.

Chad waited at the corner of the bar facing the door. His eyes were dark and cold with anger. He dressed as if he’d come here straight from the office in dress slacks and a chambray dress shirt. He waited with rolled up shirtsleeves and his collar hanging open with his tie loose as if he pulled it to relieve the pressure at his throat. He’d planted his long legs wide as he leaned against the barstool.

Gigi approached with her chin up and shoulders back. She wouldn’t go into this confrontation meek because it was clear that’s what this was going to be. His own stance was combative and simmering with anger, probably from the way she’d been ignoring him.

As expected, he wasted no time calling her to task. His hand shot out gripping her arm and pulling her into his body. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Is that jerk you were kissin’ the reason you’ve been ignoring my messages?”

Jerking her arm free, Gigi took a step back from him and his breath that was rancid with the stench of stale beer. “The man I was kissing is none of your business. I’ve been answering your messages by telling you I’m not interested. I have been perfectly clear each time I answered.”

“I’m not taking no for an answer. Your father wants to see us together,” he said as he reached for her again.

Gigi sidestepped his touch. “I’m not interested in what he has planned for me. I’m my own woman. Not a doll for him to arrange a life for.”

His sneer was nasty, showing the vile human being she’d suspected he kept hidden under his skin. “How about I tell Daddy just what you’ve been up too?”

If she could spit fire, she would have. If she caved to his demands now, she’d never be rid of him. As much as she hated the idea of her family or anyone else knowing about her nocturnal activities, she’d rather that than let any part of this piece of trash touch her again. “You wouldn’t dare, not with so many of your own skeletons to keep. I swear I need to shower in disinfectant after touching your filth.”

“You like it dirty. Don’t pretend you don’t.” Chad reached out again and this time she wasn’t fast enough to avoid him as he grabbed her by the pussy.

Her hand snapped out and cracked him across the face. His hand fell away and every eye in the bar stopped to stare at her as she came unhinged. “You do not have my permission to touch me.” She turned on her heel and marched away.

“Gigi, wait.” Chad pleaded but stayed in his seat.

“Don’t contact me. I mean it.” She called over her shoulder, but she didn’t stop moving or turn back around. She practically sprinted home, afraid Dick Pic would follow her. She’d have to stop calling him that. It sounded too cutesy for someone ballsy enough to grab a woman like that in front of half the bar.