Seven

Dahlia

 

We fell into a companionable silence as our appetizers were cleared and our main dishes brought to the table. I didn’t think my passion for books was necessarily interesting. It wasn’t exactly a unique love, but somehow, I got the feeling that Damien didn’t say “Interesting” and mean it in the traditional term.

Like, he didn’t want to know more about it. He just wanted to slot that piece of knowledge into the puzzle of my life that he was clearly putting together.

The longer we sat in silence and ate, the more Mia’s words from our conversation filtered through my thoughts. The man sitting opposite me was ruthless and determined, and perhaps, a little bit dangerous. It was a terrifying combination, but one that fit flawlessly with the thought I’d just had.

Damien Fox wasn’t trying to win me over with seduction. He was using it as a sidebar to find out as much about me as possible. He was building a picture of my entire life, using mental note cards to put information into order until he found that one break in my life he could use to his advantage.

The problem was, I didn’t think I had one. If the bar was struggling or I didn’t want to run it, it would be an easy thing to exploit.

That was what he really wanted to do. He wanted to find a weakness and exploit it for his own good.

I knew he was underhanded, but I didn’t know he’d be dirty about it.

No, that was a lie. I knew he’d be dirty about it, but for some reason, my conclusion sent a shiver of shock across my skin. How far would he go to get what he wanted? Would he create a situation I couldn’t back out of? I had financial clout that others might not have had in the past, but I wasn’t so naive as to think that I was richer than he was.

I could hold my own, that much was for sure. But if he did create a situation I couldn’t get out of, would I be able to hold my reputation?

Of course, it was all theoretical at this point. Not that it mattered—I had to be ready for any situation. One thing was for sure, though. I’d spent all my time looking into him as a person, when I should have been looking deeper into how he runs his business.

He wasn’t a stupid man, and there was no doubt that it wouldn’t be easy to find that info, but unless he wanted to hand it over, I had no choice.

He wasn’t letting the idea of owning my bar go away. He wasn’t going to give up. Tonight had proved that. I needed to be prepared for who this man really was because my gut was telling me I hadn’t scratched the surface of Damien Fox. For good or for bad, I wanted to be ready.

I would fight for The Scarlet Letter, even if it took everything I’d had. I’d go down swinging if it meant holding off his outrageous arrogance for just a little bit longer.

“You look like you’re in deep thought.” Damien’s voice broke into my inner battle cry.

It was like I had a tiny Zelda in my head or something.

“Just thinking.” I offered him a light smile and set down my fork. “Tell me about Fox Industries.”

His hand, halfway to his glass, stilled. Something flitted across his features too quickly for me to discern, but he rapidly schooled his expression into one of mild surprise.

Mild, fake surprise.

“I thought this wasn’t a date. It’s starting to feel like one.” He was deflecting.

I half-shrugged and tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear. “You’re the one who said you find me fascinating—I’m not going to tell you my life story without knowing anything about you in return.”

“You know plenty about me.”

“I know that you hate Jennifer Aniston, and honestly, I’m not sure how I’m sitting here after that revelation, never mind the libraries thing. You can redeem yourself now.” I flashed him a playful smile to know I was joking.

But only a little.

“I’ve never killed a puppy?” he offered weakly.

“I should hope the majority of people I meet haven’t.”

“True.” He pressed the glass to his lips but didn’t sip. “I barely graduated high school. Didn’t bother with college. I’m good with numbers, investments, and management, but not so much everything else.”

Well, well, well. There was a surprise. “Really?”

“Really. Which is exactly how I know that fancy degrees don’t run businesses.”

“No, but they sure give you a bit of credibility to people who don’t think you’re up to the job.”

“Low blow, Ms. Lloyd.”

“Not low enough if you aren’t on the floor, squealing.” I picked up my wine glass and let it dangle between my fingers for a moment. “But, that still wasn’t what I meant. I want to know more about your business.”

He put his glass down and waved his hand in the air. “Did you want dessert?”

No. I wanted to know why he refused to discuss it.

I shook my head, and within seconds, our plates were cleared and a leather-bound booklet had been placed in front of him. He barely glanced at the total before he pulled out his card and signed the receipt.

“You’re good at avoiding things you don’t want to answer.” I traced the line of his jaw with my eyes. “Too good.”

“Some things shouldn’t be discussed in public.” He took the booklet back from the server, removed his card and receipt, and looked me in the eye. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“I want to check out that library function you have. You can ask me questions on the way.”

 

***

 

“Why would you want to check out the library function?” I asked once the door had been shut in the back of the sleek Bentley.

Damien ran his hand through his thick, dark hair and sat back against the black leather seats. His gaze swung from the closed partition between us and his driver to me. “I’m intrigued how it works.”

“Even Satan would call bullshit on that.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s true. I’ve never heard anything like that before.”

Hmm.

The driver steered us into the slow-moving traffic. We were at least twenty minutes away from the bar without this speed of driving, so I had a chance to get some of the answers I wanted.

“Why wouldn’t you talk about your work in the restaurant?” I set my purse on the floor by my feet and shifted to face him. “I’ve never seen anyone get out of a dinner so fast.”

A small smile tugged the edge of his lips up. “Just like I said in there, some things shouldn’t be discussed in public.”

“Like politics and religion.”

“You have a very smart mouth.” He glanced down at said smart mouth. “Do you ever turn it off?”

“Never,” I reassured him. “Now, we’re no longer in public, so tell me about what you do.”

He rested an arm along the back of the seats. His fingertips landed just inches from my hair, and I gave a cursory glance at their closeness.

Shivers tickled their way down my spine as he stared at me. He was entirely still except for the way his eyes flicked left and right repeatedly. It felt an awful lot like he was taking me in, committing me to memory for some strange reason.

“A lot of people don’t like me. Pissing people off is part of business and I’ve done that a lot, so I try to keep my work private. It’s that simple, sweetheart.”

“I get it. But now, it is private.” I wasn’t going to let this drop. I’d quit reading before I did that. “I’ve told you a lot about my bar tonight, so now tell me something.”

“You have the innate ability to make me feel like I’m back in high school and writing an essay about being reasonable.”

“If you’d done that, you might know how to be reasonable.” I paused when he laughed. It was low blow time again. “Look, Mr. Fox—”

“Damien.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything about your business and what you do, but given that you’re failing embarrassingly in your attempt to buy my business, it’s probably in your best interests to start talking.”

He leaned forward and took my hair between his finger and thumb. Slowly, he twirled the strands around his finger, each twist lightly tugging against my scalp. “You should have been a cop. You’re very persuasive.”

“In that case, you could probably learn a thing or two from me. Your own skills are lacking.”

“I don’t know.” He dropped his voice to a low murmur. “I think if I tried hard enough, I could persuade you into a few things.”

I raised my eyebrows. We’d moved on from talking about business. Once again, the Master of Deflection was doing what he’d been doing for most of our evening together.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for your antics yesterday, so I wouldn’t even try it.” I tapped his hand so he released his hold on my hair. It tumbled away from his finger so I could smooth the strands back down and gave him a pointed look.

“Forgiven me, or yourself?” His eyes glinted knowingly. Almost self-assuredly.

Hell, there was no almost about it. He knew exactly how I’d felt when he’d left me. He knew exactly what he’d done to me, and I did, too. Denying that I was annoyed at myself because I could still remember how it’d felt when he’d taken my chin in his hand was pointless.

“Both,” I answered, sitting up a little straighter. “That doesn’t invite you to exercise poor judgment and make another attempt to mix business with pleasure.”

“Attempt? Sweetheart, if I’d attempted to do that, there would have been a lot less business and a lot more pleasure before I’d left you.”

“You think I’d give in to you so easily?”

At those words, Damien slid smoothly across the leather seats. His arm, still resting along the back of them, hung down behind me, his thumb just brushing against my back. The rest of his body was mere inches from mine, and I bit the inside of my lip as he trailed his fingertips up my bare arm. My eyes followed his feather-light touch while his stayed fixated on my face.

He coasted his fingers over my shoulder where he touched them to my jaw. Lightly, he tilted my face around and up until I had no choice but to look him in the eyes again—to look right there where I could see exactly how much he wanted me.

Dark.

Hot.

Full of temptation.

Heavy and intense, his eyes screamed of raw lust and selfish need.

“I don’t think you’d give in at all,” he whispered. “I think your body would do that for you, and you’d be helpless to it.”

“You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” I said quietly. I touched my finger to his belt, then ran it up the length of his torso, ghosting it over the solid packs of muscle that made up his body until I flicked the starchy collar of his shirt. “You think you can do this and I’ll give in to what is essentially a biological reaction? I’m stronger than you take me for, you know.”

He curled his fingers around my chin and dipped his face to mine. “She says with a racing heart.”

I pressed one finger against his mouth and ran another along his strong thigh…right up to where his hard cock was straining against the soft material of his pants. “Don’t you hate it when your attraction to someone is so obvious?”

His jaw clenched. “If you have any sense at all inside that gorgeous head of yours, you’ll move your hand.”

Now, who was the helpless one?

“I thought you’d make me give in,” I said, trailing my nail down the length of his cock and back up again. He twitched beneath my touch. I was playing with fire, but it was too fun to stop. “Looks like I’m not the one struggling right now.”

The hand that was just hanging limply clasped the back of my neck as Damien adjusted his body. His other grasped my hip. His fingers dug right into my skin, so hard it was almost painful, but it was the way he yanked me toward him that made me gasp.

My body was now flush against his. I wasn’t even sure if I was sitting on the seat or if he was holding me just off of it, but heat spread through my body when my hand pressed hard against his cock.

“Struggling?” The word was husky in my ear. “I’m fucking struggling all right, Dahlia. I’m struggling not to roll that damn dress to your hips and fuck you stupid. Struggling not to make you pull my cock from my pants and play with it, since you touched it. Struggling not to find out what it would be like to see my dick in your mouth.”

My clit throbbed, adding to the wetness between my legs. My hand was literally curved right around his cock, and he held on to me so tight that from the position I was in, rolling up my dress wouldn’t be a hardship for him.

“Don’t fucking challenge me on this, sweetheart, because you know as well as I do that I’ll win.”

“I don’t think so,” I whispered.

Lies, lies, lies.

He knew it, too.

“So, I could slip my hand between your legs and I wouldn’t find a wet pussy?” His lips brushed my ear. “I wouldn’t find your wet cunt half-ready to take my cock? Because your legs are clenched damn tight, and that tells me you’re hiding something.”

“It’s telling you wrong.” More lies. All lies.

Would he try to prove himself right?

I’d played with fire—was this where I got burned?

Damien swept one arm around my waist and pulled me on top of him. My squealed protest was fruitless. My hips were already nestled at his sides, and thanks to my dress rolling up as he’d moved me, my underwear was almost entirely exposed.

I glanced back at the partition.

“He can’t see you. It’s one-way.” Damien kept one hand on the back of my neck. The other slowly, oh-so-slowly, crept up my now-bare thigh, edging ever closer to where my clit was aching beneath the lace of my thong.

“What are you doing?” My mouth was dry. Why was it so dry? Why wasn’t I trying to get off him? Why was I letting him do this?

“Research,” he whispered, pulling my head down to his. He dragged his lips across my jaw at the very same time his fingers probed my upper thigh.

As his thumb brushed the edge of my thong.

I pushed at his shoulders, shoving my body back despite the fact my hips were going in the opposite direction—toward him. I simultaneously wanted and didn’t want his touch. I couldn’t think clearly—this man was my rival, my enemy, and here I was, sitting on his lap, inches away from his thick, hard cock, and about to let him see if I was as wet as he thought I was.

I’d lost my damn mind, but yet…I stayed.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I would give into my basic urges.

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe this was my weakness.

Maybe he would turn out to be my weakness.