His hand slid to her back, fingers delicately touching the grommets, the lacing. When he encountered the recommended two-inch gap at the back of the corset, compressing her waist by two inches, he froze. “Jesus,” he breathed. “Let me see.”
She could feel heat radiating from his palm to the small of her back. “I’m not taking off my jacket and turning my back to you in Bouley’s corridor,” she said. If she sounded breathless, the corset was at fault, not the scent of Ryan’s skin, the heat staining his cheekbones, the heavy-lidded look in his eyes.
After a moment his hand followed the exaggerated curves of her hip, waist, and ribs to the swell of her breast above the cups, where his thumb came to rest.
“What’s your definition of irresistible? Too powerful to be resisted?” He laughed, but the sound was pained. “It worked. I want to give you everything you want.”
The image flashed in her mind, bright hot and searing, Ryan naked and on his knees in front of her. He would unbutton the jacket and spread the fabric to either side, ruck her skirt up to her hips, and put his mouth between her legs. He would lick and suck and please her until she told him to stop. The image made her breath come short, but she wasn’t thinking about her own sexual pleasure. She was thinking about Ryan, naked.
In the stories, he never took off his clothes. He never revealed himself. That’s what she wanted. She didn’t want him to please her. She wanted to strip him naked and make him tell her the truth of himself.
“You should go. Daria must be getting impatient.”
“I’m not here with Daria. I’m here with friends.”
Relief drenched her, leaving her slightly unsteady on her heels. “Not with Daria?”
He shook his head. “She got what she wanted.”
“Did she, or did you?”
“It was a mutually satisfying arrangement. Leave with me, Simone.”
The words were almost inaudible, the ghost of breath and voice against her collarbone, somewhere between a plea and a demand. She found it difficult to think with the heat of his skin radiating through silk. “You want me to leave my dinner date and walk out of here with you in front of your friends? A dozen people took your picture out there. Our picture. If I leave with you, I’m social media fodder tomorrow, and not in a good way,” she said, but the words were saturated with desire and anguished regret.
He pushed away from the wall, drew in a deep breath she rather envied at the moment, and shoved his hands over his hair. The movement lifted his jacket away from his torso enough for her to see how loose his trousers were around his waist, the worn mark on his belt where he would normally fasten it, two holes looser than the current spot.
“Ryan,” she whispered, and reached for him.
“No,” he said, and stepped back. “You’re right. It’s too public. I won’t do that to you. I just . . . lost my head when I saw you holding his hand.”
“Make up your fucking mind,” she snapped, temper once again straining at her tightly leashed control. “I’m asking for nothing unreasonable. The truth. That’s all I want. If you can’t give me that, then stop this.”
He said nothing, his gaze flickering between the corset and her eyes. It wasn’t sexual. It was respect for the strength of her convictions. Watching him watch her, she buttoned her jacket. The first button she fastened was the one tucked away under the shawl collar. She closed the others slowly, making her way from between her breasts to between her hip bones, like putting on a suit of armor. Ryan watched. By now the flush on his cheekbones wasn’t just from whatever he had to drink, but from frustrated desire.
“Behave yourself,” she said, her hand palm out for emphasis, almost but not quite pressed to the crisp cotton of his shirt. “Do you hear me? What you do in my shop is one thing: flings with supermodels behind closed doors, bringing in actresses, putting them and yourself on display. I . . . appreciate . . . the buzz. When we sit on my steps, no one knows who we are. My reputation is everything to me. Don’t draw me into the drama of being one of the women in your life,” she said, tapping her breastbone with her fingers, trying to keep her voice even. “Another scene like this and you’ll be banned from my presence forever.”
It was a slip of the tongue. She meant to say premises, not presence, but English was her second language, not her first, and when she got worked up she made mistakes. But she couldn’t take it back. She knew better than to show weakness to a man like Ryan.
“This is all I have to give, and you don’t want it.”