"To begin with."
"Okay." I put my own menu down, lean further in. Flick forward a few pages on hers, so our fingers are only inches apart. "Please tell me you're not a vegetarian."
"I'm not a vegetarian," she says, hesitant but amused.
I knew this from looking in her refrigerator. Still. "Then I think you have to try the steak. Fillet, medium rare. Trust me."
"But do they have Béarnaise?"
"If you want to sully a flawless piece of beef with French shit, then yeah, I guess they have it."
She puts her chin in her palm and stares at me. "I was going to tell you that I can't stand dry meat, but the innuendo is too obvious."
Barely a week ago, I had this girl on her back, my fingernails grazing her cervix while she whimpered and hated and struggled. Now we're sitting in some cosy restaurant booth, exchanging bad sex puns and making doe eyes at each other. It's like we've done date rape backwards.
I move my finger across her menu; she doesn't move hers, but leaves them lying at the edges like an invitation.
"To start," I go on, "I like the corn fritters with scallops. Or if you prefer salad, the peach mozzarella is good."
She gives a short, sharp laugh. "I've eaten too many salads this week already. Sign me up for the lard."
"So I can count on you not to flake out at dessert, huh?"
"Oh." She lowers her eyes. "Not sure if I can manage any more chocolate today."
At that moment, the hostess returns with our beers. She takes our orders; corn fritters followed by fillets and fries, though Leo adds Béarnaise to her plate. And then we're alone, just shadows and echoed music and soft blue lights making Leo's big eyes blacker than usual.
Our menus are gone, no longer playgrounds for our fingers, but I want to touch her.
So I do.
She watches my hand as I reach across the table; I find the underside of her wrist with my thumb and push in. My breath catches at the feel of veins beneath skin, lithe and springing. I half think she'll pull away, but she doesn't; I reward that with long, smooth strokes across her forearm.
Pain is useless without pleasure. One highlights the other, and the tension that simmers between them is the sweetest of lines to cross.
"I hope you received my gifts," I say.
"I couldn't exactly have missed them." Still, she watches my fingers as if it's safer than eye contact. It probably is.
"I had them put together just for you."
"So I gathered." She takes a deep breath. "Thanks. They're...they're very unique."
"I want to spoil you," I murmur.
Silence.
Eventually, she finds the courage to look up. "I'm already spoiled."
"Leo." Under the table, I find her leg with mine, rub my knee against hers. She doesn't pull away. "I don't give a shit about anything that happened before tonight. Do you understand?"
"Seems a strange thing to say for a man who plans so meticulously."
She really doesn't get it; an impulsive man like me must learn to plan. He must accept consequence, must remember that it exists, and must build a life that cossets him from the risk of his very nature. Without plans, he's just wildfire, attracting too much attention and torching everything he touches.
Yet all that ever matters to me is the here and now.
"Besides," she goes on. "There are things that have happened between us that I'd find...difficult to forget."
"I'm not asking you to."
"Then what are you asking for?" She makes a soft, frustrated sound. "Because one minute you're all sweetness—odd, twisted sweetness, granted—and the next, you don't ask me for anything. You just take, whether you're talking me around or forcing my hand."
Twisted? That's all I get...?
"And now you look highly disgusted with me." Her voice wavers.
"I'm not in the habit of pandering to some weird alpha fantasy." How to phrase this? "I've not changed since Miss Fordham. I am what I am."
"O-okay." She tries to drag her arm back from my grasp, but I squeeze it in refusal.
"So you'll understand if I'm a little suspicious that you are, as you say, okay with that."
"I don't know that I am," she mutters. "And you still haven't answered my question."
"Isn't obvious?"
"What you want?" She gives a hollow laugh. "No."
"Maybe you haven't dared to imagine." A grin stretches the corners of my mouth. "Maybe you should."
She grabs her beer and takes a long drink. By the time she's finished, the hostess is standing over us with steaming plates of corn fritters and pan-fried scallops, their white plates garnished with lemony lettuce.
I allow her to eat because the slicing sounds soothe me. I like that she's just inches away, her knee still pressed to mine; I let my jeans ride up a little around my loafers, let the leather of her boot slide against my ankle. Her sweater dips further as she leans toward her plate, showing me more than a hint of her cleavage, and every time she opens her mouth, I get a flash of white teeth or pink tongue. It's obvious that my scrutiny bothers her—I like this even more.