“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, patting her leg. His hand remained on her upper thigh and Ivy found herself getting turned on again.
Just the feel of his fingertips on her leg, warming her skin, sent tingles up and down her thigh. “I can’t relax when I don’t know what’s going on,” she said trying to gather her wits. “I need to get back to work. Emma’s going to kill me.”
“I’ll handle Emma,” Cullen said, keeping his hand on her leg. He looked at her, his eyes glimmering. “You’re so concerned with getting in trouble at work, when you should be concerned about getting in trouble with me.”
His hand squeezed the fleshy upper part of her thigh, and then slid below her skirt.
She pushed his hand away and crossed her legs. “And you should be concerned about us getting caught. Do you want everyone on Earth to know?”
“Maybe I do,” he smiled.
He was showing a playful side that Ivy was befuddled by. Why was he behaving this way? As usual, she had no idea why Cullen did anything in particular.
“I don’t think you mean that,” Ivy sighed. “I think this is just one big game to you.”
“I take everything seriously that I do. Even games.”
“So it is a game. You admit it.”
He smiled wider. “I never said that. You merely inferred it.”
She rolled her eyes. “It is a game. If you took me seriously, you’d include me in things. You’d tell me one or two details about your life.”
Cullen’s eyes turned colder. “That’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“But you’re still wrong,” he said. He leaned closer to her, and now his lips were on hers and his hands were on her legs, pushing them apart.
At first, she resisted, but then she allowed him to push between them, forcing his hips against her. His chest pressed against hers as his tongue dove into her mouth, as if trying to claim it for his own.
She moaned softly in her throat.
And then he pulled away, sitting back and straightening his tie, as the car slowed outside a storefront with the name La Belle Vie on the sign overhead. “Here we are,” Cullen said, raising an eyebrow.
Ivy saw mannequins with various items of clothing displayed in the large windows.
It was a fine French boutique.
“What’s this for? For me to get a new blouse?”
Cullen sighed. “Ivy, for once you might try following my lead without asking questions. I promise all will be made clear to you.” He grabbed her hand and opened the door, dragging her out and onto the sidewalk.
She was laughing a little, despite her frustration. Cullen Sharpe was the most maddening person she’d ever come across, but somehow he was growing on her.
When they got inside the store, a middle-aged woman with red hair and red glasses greeted Cullen with an enthusiastic hug and kisses on both cheeks.
They began conversing in French, and Ivy was shocked to hear Cullen fluently talking and even laughing with this woman.
After a few moments, the woman turned and looked at Ivy, pulling her glasses down and looking over them at Ivy. She nodded appreciatively. “Très bien,” the woman said, nodding again.
Then she turned on her heel, clapped her hands, and called a thin man and a young woman over to her. She began instructing them in rapid fire French, and they were staring at Ivy and nodding.
Ivy turned to Cullen. “What the hell—“
He motioned for her to calm down. “Just sit back and enjoy the ride, Ivy.”
“Cullen—“
His gaze fixed on her and his jaw twitched. “Don’t disobey me again today, Ivy.”
She shut her mouth and tried to smile, as the employees of this boutique surrounded her with measuring tape, clucking their tongues, talking in French amongst themselves, pulling and poking her as if she was a chicken corpse they were prepping for roasting.
Eventually, they dragged her into a changing room and then began carrying various outfits in for her to try on.
Ivy complied, not feeling comfortable, but also knowing that Cullen Sharpe meant for her to do this one way or the other.
After about forty-five minutes, she’d tried on a wide assortment of dresses, skirts, blouses and pants, even panties and bras.
Everything was of lovely quality, of course, but having two French speaking women and a man watching her and commenting in another language on everything she tried on, was more than a bit strange.
Especially for a girl who was used to shopping at TJ Max and JC Penny, where she was lucky if someone would give her a changing room to use, let alone fawn over her and run back and forth with various outfits.
If they cared about what Ivy thought, it didn’t ever register in their behavior. She was certain they knew how to speak English, but they never spoke a word of it to her.
She was just a living mannequin, apparently.