“Wh-what?” I stammered.
“If you wish to eat, you’ll meet me downstairs.”
Confused, I asked, “Why?”
“Because if I walk one more step into this room, we will not be leaving it.”
Every inch of my skin started tingling like I’d just sipped some adela tea.
Oh boy.
I was taking it he liked my dress too.
“Right. I’ll meet you downstairs,” I whispered.
His eyes slid down my body, and I swear it felt like his hands did it. So I was trembling by the time he dipped his head to me in a way that was gallant, which was a way I liked a whole lot, then he moved out the door.
I stared at it again then turned back to look at myself in the mirror.
Yes. Definitely yes.
I loved this dress.
Smiling, I walked to my new cloak, threw it over my shoulders and headed to the door.
* * * * *
If Vasterhague was cosmopolitan but rustic (which it was), The Boar was just plain old cosmopolitan.
Actually, it was cosmopolitan elegance.
No kidding, it could be picked up inch for inch and transported to Benies, it was that classy. In fact, if women wore ball gowns, it would not be lost on the décor.
Luckily, they didn’t. They wore much what I wore.
But mine was the best.
The chandelier-sporting, white-tablecloth, silver, china, crystal-laden-table-filled, peach-walls-with-crown-molding interior of The Boar was so amazing that it even managed to capture my attention.
Attention that was diverted to other things seeing as it wasn’t exactly close to our lodge and we’d had to ride there on Apollo’s horse.
And to ride there on Apollo’s horse meant him lifting me up on it to sit sidesaddle and him mounting behind me, his arm then snaking around my waist, pulling me deep, holding me close to his body, my behind snug in his crotch.
Sitting with him that way felt nice.
Scary nice.
Which felt scary good.
God.
Further making this somewhat short journey epic was him doing it the entire time with his lips at my ear, pointing out different shops or cafés I might later peruse should “we” find ourselves in Vasterhague with time to enjoy it.
His deep voice sounding intimately in my ear, the smell of him in my nostrils (he wore cologne that night; it was subtle but it had hints of cedar and musk, and mingled with his natural smell that was all man, it did a number on me), his arm tight around my belly, by the time we made it to the restaurant (what I guessed was around ten blocks) at his horse’s slow canter, I was in a state.
Luckily, the restaurant took my mind off that state and I was able to behave with decorum while having my cape taken away, being led to the table where Apollo pulled out my chair, being seated and handed a menu as Apollo ordered, “Bring us a bottle of Belle St. Michel and ask our waiter to give Lady Madeleine time with the menu.”
The maître d’ bowed and moved away.