cooking dancing in the air behind her.
Or that same look—leaning over our child’s shoulder as she helps with their homework.
Stern and matronly and fierce and wonderful and, on top of all that, hotter than fucking fire. She’s wrong. I’m not a Flame. She is.
“Why me?” she asks now.
“Sparkplug,” I sigh. “There are a million reasons. Your eyes, the way you bite your lip, your shyness, your loving spirit, your passion for animals, your sassiness … Everything about you, down to the fucking atoms, that’s why.”
I kiss her, grazing her lips instead of sinking into them, lest I lose control right here in the car.
“Okay, enough waterworks,” she says, grinning brightly, pushing away the tragedy. “Tonight is about us, like you said. Let’s let tomorrow take care of itself.”
I study her for a moment longer, making sure she’s okay, and then pull the car out and drive extra carefully down the winter road.
Chapter Seventeen
Sadie
We sit in a private corner booth of the restaurant, the walls the same red as my dress and lined with velvet.
As we walked over here, I kept cringing inside, thinking that the eyes of the patrons’ were all turned to me, that every half-heard voice was a declaration of disgust.
Does she really think she can get away with wearing that? I imagined them saying.
But all I have to do now is look into Saul’s eyes and see the effect the dress is having on him, the same effect it’s had on him ever since I put it on.
His eyes take on that husky, intense quality I recognize from the racetrack, that I’ll always be able to read now as the beast inside of him tries to break free from its shackles.
He looks at me as if to say, If we weren’t in public, Sparkplug, I’d be doing some pretty savage things to you right now.
I return the look, lust bubbling inside of me.
Then – so that we don’t actually pounce on each other – I glance around the restaurant.
It’s a wide ballroom-type space, with high ceilings and decorative marble columns running along the walls. The walls themselves are covered in the kind of high quality art I’d expect to see in some medieval church. The floors are covered in gorgeous rugs, the same sort that Saul has in his house.
“I can see why you like this place,” I whisper, studying the real torch lights flickering along the walls.
“I better like it,” he smirks, his eyes glinting knowingly.
I lean forward, propping my chin in my hands. Too late, I realize that the gesture causes my breasts to push together. My instinct is to quickly correct myself. But then Saul’s jaw tightens and his eyes flit to my cleavage, a carnal shimmer in his expression.
So I ride it, oh, jeez … I don’t let self-consciousness batter me down.
I squeeze them even tighter together and let the delight swim through me.
I feel myself awakening this evening, as though the emotional intimacy in the car can translate to bravery.
Bravery, I chide myself.
But then, for me, this is brave. I’ve never felt comfortable using my body like this before. I never thought there’d be anyone who would be interested.
But now Saul is more than interested.
“What do you mean?” I say, snapping back to the present.
“Who says I have to mean anything, Sparkplug?”
“Oh, just the way you’re looking around like you’ve got a secret, Flame.”
He grins wolfishly at the nickname. “I’m never going to be rid of that.”
“Well, unless I somehow manage to ice myself over and become immune to you, no, I don’t think so.”
“I suppose I better do my best to ruin this date, then,” he banters.
I scoff. “You couldn’t do that if you tried. Come on, don’t keep me in suspense.”
“I own the place,” he says with a casual shrug.
“Wow,” I mutter, glancing around once again at the majesty of it all. “I know you said you always used to dream of this stuff as a kid, but why, Saul? Was it just something that generally interested you?”
Our conversation is cut off when the waiter approaches, asking if we’d like a drink. The waiters all wear medieval-style tabards but modernized to somehow look like suits at the same time. It would be tacky if the tabards didn’t look so authentic.
“I’ll just have an orange soda,” I tell the waiter.
“Orange soda sounds delicious,” Saul says, and the waiter leaves. He faces me. “Now, where were we, my gorgeous—”
“What?” I urge.
Don’t stop, Saul, not when it starts with ‘gorgeous’.
“I have to control