so easy to bring him upstairs. We had the entire evening ahead of us. I could take my time prepping him for what I suspected was his first time, and when he was out of his mind with ecstasy, then I’d drive home how good it could be between us.
“Charles.” I broke the kiss. He opened his eyes, only to fasten on my mouth again. God, was he horny. “There’s enough time for that later. We should go if we’re going to make it to dinner.”
He groaned and placed a hand on my hip, lips turned down in the sexiest pout. My cock hardened at the provocative look. Did he know what that expression did to me?
“Can’t we just stay in?”
I almost gave in from the look of hunger on his face, but if we stayed in, we’d probably head straight upstairs, and I wanted to give us a chance to talk. About expectations and limits.
“I promised you a date. And I even prepared, so let’s get to it.”
I grabbed my car keys, and we took my car on the road. From the way he glanced around us as I drove, I could tell how curious he was, but he didn’t ask me where we were going.
“Talk to me, Charles,” I said.
“About what?”
“Anything.”
He let out a loud sigh. “I don’t want to talk about Poppy and the baby.”
“Then talk about something else.”
“I closed a deal I think Declan’s going to be pleased about.” He chuckled. “To be honest, it felt good. For so long I was distracted from the business, but today I felt a little bit like the old me.”
“Tell me about what you consider to be the old you.”
And so he did.
Despite his original hesitation to talk, Charles liked talking about himself. He was completely at ease as he informed me about how much of a workaholic he’d been at the start of his career, pushing himself sometimes to exhaustion because he wanted to expand what his father had started.
“It used to drive Miranda nuts.” His enthusiasm dried up, and the chatter stopped.
It made me curious about Declan’s mother and the relationship she’d had with Charles. He still seemed so in love with her. It was in the way he talked about her, the sadness still seeping into his words.
I realized then that Poppy would never pose a threat to me for Charles’s attention. That arrangement was simply a paper marriage, but in his heart, he was still married to his first wife.
How to compete with a ghost? I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to go up against any at all in a relationship that could never amount to anything but temporary mutual satisfaction.
“This is our destination.” I stopped in the parking lot of the train station.
“I thought we were going to dinner.”
“We are.”
“August—”
“Trust me, Charles. You’ll love it.”
Chapter 15
Charles
I didn’t like being out of my element, and August had me completely out of my comfort zone. Dinner for me meant eating at high-end restaurants.
Okay, fine, from time to time, I did visit restaurants with less than four or five stars because the food was that good, but this was a fucking dinner on a train. All the fine dining it boasted couldn’t change that little fact.
Nothing about it sounded appealing. How could August think I’d be interested in something like this?
“August, I’m not sure about this.” I shuffled my feet as we waited in line to hand over our tickets.
As though sensing my agitation, he slung his arm around my waist to steady me beside him. His smile was confident and not at all worried. “Settle down and give it a chance. You liked painting with me, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I admitted grudgingly. “But this is dinner. In a moving vehicle that’s neither my yacht nor my jet.”
He laughed, and a few heads turned in our direction. I wanted to bury my face in August’s neck, but his hand was gripping my hip, and although I wasn’t looking forward to this, I would’ve followed him anywhere.
He had something that I desperately wanted tonight, and it was on the other side of this dinner. I couldn’t end the night without satisfying my curiosity. Kissing him was nice. Touching him even better. What would come next, and how would I feel about it?
I needed to bear this out if I wanted to learn more about what August did to me. More than just tasting his lips. I wanted to know what it was like going all the way, August