Page 39 of Casanova LLC

On cue, a breeze blew in from the open door and rustled the material around her legs. She studied my face, trying to decide if I was serious. I just kept looking at her. Steadily, unrelenting.

Finally, her chin lifted and her eyes took on a daring cant and her hands went to the sides of her skirt. She reopened her legs and slowly elevated her hemline. When she reached the very top of her thighs, she stopped. Stayed right where she was; no higher, no lower.

“I changed my mind.”

“About what?” I didn’t recognize my voice.

“In the bar, you said that I was looking for a reintroduction, not a reinvention.”

“Yes.”

“I want to be reinvented.”

I should be looking in her eyes, making sure she knew that I was hearing her. But my gaze could not be pulled away from that hemline. “In what way?”

“I want to go to that orgy you mentioned.”

Now my eyes lifted. Shot up, more like.

My immediate, lizard-brain response? No.

What I actually said? “Can you tell me why?”

“Because I can’t get enough of the way you look at me. I haven’t felt…” She swallowed. “Desirable. In so long.”

“How is that possible, Cara?” She was stop-and-stare gorgeous. She was climb-out-of-your-skin sexy. How did she not know that? Feel that? Not for the first time, I wondered what exactly that motherfucker had done to her.

She lifted a shoulder, and it lifted one side of her dress even higher. I forced myself to keep my eyes on her face. “Before, when I was single, I was afraid of it. Desirability came with a looming threat. When I was married, I was invisible. Now, I’m the Black Widow. People only look at me with hatred and judgment. If I’m lucky, pity. It’s intoxicating to think they could look at me with attraction.” She looked hopeful. “You said people wear masks there? Maybe no one will recognize me.”

How could I say no to this? What she said made perfect sense. It made me sad for her and something else for me I didn’t want to examine too closely. But if she wanted it…

At my silence, she seemed to withdraw again. “Maybe it’s not a good idea.” She chuckled. “I said earlier that I didn’t understand how any woman could want more than you and now?—”

“Do you want this?”

“Yes, but I don’t need it.”

“All you have to think about is what you want. Let me take care of what you need.”

The look she gave me then. Talk about feeling desirable. I had to look away. My gaze went where it was most compelled.

Just in time to see a droplet roll into view on her upper thigh, glistening with reflected light. It left a trail that led right where I wanted to be.

Perhaps feeling it, she dropped her skirt and cleared her throat, and it took everything in me not to walk over there and finger it off her thigh the way she’d fingered the chocolate off her plate. And then what?

“Why did you choose not to wear panties tonight, Claire?”

“I wanted to know how it would feel.”

“And how did it feel?”

“Good. Wild. Free. Terrifying.”

“Why terrifying?”

“Well. I didn’t know your uncle would be joining us.”

We stared at each other. Then laughed.

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