Page 49 of Tipping Point

“I think this is the one, yes?” She startles us out of it.

“Wait,” I say, my voice thick. I clear my throat. “Shoes?”

Camille makes to speak, but Brigitte gives a small exclamation. “Of course. We cannot decide unless the length is fixed.” She steps over to Camille and kneels, adjusting the hem pooling on the floor and jumping up eagerly.

We don’t speak as we wait for her. Camille pretends to inspect the dress, running her hands over the velvet as she smooths out imaginary wrinkles.

Still looking away, she speaks. “We agreed on a dress only.”

“The dress won’t work without the shoes. It’s a means to an end.”

A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

Brigitte comes back with a box, and I rise to take it from her. She hands it over politely and watches me walk over to Camille. I see the alarm in Camille’s big blue eyes as she watches me kneel and open the shoe box.

It’s a pair of strappy stilettos. The soles are oxblood red and when I hold it out, she pauses a moment before stepping into it. I cinch the tiny golden buckle at her ankle, and she steps back, raising the dress to just above the floor, as she waits for me to ready the other shoe. After finishing with the second buckle, I leave my fingers on her ankle and look up at her in the mirror. Her eyes are a stormy ocean and her lips part.

A blush blooms up her neck.

More than anything I want to take her other ankle and then run my hands up her calves, her thighs, her stomach, her breasts and take off that god-damned dress and then I want to fuck her up against the mirrored wall, in the shoes, with her hair loose and her eyes looking at me like that.

9

Chapter 9

CAMILLE

After taking final measurements and promising to deliver the dress to me at the hotel the next day, with just a few minor alterations, Brigitte boxes up the shoes for me and places them into a cardboard shopping bag, elegantly displaying their logo on the front.

When we step back out into reality, Finn’s eyes are hidden behind sunglasses.

I think of how they darkened when he looked at me, and I shiver.

We’re quiet in the car as he drives us back to the hotel. His forearm muscles flex as he spins the wheel around turns and he drops his hand to the gear shaft frequently.

“You don’t drive automatic?”

He grins but keeps his eyes on the road. “No. I prefer deciding when the gears change.”

“Control freak?”

“I like being in control,” he admits. “I like knowing what the outcome will be and that I have a say in it.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’d love to take you out on the track sometime.”

I think it over. “In a race car?”

He grins. “Unfortunately not. That’s a one seat car. Maybe a rally car.”

“I’m really sorry, but I don’t know what that even means.”

He shakes his head in mock disappointment.

We sit in companionable silence.

“I filmed the wives and girlfriends the other day.”

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