Page 89 of Silver-Tongued Devil
“Wait,” she gasped after a couple very nice minutes. “Wait. I need to tell you this.” Which meant he had to sit up.
Well, damn. She had some beard burn going on, and it was a good look on her. He wanted to give her some more.
She said, “Elizabeth wants a dozen pieces to start, and if they sell, I’ll need more. I only have eight flowers left, and no shells. No birds, either. I have to get to work. What if I can’t deliver on time? She wants them in three months. Even if I only did shells… And I still have to paint your house, too. Maybe I should just fly back tomorrow morning. I could get your house done fast, before your parents come, even, if I worked enough hours, and then I could focus for a while. If Evan doesn’t need me, I could take a couple weeks, just work straight through, and—”
He was laughing, and he had his hand over her mouth. “Darlin’, stop.”
He took his hand away, and she said, “Excuse me? Are you shutting me up?” Some sparks were flying from those brown eyes, and that wasn’t bad, either.
“Well, yeah.” He shook his head and took another drink of wine. “If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have helped. Tell you what—and here I go, bargaining again—you can just stop doing my house. Stop it altogether.Ifyou stay with me tomorrow, because otherwise, I’ll get too lonesome. I didn’t sleep with you last night, and my tree-trunk bed scares me. I could have more bad dreams. So how about this. You keep those dreams away tonight, give yourself that break the doctor ordered—” He held up a hand again. “Nope. I heard him. You fly back with me tomorrow night, help me get past my fear of trees, and after that? You take off for a week or two and work on your glass. Get yourself started, so you stop worrying. And afterthat,you can come back and do my house, slow as you want. Use my hot tub after work, because, baby—next time you’re in there like that, I’m coming in. I thought I was going to rupture something that night, holding back.”
She was opening and closing her mouth. Shaking her head, too. “I don’t even know where tostart.First—last—you didn’t hold back, not that I noticed.”
“I had a whole glass of wine before I made my move. I talked for an hour, I swear. About half killed me, too. You were in this same robe with nothing underneath, and all I wanted to do was lay you down, untie that bow, and finish the job you started. I knew how bad you needed to come, and I knew I was the man to get you there. I finally got started, and what did you do? You ran out, that’s what. I haven’t ached that bad since I was sixteen. I thought I might need medical attention, like when you take too much Viagra.”
“You have never taken Viagra.”
“Well, no. But I’ve heard.”
She took her head in her hands and pressed her palms against her temples. “I’m a drowning victim, you know. You’re givingmean ache. Aheadache. I am not going to stop halfway through painting your house. We made a deal.”
“Only because I wanted youinmy house. And now I’m unmaking it.”
“You can’t unmake it.”
“I just did.”
“All right. Here’s the deal. I’ll stay with you tonight, and I’ll… wait. What am I agreeing to tomorrow?”
“I’m going to take you shopping. You’ve got to look pretty at my grand opening. You’re my date.”
“Excuse me? Have you invited me?”
He sighed. “What did I just say?”
“You have toask.”
He took her hand, lifted it to his mouth, and kissed the backs of her fingers. Then he turned it over and kissed her palm. “Miss Dakota, may I have the pleasure of your company at my grand opening? And may I have theverygreat pleasure of buying you something almost as beautiful as you are to wear to it?”
She looked like she was trying to think about it but was weakening. He liked her weakening. “Yes, you may,” she said. “Have the pleasure of my company, I mean. But I bought a dress. You saw it. You thought it was pretty, too.”
“Trouble is…” He was still holding her hand, and now, he was running his thumb over her palm. He did like her hands. Slim and strong and capable, but when she touched you, you knew those hands belonged to a woman who felt everything she did all the way down to her soul. “Trouble is,” he said again, keeping his mind on the job, “everybody’s seen that dress. A woman needs a new dress for a special occasion. She needs new shoes, too. Killer shoes with sky-high heels and ankle straps. I do love you in ankle straps. I know exactly where to take you to get them, too.”
“The car and driver,” she said. “The jet. This house. And now you want to buy me fancy clothes? I feel like a courtesan.”
“You kinda look like it, too, right now. It’s a good look. You’re not my mistress, darlin’. You’re my girlfriend, and I want you to feel beautiful.”
“Where were you thinking? How would you know where? There are some consignment shops that have gorgeous things. I’ll have all day.”
“Nope,” he said. “My rules tomorrow. And how do I know? Research is my life.”
That was how Dakota ended up in a fitting room at Anthropologie the next day. Which, yes, was the right place, all the way down to the chandeliers and the soft indie music. Nothing about what you needed, and everything about what you wanted. About clothes that were art, and luxury that said you were thirty, not fifty, and you could afford it. Or that, just maybe, you had a guy with a jet. A guy who was sitting on the husband-couch, his elbow on its back and one booted foot stuck out in front of him, with a smile in his eyes for every dress you came out to show him.
A guy who said, “Pretty. But nope,” every single time, until she put her hand on her hip in the gorgeous tulle-skirted, flutter-sleeved, beaded blush-and-black confection and said, “I’m getting worn out here.”
“Nah,” he said. “You’re doing good. You just haven’t found it yet. Come on, baby. Try a few more. I want you to knock my socks off, but what’s more important—I want you to knockyoursoff. I want you toknowthat nobody there is more beautiful than you.”
“This dress is six hundred dollars,” she informed him. “I’ve never bought anything that cost more than two hundred dollars in my life. And by the way—your girlfriend was a supermodel.”
