Page 19 of Fierce

Not a Butterfly

What I’d told Hemi was true. I nearly hadn’t come. I’d been half-convinced he’d appear to pick me up despite what I’d said. Nothing easier for him than to get my address, and I knew it. I’d told myself that if he did, that would be it. It would be over before it started. I didn’t need a man who wouldn’t respect my wishes.

And even though I’d known deep down that Hemi was exactly that man, I’d kissed Karen goodbye and taken the subway into Manhattan to meet him for dinner, feeling like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. Knowing he was advancing slowly, steadily, coming ever closer, watching as I struggled against my bonds, his eyes filled with dark satisfaction as I tried to free myself.

A troubling image, and an uncomfortably exciting one.

You are not a butterfly. The choice is yours.

Now, he gestured toward the red leather banquette along one wall. “Please,” he said, nothing but politeness in his tone. He certainly hadn’t pounced. Despite his earlier words, clearly uttered for shock value, he wasn’t a tiger, or a spider, either. He was a civilized, successful business executive living in New York City, and this was a fashionable restaurant, not any kind of trap.

And all the same, when he’d come to greet me at the door, his big hand had felt as if it were burning right through the fragile mesh of my dress. I’d had a vision of him turning me, my back to his front, of him holding my shoulder firmly with one hand while he unzipped the dress with the other, until it fell at his feet to reveal my strapless pale-blue lace bra and matching thong. And, of course, the gorgeous shoes he’d bought me. However he felt about my last-year’s discount dress, I had a feeling he wouldn’t have had one single complaint about that picture.

Which wasn’t going to happen, especially not in a restaurant. As long as I stayed out of his car, I was all good.

Why was I going out with him? I shook my head to try to clear it, and as he slid into the chair opposite me, he asked, “What?”

I looked up at him, startled, and he said, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m asking myself,” I found myself saying, “why I’m going out with you, if I’m scared of you.”

The liquid brown eyes sharpened, focused hard on my face. I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through my body, and I could tell he saw it.

“Could be that what you’re frightened of,” he said, “is your reaction to me. Could be you’re wondering what you might do. What I might ask you to do.”

The shiver was harder this time. To distract myself, I took a drink of water, and Hemi sat and watched me do it, his impassive face giving nothing away.

That was when the waiter appeared, and I realized belatedly that there was a menu in front of me that I’d never opened.

“Would Madame et Monsieur care for an aperitif?” the man asked, and Hemi looked at me, his brows raised.

“A cocktail?” he asked. “Or straight to the wine?”

“Wine would be good,” I said, barely knowing what I was saying.

Hemi turned to the waiter. “Send the sommelier in, please.”

The man nodded and left, and Hemi was looking at me again. He reached for my left hand, which I realized was clutching the edge of the white tablecloth, and took it in his own.

“Hope,” he said gently. “It’s all good.”

I swallowed. “I—” I had to stop, breathe, and start again. His tenderness was more devastating than anything he’d showed me yet. “I don’t know how to—handle you.”

“Ah.” It was a soft exhalation. “No. But you see, you don’t have to handle me.”

“Maybe I think,” I said, emboldened, “that you want to handle me.”

“And you’d be exactly right. But only because you want me to.”

My heart was rocketing a mile a minute, and he still had my hand. “Your pulse is racing,” he said as I sat transfixed. “Your pupils are so open, they’re covering nearly all that gorgeous color. And the rest of you is just that open. Just that aroused. Just that stimulated. Every time I touch you, it’s more intense. Because you want me as much as I want you.”

I couldn’t answer. I wrenched my hand from his in a convulsive movement and rose, my napkin falling from my lap onto the floor. I headed toward the door. A few steps, and gathering speed.

He was standing, too. “Hope. No.”

I turned. “Too much,” I told him, hearing the unevenness of my breath. “Too fast.”

He didn’t touch me. Instead, he sighed and shook his head, running a hand over the back of his close-cropped head. “Start again,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t know how to do a first date, and that’s the truth.”

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