Page 11 of Untether

Quite the opposite.

She’s made a career out of letting her facial expressions speak volumes. Aida Russell does not hold back, and if you’re unfortunate enough that your answers to her probing questions disappoint her live on camera, you’ll know about it.

You and the millions of viewers watching you get eviscerated by the disapproving purse of her lips. The cynical rise of her eyebrows. And, worst, the pissed-off eye roll.

You don’t want to be on the end of the eye rolls that have launched a thousand memes. I imagine it’s enough to crush a man, or at least to shrivel his balls.

Right now, she’s wary, and it shows. You’d think someone who’s achieved what she’s achieved in her lifetime would be way too confident to feel any level of vulnerability walking into a crowded club.

But maybe it’s her very profile that makes her vulnerable. She’s gone from famous to infamous this year, despite not putting a foot wrong. She’s been tabloid fodder for months now, and it must be exhausting to always be on your guard. To know the public is watching for any sign that you’re not coping.

That you’re human.

I raise my glass of scotch in a cheerful acknowledgement, pleasure coursing through me as she gets close enough for me to place a palm lightly on her bare arm as I kiss her on both cheeks. Yesterday’s ball-breaker handshake didn’t do much to establish an intimate vibe between us,and I’m determined to start things off on a better note tonight.

To that end, I’ve chosen an exclusive but fun supper club located in a large basement in SoHo. It’s decorated like an old speakeasy, and what my stunning dinner companion doesn’t yet know is that there’ll be some light burlesque later to get the party started. Nothing as overtly provocative as the performances we have at Alchemy, but titillating in its own right.

I know Ms Aida Russell wants to seek refuge inside that giant brain of hers and avoid the prospect of pursuing any kind of baser activities, and I consider it my duty to coax out of her the carnal, pleasure-seeking creature I know is hidden in there.

Even if she’s buried it deep.

That she arches into me ever so slightly as I bestow my chaste kisses is the first, tiniest sign that she’s softening towards me, and I’ll take it.

Besides. There’s no way she’d wear a dress this sexy if she was trying to hold me at arm’s length tonight.

Would she?

‘To sinning and winning,’I announce with a wink at Aida. Our booth is perfect: a plush semi-circular bench behind a round, white-clothed table. We’re on the raised dais at the back of the room. We can look out at the stage, where an ensemble is currently playing some light dinner jazz, but we’re relatively secluded and dimly lit.

Bang in line with my evil plan.

I want this to feel like a date.

I want her to feel sexy. Uninhibited.

Brave.

I want to get that adrenalin coursing through her veins, heady and emboldening and naughty.

I want her to feel as though we’re partners in crime.

In sin.

I want her to feel as though, together, we’re capable of anything.

She raises an eyebrow at my choice of toast, and I think she’ll protest, but she clinks her glass against mine. ‘Bring it.’

Then she takes a sailor-sized glug of her dirty martini and sets it down before picking up her olive-laden cocktail stick.

I swivel on the padded velvet bench so I’m facing her as she brings the stick to that scarlet mouth of hers. She snags the first olive lightly between her teeth, and I catch a swirl of tongue as she tugs it off the stick.

She’s not doing it to be provocative. She’s not even looking at me—her gaze is taking in the room as she plays with the olives—but I catch that glimpse of tongue, I catch the flash of her white front teeth, and it strikes me that it’s the most seductive thing I’ve seen in a while.

And when she shunts her gaze back to me by virtue of some serious side-eye, it’s almost jarring. You don’t want Aida Russell’s black eyes on you, assessing you, while she drags olives off their stick with her teeth.

I’m telling you, it’s unhelpful.

I shift on the bench.

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