Page 78 of Hell to Pay

“Is this okay?” I turned around to find her standing in the suite’s living room, wearing a simple black dress that skimmed every curve of her body and green satin heels in a deep emerald almost the exact same color of her eyes. “I don’t have a lot of fancy clothes. This is one of the ones Rafe bought me in Greece.”

Looking at her made my heart hurt. Lilah was a pistol when she was ready to fight, wearing jeans and T-shirts and carrying her knife around like it was a favorite stuffed animal. But get her in a situation where she had to put on a dress and she was suddenly unsure, having no fucking idea how beautiful she was, how effortless her beauty.

I walked toward her and drank her in. The dress was modest, with a boatneck that showed off the delicious rise of her collarbone. I wanted to trace it with my lips, draw it over and over in my sketchpad, the way Nolan listened to her heartbeat.

The dress ended just above her knees, leaving enough to the imagination that my imagination — which was pretty fucking vivid when it came to Lilah — went into overdrive.

She’d left her hair down and kept her makeup light, proving that she needed absolutely nothing extra to be the most beautiful girl in any room.

“You’re stunning.” I took her hand, then gave her a little twirl so I could see her ass in the dress.

Just because I wanted to draw her didn’t mean I didn’t also want to fuck her.

I pulled her against me and kissed her cheek, trying to remember a time when kissing a woman’s cheek had made my dick hard and my heart soft at the same time.

She put her hands on my chest and looked up at me. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

I fell into her eyes. “Ready for dinner?”

I wanted to give her Paris at night. Wanted to give her the world.

She nodded. “I’m starving actually.”

I laughed. “Of course you are.”

I loved that about her: her unabashed appetite for everything. And the truth was, I loved everything about Lilah.

Which was why it was going to hurt like a motherfucker when she left.

51

LILAH

He lookedgood enough to eat in black pants that hugged his body, doing nothing to hide the bulge between his thighs, and a silky black shirt he left unbuttoned almost to his navel, putting his tattoos on full display.

The black was a contrast to his fair hair and the blond scruff along his jaw. He looked like a blond god getting ready to do the Devil’s work.

The fun kind.

I hadn’t been lying — I was starving — but now it wasn’t just for food, and I was almost sorry we couldn’t stay in the room, that I couldn’t slip my hands inside his silky shirt, feel the sculpted peaks of his muscular chest, straddle his body like I had on the sofa at home.

Then I remembered I was in Paris, and since Paris wasn’t an everyday thing for me, it would only be smart to enjoy it.

We took a car to a restaurant called Le Bayadère. It was the nicest place I’d ever eaten, even counting the restaurant in Greece, which had been amazing. Le Bayadère was all thick crown moldings and chairs upholstered in ivory that I wouldn’t have dared to eat on at home.

Candles flickered at the center of every table and romantic music played in the background, the lights of the city glimmering on the other side of the windows.

We were ushered to a quiet table where Jude pulled out my chair, then ordered for both of us.

In French.

“You’re full of surprises,” I told Jude when the server, a stoic older man with dark hair and the formality of an English butler, disappeared. “I didn’t know you speak French.”

He shrugged. “It was just a hobby, but stuff like that helps when you apply for SEAL

training.”

“Did you use it?” I asked. “In the military?”

---