Page 104 of Shadow

“Are you sure you’re OK? I didn’t want this to be the subject of conversation for our first real date, baby girl.”

She gave him a half smile and reached for her water. “I’m good. Promise. We’ve just always been so intense together it never occurred to me to worry about whether you were sleeping with someone else. I’m glad you didn’t, though.”

He patted the space between them. “Come here.”

She slid closer, and he settled a hand on her thigh, inching her dress up as he stared at her. “Do you know why I never slept with anyone else, Liv?”

His hand crept under her dress until he reached the spot where her thigh met her pubic bone.

“You mean aside from it being bad to cheat?” Her voice trembled, but she never broke eye contact with him.

“Yeah.” His fingers brushed her panties. “Aside from that.”

She shook her head and reached blindly for her glass of water. He waited until she took a drink and placed the glass back on the table before he tucked one finger into her panties and slid it through her drenched slit.

“Because. Anytime I saw another woman, or had to flirt with one for the job, I would see your face in my head.” He pulled his finger free and subtly sniffed it. “And every time I see your face in my head, I remember the way you smell, and the way you taste, and I can’t even fathom anyone else measuring up to you.”

He licked his finger and closed his eyes, savoring her distinct flavor.

When he opened them again, her face was bright red, and he chuckled. “You’re so fun to play with, baby girl.”

“Mario is the only one I was with besides you. And that was after I told you to stop calling.”

She felt guilty about her marriage to Mario. He didn’t want that. Even if he did want to beat Mario up every time he thought about his hands on her.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Liv. We’re together now. That’s all that matters. How about we stop talking about exes and pasts and focus on having a good time?”

When the first course—lobster medallions topped three ways—arrived, Olivia groaned in satisfaction as she popped the first bite into her mouth. His dick stiffened even more, watching her enjoy the food. He’d had no intention of fucking her in his friend’s restaurant, but if she kept making those noises, he was going to have to ask Tyson for a private dining room. And he knew the chef would hook him up.

He held a bite to her lips, wanting to be the reason she groaned again, and watched, mesmerized, as her lips closed around the tasty morsel. “God damn, I wish that lobster was my cock,” he murmured.

She reached over and cupped his groin. “It totally could be, Daddy. You know how much I love blowing you in public.”

It was his turn to groan. “Watch it, baby girl I might just take you up on that.”

Before he could say anything else, his phone rang, and he frowned, pulling it out. Very few people even had his number, so he never ignored it.

“Hello?”

“It’s Lance Moss. I hope you don’t mind that I got your number from Peter.”

“One second.” He muted his microphone and slipped the phone in his pocket.

Kissing her cheek, he slid to the edge of the booth and stood. “Excuse me, baby girl.”

When he was in the restaurant’s foyer, he pulled his phone out again. “I’m listening.”

“I don’t think Olivia’s marriage to Mario happened by accident.”

Ripley frowned. “What the hell do you mean? Who gets married by accident?”

Lance gave a mirthless laugh. “No. I’m saying that whoever is trying to come after you orchestrated their meeting. It could have been the early stages of Brian Doran trying to force you out. Figured if you heard about the marriage, you would rush home. Your obsession with Olivia was no secret among the people you were closest to within the organization.”

“That’s… outlandish. Where are you getting this from?”

“Financial records. Doran and DeBarr have a string of bank transactions between them not long before Olivia started seeing him. The thing that made me look into it was the notion that they’re using Olivia to get to you. And then I realized she looks nothing like the women he normally dates. He goes for supermodels from foreign countries. I can’t find a single instance of him dating an American prior to or since Olivia.”

Ripley groaned. “And when it didn’t work, he got out of the marriage but not before he tried to clean her out, because he’s an asshole deep down.”

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