Page 67 of Ravaged
“Sorry?” I ask, confused.
Shaking her head, she dabs at her face with her fingertips. “Thank you, Jordan. No one has ever done anything so beautiful and thoughtful just for me before. I’m ...” She spreads her arms, her hands palms up. “I don’t ...”
“Good God, you’re speechless. I probably need to be recording this,” I tease.
She smiles, but it melts away, and her eyes darken, the brown nearly black. “You really do have big shoulders.”
I frown at her second enigmatic statement in as many minutes. “Excuse me?”
“I was afraid to share this side of me with you,” she admits. “But no one has ever seen me the way you have. Trulyseenme. And then accepted me. But you did. Youdo. In your eyes, I’m bold when I want nothing more than to hide. I’m brave when I’m scared shitless. I’m brighter than the sun when I feel invisible. I don’t know why I was ever afraid to share this”—she turns and waves a hand toward the panel and actors—“with you. Before, you said Narnia showed you how to dream big. Showed you the greatness in yourself. You do that for me. You’re my Narnia.”
Holy fuck.
I blink. She’s robbed me of speech, of thought, of breath. No one—and I meanno one—has ever made me feel so important, so vital to them. And goddamn, are my eyes stinging?
“Now.” Moving into me, she reaches up and cups my face, tilting it down. “Do you have any more plans for tonight?”
“Dinner,” I rasp. “I have sushi—”
“Is it something you can pack up and have moved to your house? I need you inside me ten minutes ago.”
I go still, noticing the hot gleam in her eyes and the rise and fall of her chest.
Grasping her wrists, I lower her hands from my face and turn to the staff member standing behind us, ready to guide us over to the corner of the room where our dinner is set up.
“Hey, I hate to be an ass. But do you think you can box all that up to go?”
“Oh my God. Either I’m really freaking starving or this is the best dragon roll I’ve had in my life.” Miriam pops another piece of sushi into her mouth and groans, eyes closing.
That sound and the sight of her in my T-shirt has my cock stirring beneath my basketball shorts. But after enjoying hot, mind-bending sex for the last hour, my dick is going to need to take a back seat to my stomach. I’m hungry as hell.
I select a rainbow roll for myself, and yeah, she’s not wrong. This might be the best sushi I’ve had. But then again, glancing around at the blanket spread on the floor of my living room, with the lamps turned down low and the furniture pushed back to make room for this impromptu picnic, I suppose it might be the intimate atmosphere with this woman that influences the taste.
I have a feeling Miriam would make paste taste like ambrosia.
“Here.” I reach for the edge of the blanket, where I’d discreetly set a gift bag, and pick it up. “For you.”
She pauses in the middle of plucking up another dragon roll and stares at me. Her gaze shifts to the bag, then back to me.
“Another gift?” She lowers her arm, her hand resting on her bare thigh. “Jordan,” she breathes. “You’ve given me so much tonight. Nothing could possibly top what you did in that conference room ...”
“I’m not trying to top it. Just add to it. Here.” I hold the bag out to her. “Take it, sweetheart.”
She accepts the gift bag, though it is with reluctance. After setting it down in front of her, she reaches inside and pulls out a bottle of imported plum sake. The cobalt-blue bottle with pink cherry blossoms is engraved with her name in Japanese. I had it specially ordered weeks ago.
“It’s beautiful.” Her voice is barely a sound, and she handles the gift with a reverence that should be reserved for a relic. A warm glowradiates inside me, and my fingers curl into my palm. “It’s absolutely beautiful.” Her fingers trail over the cherry blossoms. Over the engraving of her name. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Make me want to forget?”
I cross my legs, set my elbows on my knees, and lean forward. “That’s not the first time today you’ve made a mysterious statement like that. What are you talking about, Miriam?”
She turns her head, staring out the window, but I doubt she’s seeing the mountains or the miles of preserve land.
“Do you know why I agreed to join Zora and Levi in opening BURNED?” she asks.
“Yeah, it offered you stability, and you wanted that. Especially with your brother and sister.” Every conversation we’ve had is branded on my brain. There’s nothing about her that I don’t remember.
