Page 44 of The Marriage Deal
"I didn't. I bought it over there." I gestured at the confection stand. Elle frowned and looked at me as though she were seeing something she's never seen before.
"Thanks," she said. Then added, "Doesn't mean I am going to sleep with you. I am not that cheap."
"I wasn't thinking about it."
She turned her gaze away from me, blushing. "I never… I was just…"
"The offer is still on the table, though."
I leaned in and whispered. "Don't you want to feel me between your thighs again?" She jerked back, startling Gina, an archeologist, sitting beside us. "Sorry," Elle muttered and then slapped my thigh. "Look what you're making me do."
"So you still want me. Noted."
"No," she said in a hushed tone. "I don't. One night was enough. I had my fill. The money is on the dresser."
"If you think making me feel like a sex worker will dissuade me, you're mistaken."It only made me want to prove how good I can make her feel. "This slut will lick your cunny all night long, Missus."
"Cunny?" She rolled her eyes at my archaic term, her gaze on the battlefield. But a smile popped at the corner of her lips. When she turned to face me again, she had schooled her features into a cool, bland mask."I am not available, mister. Get your pleasure elsewhere."
"But you're the only one who can satisfy me." I trailed my finger down her arm. "There's only one woman I want, and it's you."
Her eyes darkened. Desire flaming up. Heat spread through my body that had nothing to do with the weather. A cannon sounded as I pressed against her ever so slightly. I thought I saw her come closer too, but at the last second she pulled back, cutting off the string of desire, and turned back to the field.
The reenactment was in its final act. We watched as the soldiers performed their last battle as my heart hammered to the drumbeat. I wanted to stay close to her, but being this close, inhaling her scent was only driving me crazy. And the rejection only making me even more determined to have her again.
After the reenactment was over, we went to a luncheon Thompson had planned, which was a cross between a barbeque and a picnic. Somewhere along the line, I had been given the barbeque task while Elle got busy setting up the picnic. We didn't get together again until it was time to settle down and eat. By then, half the group was halfway drunk and the other half itching to get there.
"I had no idea the geriatrics were this rowdy," Elle said to me as Thompson and the husband of one professor tried to reenact what really happened on the battlefield of Gettysburg only to clash into the other and fall on top of each other in a messy heap.The two men triedand failed to get up.
I shook my head. "If I had known, I would have taken them up on their offer a long time ago."
"They invited you before?" She asked me, sliding over to me on the picnic bench. I'm not sure she noticed that she was moving to my side, and I didn't want her to take note only for her to withdraw. We were sitting on our own with the entire six people table to ourselves. We had booked a bigger part of the park and had a great deal of privacy as a group.
I nodded. "I didn't need to be married or be dating someone. Thompson even suggested setting me up with one of his kids."
"Oh!"
"I know. It didn't feel as odd as it does now."
"Interesting." She ripped a piece of the bun in her hand and popped it in her mouth. A simple act that had no business being as seductive as it was. "You could be sitting with a younger, feminine version of Thompson right now in a different universe."
"Never," I said, my gaze lingering on her mouth, watching the way it moved.
"Don't." The breathlessness in her voice made me gaze into her eyes. The dark brown eyes were a chocolate shade in the sunlight.
"What?"
"Look at me like that."
"How am I looking at you?"
"Like you want to devour me."
"I do. You know I do."
Her breath hitched in her throat. She broke the stare and turned to her charred chicken. She broke a piece, placed it on a piece of a bun and ate.
"Stop!" she said again.
