Page 32 of Cognac Secrets
“And I don’t usually spend that much at all; I haven’t for months. I’m having a good time,” he said. “Let me.”
I smiled then, and nodded carefully, and we waited for our waiter’s return.
Bennie signed off on the slip for the total amount and dropped an additional forty dollars on the table for a tip. I gave a long slow blink. I mean, he was a good waiter, but that was almost fifty percent of the bill! Seemed like Bennie had money to burn and I onlywishedI could tip like that. I couldn’t, though, and thus I didn’t eat out often. Usually, I could barely afford to make it the entire month, even cooking all my meals at home.
Still, I liked to take care of myself. A lifetime of my father bitching at me about my upkeep and likewise, boyfriends doing the same after I was out on my own, had made me pernicious in my independence. I didn’t like taking anything from anyone. It was an unsettling feeling doing it now, to the point I shifted uncomfortably in my seat a little.
Bennie’s inscrutable gaze wandered over me but he said nothing. I could see the wheels turning, just behind his eyes, and I confess it drove me low key nuts not being able to tell what he was thinking or feeling.
“What?” I asked, a bit on edge and he smiled.
“Just trying to figure you out,” he said with a tiny shake of his head.
“There’s honestly not much to me. I promise,” I told him.
“Somehow, I don’t think you give yourself enough credit in that department,” he replied and he looked almost… charmed. Which I totally did not get.
“What do you say, let’s get out of here,” he said softly after some more silence. I raised my chin, plastered on a smile that belied my sudden nervousness, and nodded.
We stood up and picked up our things from where we’d set them on the floor by the wall, or hung them off the backs of our chairs, and made our way through the restaurant and for the door.
“So, um, are we doing this now or…?” I let the question hang, not knowing what to expect or what he was thinking, and honestly good with whatever he wanted just soIdidn’t have to decide.
He stepped up to me, his eyes sweeping me from hairline to chin and back to lock eyes with me. I swore I almost felt my heart stop. My breath certainly caught, stilling in my lungs, and then his mouth was on mine before my brain could even register that he’d moved. His body pressed the length of mine, one of his hands at my hip, the other buried at the back of my hair, thumb stroking just below my ear and Imelted. I felt all the tension leave my body, my hand going up to tangle in the lapel of his jacket, the leather warm and slick beneath my fingers as I pulled myself closer to him.
His beard wasn’t at all unpleasant against my skin, and his mouth was warm and so hard pressed against mine, I almost wondered if my lips would feel bruised. I didn’t care. No, it was fireworks going off behind my closed eyelids, my soul singing, my blood zinging through my veins with the thrill and excitement of the big drop on a roller coaster.
And through it all, as much as I felt that I would like to float away, Bennie kept me grounded. Rooted to the spot to a point that I’d never felt soanchored,and it was an elusive feeling I’d searched for for so long. Suddenly it washere, and so big, so wonderful, and better than I even could imagine.
He drew back, both of us panting, both of us breathless with this unnamed magic, and his eyes were wild and oh-so serious when he asked me, “Need to swing by your place and grab a change of clothes?”
“And feed the cats their dinner,” I said. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Just tell me where I’m going.”
I gave him Gerard’s address and he nodded like he knew where it was. We got on his bike, buckling our helmets in place.
I tingled all over with a rush of excitement as he pulled up to the curb in front of the house that I indicated on the residential street. I hopped off, almost before we’d stopped moving completely.
“Do what you gotta do,” he said. “I’ll be right here.”
I nodded, and let myself in through the garden’s side gate, and around the back of the house, keying my way into the kitchen door off the low back deck to the hungry cries of twoverymiffed princess Siamese.
“I know, I know, I’m late with your dinner. I’m sorry!”
I took up their dirty food bowls from their breakfast and took down fresh ones from the cupboard and sped through dishing up their split can of evening wet food.
I set the food dishes down and stood up to the sounds of the girls chowing down around their loud purring.
”Glad you’re happy,” I said with a sigh and swept past them to go upstairs, then up the final steep flight of corner attic stairs to my room.
I didn’t want to keep Bennie waiting.
CHAPTERNINE
Bennie…
My lips still tingled from hers, even after the ride and sitting out front of her place. Just this small absence of her getting her shit together made my palms itch with the desire to have her under them again, and my cock was hard as a rock just thinking about having her underme.
