“I take it you’ve never had caviar?” he asked.
“No, and I don’t think I want to. Who would ever look at fish eggs and think it would be something good to eat? Ugh.”
He watched her nose wrinkle up in distaste, and he decided ragging her was his safest option—and hers. “You didn’t like liver either, remember?” he reminded. “I think I’ll bring caviar next time so you can try it. In the meantime,” he added to console her as she shivered, “you can have my share of the baklava.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think I could eat a second piece. I’m far too full.” She ate the last bite, set down her fork, and pushed back her plate with a contented sigh. “That was lovely, thank you.”
He lifted his glass of champagne and bowed his head. “My pleasure.”
She looked down at the remains of their meal. “It was very thoughtful of you to bring the food from the banquet for me to try,” she said softly, and looked at him again. “I never would have thought it when we first met, but you’re a very kind person, did you know that?”
Kind? His gaze slid irresistibly downward, his mind in the gutter.If she only knew.
He was fully aware that being deemed kind when his thoughts were absolutely carnal proved him the worst of hypocrites. “Yes, well,” he muttered, “I’m just sorry you couldn’t sample all the dishes that were served last night. But,” he added, rummaging in the basket, “you’ll be happy to know I did bring you some of the peach sorbet.”
“Sorbet?” She stared at him dubiously as he pulled out a stoneware crock and placed it on the table. “But you brought it from the Savoy, didn’t you? It must surely be melted by now?”
“No doubt, but when one is on a picnic, one must sometimes improvise.” He flipped open the bail on the crock and reached for her champagne glass. “And sorbet,” he went on as he added a dollop of the syrupy liquid to her half-empty glass, “is sometimes served in champagne.”
She sampled the concoction and when she smiled, he was glad he’d insisted to Escoffier that yes, he wanted some of the sorbet, too. Within a minute, she’d downed the last swallow.
“That was luscious,” she said, peering into her glass with a sorrowful expression. “But it’s all gone.”
Never in his life had Max contemplated plying a woman with alcohol to take advantage of her, but he would not have been a man of flesh and blood if an image of Evie, naked in his bed upstairs with a tipsy smile on her lips, had not crossed his mind.
He’d feed her dates and figs and honey-infused baklava, tasting each one on her mouth as he kissed her. He’d kiss her freckles, too, he decided. Every last one of them, from the tip of her nose to her small, sweet breasts, to her—
“Can I have more?”
The sound of her voice hauled him firmly back. “No,” he said and plucked the glass from her hand, ignoring her cry of vexation. “We have to practice.”
Setting aside her glass, he picked up her gloves, circled the table, slapped the gloves into her palm, and began propelling her toward the door. “Come on.”
Knowing he needed all the self-protection he could muster, he paused by the door long enough to don his evening coat and pull on his gloves. Fully and properly dressed, he felt once more the master of himself, and by the time they had made the journey to the ballroom, he was reasonably sure he could make it through the remainder of the evening without ravishing her.
His certainty about that lasted for half a waltz. His hand on her back, the scent of her hair, the warmth of her body so tantalizingly close to his all chipped away at his resolve, and he found himself wishing she would stumble so that he had an excuse to pull her fully into his embrace.
She proved aggravatingly unwilling to cooperate with that idea, however, and they reached the end of Strauss’s “Voices of Spring” without a single misstep.
“I did it! Max, I did it!” She laughed, showing that rum, off-kilter smile of hers, pushing him closer to oblivion, and he knew his body could not endure the agony of another waltz with her.
“You might have been waltzing since your cradle,” he said and let her go. “Let’s see how you do with a polka.” He stepped back, working to regain his balance. “You know how?”
She made a rueful face. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
He walked to the gramophone, putting some much-needed distance between them, and placed the liveliest polka he could find on the turntable. He closed his eyes for a second, praying for fortitude, then put the needle on the disk and returned to where she stood in the center of the dance floor.
“Remember, it’s a bit like a waltz,” he told her, taking her hand in his and spreading his other hand across her back as the strains of an accordion filled the room, “only livelier. Just follow my lead and don’t look down.”
She nodded, he counted off, and they began, swirling around the room in four-four time, and though they stumbled once or twice, he kept her moving quickly across the floor, ignoring her laughing protests, certain that if they stopped moving, he’d do something he’d regret.
But they couldn’t dance forever, and when the music ended, he proved to be an excellent judge of his own character, for as they came to a halt, he couldn’t bear to let her go. Instead, he slid his palm down her back, and as he did, he felt himself sinking. Down, down he went, into that place where his body did all the thinking and very bad decisions were made.
Evie, still laughing from their wild, crazy dancing, didn’t seem to notice the change in him. “Oh, that was so much fun!” she cried, panting.
“Ripping,” he agreed, spreading his hand across her tailbone, just above the curve of her buttocks.
“As fast as we were going, I only stumbled twice.” She laughed again, shaking her head in disbelief as she looked up at him, smiling that smile of hers. “Can you believe that?”
