Eden sighed and rolled her eyes, tugging the dress over her head and tossing it on the pile of rejected clothes on the floor. “At this point I’d be better off going naked.”
“Something I’m sure Dominic would not mind. How about the nude bandage dress?”
“You don’t think it’s too much?”
Jenna snorted. “Better than the granny dress.”
The bandage dress fit her like a second skin; it was unforgiving in displaying every unflattering flaw of a woman’s body, right down to the awkward stomach pooch. But luckily for Eden, it simply accentuated the litheness of her body, giving her curves where there was little. It made her ass look amazing. “So where’s he taking you.”
Eden was about to shrug but thought better of it as Jenna brought the curling iron to her hair. “I don’t know. He wanted it to be a surprise I guess.”
“He sure knows how to make a girl feel special, though.” She sighed wistfully, meeting Eden’s gaze in the mirror. “He’s trying really hard.”
“I know and that’s what makes this so confusing and frustrating. He wasn’t like this before—the wining and dining, and being kind and gentle—that’s not the Dominic I know.”
“Maybe that wasn’t the real him. Maybe he had reasons for being a prick. I don’t know what went on in your marriage, Eden, and I can’t speak for him because I don’t know him, but I think he’s trying to show you that he cares about you. People can change.”
“Not that quickly. I’m not trying to be a bitch. I just want to protect myself. You don’t know how easily he can hurt me.”
“I know, trust me, Eden, I know. But you can’t let fear of heartbreak keep you from something that might be really good. I’m not saying you have to proclaim your undying love, but maybe you both deserve another chance at this?”
What she said made sense. But saying things was far easier than actually carrying them out. Eden wasn’t ready to walk the talk, not by a long shot. “I don’t know, we’ll see.” It was all she could manage. Time would tell. It had certainly healed over some wounds, but there were others that could not be so easily mended.
* * *
She never ceased to take his breath away or make his cock stir, and it took incredible restraint to keephimself from hauling her back up to their bedroom to see exactly how much of that dress was painted on her Venus body. Dinner was at Dulce, Franklin’s restaurant, and Eden found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on her meal with his smoldering gaze heating her skin. She might as well have been naked with the way he was eye fucking her.
“Stop it.” she gritted through clenched teeth, staring at him pointedly across the dimly lit table.
“Stop what?”
“You’re staring.”
He angled a brow. “Am I?”
“You know you are, and I want you to stop.”
When he ran the tip of his tongue across his full lower lip, Eden’s pussy clenched reflexively, dampening her thong instantly. “Do you?”
“Dominic.”
“Should I tell you what I’m thinking about?” he queried, his voice deep and dark and everything sinful, rousing Eden’s passion. The wicked gleam in his hooded green eyes did not bode well for her at all.
“No,” she said curtly. She didn’t want to know. And she lied to herself so prettily.
His chuckle indicated that he knew it, too. She didn’t even remember what she had for dinner or dessert, all that consumed Eden was Dominic’s intrusive stare and how wet it made her.
“I wanted to spread you on that table, hike your dress up, slip between your panties, and have you for my dinner,” he murmured huskily in her ear before helping her inside the passenger seat.
It was mean of him to say that to her knowing she couldn’t do anything about it. Frustration kept her silent and kept her legs clenched together, hating how embarrassingly wet she was. She fumed all the way up until the moment she saw where he’d taken her, and her anger burned away, the ashes blowing away like plumes of smoke against the dark night sky.
Eden instantly recognized the club, and as though plucked from her memories, it appeared utterly unchanged. She’d been nineteen the last time she’d come to Better Blues. Halting at the threshold, Eden stared at Dominic bemusedly as he held the door for her. She struggled to find words, but they failed her, so she simply shook her head and walked inside.
Everything was the same, from the lazily strung white Christmas lights adorning the low ceiling, to the distinct scent of pot laced patchouli that hung over the dense crowd. The seating was minimal, the prime real estate being the ten small tables with mismatched chairs at the center of the room, which were all occupied. But as luck would have it, a couple abandoned their seats in the far left corner of the room and they were close enough to nab it before anyone else could. Eden looked around her surroundings as memories flooded back.
For a good year of her life, this place had been her escape, her haven when she’d needed a break from life at home, school, and the constant worrying about money. Every Thursday, sitting in these worn, wooden chairs with the scent of patchouli laden in the air, openmic night had ushered in poets who’d shared a piece of themselves and singers who’d awaken the music in Eden. Until one evening she’d finally scrounged up the nerve to expose herself, expose her voice. It had been one the most frightening and exhilarating experiences of her life, and when she’d finished, the thunderous applause had fed her soul. Singing had been fun back then, freeing, and it had been sheer bliss when her mother had attended. However rare her appearances had been, Eden had delighted in the short three minutes when her mother had heard her sing. She’d been Eden’s biggest fan, hell, heronlyfan.
The regulars of Better Blues milled around the room, varying in looks and undoubtedly from all walks of life, but they all had one thing in common, they all came here to feast on beautifully laced words and drink lyrics that flowed from an endless tap. This was where Dominic took Eden, to this mecca of creativity that had been an integral part of her last year of true happiness, before everything had gone to shit. He should not have known this part of her. This intimate, private part of her that she’d never shared with anyone. And what’s more was she hadn’t realized how much she’d craved this until now. She wanted to turn and ask him questions, questions to answers that only he could provide, but words deserted her as the feminine voice from the makeshift stage had her turning instead. She was backed by only an acoustic guitar; she sang the blues like she was born to do it, with a breathy intonation that provoked goose bumps on Eden’s skin. Shutting down all thoughts, Eden allowed herself to be swept away, and when the woman finally whispered the last heartrending lyric, stretching out the note so that everyone felt the word, Eden was sure that she cheered the loudest.
