She was rewarded with a loud bark of laughter that did the impossible. Made his voice even sexier. Desire slid through her veins in a slow, heady glide.
She stiffened. No. Impossible. It’d been years since she’d felt even the slightest flicker of this thing that heated her from the inside out.
If she harbored even the tiniest shred of common sense, she’d back away from this man now and blindman’s bluff it until she placed some much needed distance between them. Desire had once fooled her into falling in love. And falling in love had led to a heartbreaking betrayal she was still recovering from.
No, she should make sure he was okay, then leave. With moving back to Chicago, raising her son as a single mother and working a full-time job, she didn’t have the time or inclination for something as mercurial as desire.
You’re sitting here in the dark with him, not dating him.
One night. Just one night.
She sighed.
And stayed.
“Is something wrong?” A large hand settled on her shoulder and cupped it. She gritted her teeth, refusing to lean into that gentle but firm hold.
“Nothing. Just these shoes,” she lied, bending and slipping off one and then the other to validate the fib. “They’re beautiful, but hell on the feet.”
He released another of those soft chuckles that sent her belly into a series of tumbles.
“What’s your name?” His thumb stroked a lazy back-and-forth caress over her bare skin, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip. Heat radiated from his touch. Until this moment, she hadn’t known her shoulder was an erogenous zone. Funny the things she was finding out in the dark.
What had he asked? Right. Her name.
Alarm and dread filtered into her pleasure, tainting it. Gage had done a damn good job of demonizing her to his family, and then his family had made sure everyone with a willing ear and flapping gums knew Isobel as a lying, greedy whore. It’d been two years since she’d left Chicago, but the insular ranks of high society never forgot names when it came to scandals.
Again, she squeezed her eyes shut as if she could block out the scorn and derision that had once flayed her soul. She still yearned to be known as more than the cheap little gold digger people believed her to be.
“Why do you want my name?” she finally replied.
A short, but weighty pause. “Because I need to know who to thank,” he murmured. “And considering we’ve known each other all of ten minutes, ‘sweetheart’ seems a little forward.”
“I don’t mind ‘sweetheart,’” she blurted out. His grasp on her shoulder tightened, and a swirl of need pooled low in her belly. “What I mean is we don’t need names here. In the dark, we can be other people, different people, and I like the idea of that.”
The bit of deception plucked at her conscience. Because she had no doubt that if he was familiar with her name, he would want nothing to do with her. And selfish though it might be, she’d rather him believe she was some coy debutante than the notorious Widow Wells.
That large hand slid over her shoulder, up her neck and cradled the back of her head. A sigh escaped her before she could contain it.
“Are you hiding, sweetheart?” he rumbled.
The question could have sounded inane since it seemed like the whole city was hunkered down, cloaked in darkness. But she understood what he asked. And the lack of light made it easier to be honest. At least in this.
“Yes,” she breathed, and braced herself for his possible rejection.
“You’re stiffening again.” The hand surrounding hers squeezed lightly, a gesture of comfort. “Don’t worry, your secrets are as safe with me as you are.” He paused, his fingertips pressing into her scalp. “Just as I am with you.”
Oh, God. That...vulnerable admission had no business burrowing beneath skin and bone to her heart. But it did.
“Keep your name, but, sweetheart—” he heaved a heavy sigh, and for an all-too-brief moment he pressed his forehead to hers “—thank you.”
“I...” She swallowed, a shiver dancing down her spine. Whether in delight or warning, she couldn’t tell. Probably both. “You’re welcome. Anyone would’ve done the same,” she whispered.
Something sharp edged through his low chuckle. “That’s where you’re wrong. Most people would’ve kept going, only concerned with themselves. Or they would’ve taken advantage.”
She didn’t answer; she wanted to refute him but couldn’t. Because the sad fact was, he’d spoken the truth. Once she’d been a naïve twenty-year-old who’d believed in the good in people, in the happily-ever-after peddled by fairy tales. Gage had been her drug. And the withdrawal from him had nearly crushed her into the piece of nothing he’d constantly told her she was without him.
Shaking her head to get him out of her mind, she bent down and swept her hands along the floor, seeking the purse she’d dropped. Her fingertips bumped the beaded clutch, and with a small sound of victory, she popped it open and withdrew the snack bar she’d stashed there before leaving her apartment. With a two-year-old, keeping snacks on hand was a case of survival. And though her son hadn’t joined her at the gala, she’d tossed the snack in out of habit. Now she patted herself on the back for her foresight.
