‘But?’ Her heart sank a little further. ‘There’s a but coming, isn’t there?’
His fingers loosened around her wrists, his thumbs moving over the backs of her hands in a slow, stroking motion, his eyes still holding hers. ‘I never have sex outside of a formal relationship.’
‘No one-night stands?’
‘No.’
Somehow it didn’t surprise her. He would always colour between the lines. There was no hint of rebel in him. He was cautious by nature, sensible. He led rather than followed. He controlled rather than being swayed by impulse. He didn’t have to look back on all the wrong choices he had made. He probably slept through each night without a single niggle of doubt or self-recrimination to disturb him.
‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ she said. Loneliness. Emptiness. ‘Think of the money you’d have saved on dates if you just got the deed done on the first night.’
He kept holding her hands. Kept holding her gaze in that studied way of his that made her feel he was seeing through the brash layers of bolshiness to the sensitive and wounded girl within. Aiesha would have squirmed but she was too well trained. Years spent hiding her feelings had made her a master at keeping the facade intact. She might have lapsed last night while he found her sleeping, but the front was up again and it was staying up.
‘I like to get to know a person before I have sex with them,’ he said.
Aiesha gave him a bold smile. ‘Hi, I’m Aiesha. I’m twenty-five, almost twenty-six, and I’m a Vegas lounge singer. Well, I was until a few days ago. I’m currently unemployed.’
‘How did you end up working in Vegas?’
She could feel her smile faltering and worked hard to keep it in shape. She wasn’t going to tell him she had followed a dream only to have it blow away on the Nevada dust. The audition she had thought would be her big break had turned out to be for a job in a lingerie bar. Playing the piano in her underwear wasn’t her thing, nor was doing erotic dance tricks on a stripper’s pole to eke out tips from gawping men, but by then her money had been running too low to fly back to London. She had taken the lounge-singer job instead, hoping it would be a springboard to getting noticed as a serious musician. But she’d soon found out no one cared a jot who was behind the piano as long as it got played. ‘I liked the party atmosphere. And the weather. It was a change from cold and wet and dismal London.’
He studied her for another long moment, his expression hard to read. ‘Favourite colour?’
‘It’s a toss-up between pink and blue. I can never decide.’
The left side of his mouth kicked up half a centimetre. ‘Best friend?’
Aiesha looked at him numbly. ‘Um...pass.’
His half smile was quickly replaced with a frown. ‘Are you saying you don’t have a best friend?’
‘I have friends.’ None that I trust. ‘I just don’t have a best one.’ Not any more.
‘How do you like to spend your spare time?’
Aiesha made sure she didn’t have spare time. Any breaks she took were packed with activity. Spare time allowed thoughts to creep in and ghosts from the past to haunt her. But then, relaxing wasn’t something she had learned as a child. Hypervigilance was the setting her brain was jammed on. Watching out for danger, keeping alert to exploitation, always on guard against attack. Nope, it didn’t make for a chilled-out personality. ‘Hey, don’t I get to ask you some questions?’ she said.
‘Not until I’ve asked mine.’
‘That’s not fair.’ She threw in a pout for good measure. ‘You’re getting a head start.’
He smiled that half smile again as he pushed her bottom lip back in with the tip of his finger, like someone closing a drawer. ‘Answer the question.’
Aiesha’s lip tingled where he’d touched it. Tingled and burned. Ached. ‘I hang out.’
‘Hang out where?’
She gave a negligent shrug. ‘The gym. The pool. The barre.’
His brows met over his nose. ‘The bar?’
Aiesha rolled her eyes. ‘Not that sort of bar. I do a ballet class. It’s really good for posture and balance.’
His frown hadn’t quite gone away but it wasn’t one of disapproval, more one of intrigue. Maybe even a little respect. ‘Where’d you go on your last holiday?’
‘San Diego.’
‘Who’d you go with?’
She hesitated for a brief second. ‘I...I went alone. It’s a pain having to travel with other people. They always want to see stuff you aren’t interested in. I like being able to do what I want when I want.’