She jerks back. “Uh, we don’t. And certainly not at this moment.”
“Yeah, we do, actually,” I correct.
“Excuse me, I’m Bill.” Bill holds his hand out to shake mine, but his face holds challenge. The guy is feeling his ego right now.
“One minute, Bill.” I glance sideways briefly and then I look back to my little vixen. “Time to go. Say goodnight.”
“I’m not going anywhere right now,” she denies and covers her chest with her arms.
This pushes her tits up and I catch the asshole across the table looking directly at those tits.
I turn to him. “You wanna take a flyin’ fuck?”
He jerks back.
“Jude,” Ally mutters.
“No, really. Get your eyes off my woman’s chest.”
The guy gives me a double-take. “Sorry, man. We’re just out as friends. We work together, and-”
Ally shoots him an evil glare and throws her napkin on the table.
“Fuck this.” She rises and reaches into her bag and drops two twenties on the table. “I’m outta here. Sorry, Bill. This guy is a neanderthal. Get out of here, Jude.”
“We’re leaving together.”
“Give me a break,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m goin’ to a friend’s house.”
“I got something to tell you and unless you want me saying it right here, you come with me. Now.”
Her face falls.
I keep my eyes focused on her face.
Yeah. I know, Vixen.
I say this with my expression instead of my mouth.
“If you don’t wanna stay for food, I’ll walk you home,” Bill Burrell says, rising.
Ally and I are still in an eye-lock. I break it to glance at him. With aggression rolling off me.
“No need, man,” I say.
The schmuck has the good sense to lean back.
Unfortunately for this motherfucker, his body language doesn’t match his mouth.
“I don’t leave my dates or my female friends to walk home alone at night when they’ve been out with me. Even if our night was cut short rudely.”
“She won’t walk home alone; I’ll be walking with her.”
“Not if that’s not what she wants,” he says, looking at Ally questioningly.
“I’ll be walking her home ‘cuz that’s where I’ll be sleepin’ tonight, bud.” I shoot him a smile. “Won’t I, Vixen?”
“Correction, Bill. My roommate is a neanderthal.”
Bill frowns.
“I’m sorry about this. Stay. Have dinner,” she suggests, dropping two more twenties on the table. “My apologies.”
“You gonna be okay?” Bill asks.
“Of course,” she replies.
I bare my teeth at him before I follow her out.
She mutters some sort of apology to the hostess on the way out the door and then we’re outside. It’s windy, so her hair is whipping around.
“You’re a dick,” she informs me.
I shrug. “And you’re coming home with me right now. I’m making you dinner, and then I’m taking you to bed and I’m fucking you.”
Her lips part in surprise, but she quickly tries to cover it with a shake of her head. “Not happening. You’ve got less than a day left and you’ve got nothing.” Though her words are confident, her tone isn’t.
“Oh, don’t I?”
“Do you?”
“I have enough.”
Her expression drops. “Enough?”
“C’mon, let’s get there first.” I tag her hand. “I’d rather be inside in close proximity to a bed when we finish this chat. Because this chat is gonna have even more than your real name, baby.” I pick up my pace and she’s jogging to keep up.
“Jude. You’re going too fast,” she says breathlessly half a block later.
I react by scooping her up and holding her in my arms without breaking stride.
She gasps.
“I’ve been waiting weeks for this.”
“Barely.”
“Feels like months, actually. I need inside you. And gotta say, the little bit of teasing I subjected you to our first time? That was a cake walk compared to the edging I’m gonna put you through tonight. You’ve been a very bad girl.”
She stares wide-eyed and it’s dim out here, but I’d swear her pupils are larger. Her chest rises and falls rapidly. My girl likes this, evidently. Though my money is on her trying to deny it.
She says nothing the rest of the way, but I feel her eyes devouring my face a lot like the way she looked at me that first night we met.
Once we’re in the building, the security guard waves at us and gives the thumbs up. “Much better, Ally.”
Ally looks at him with shock. He laughs as I take her into the elevator.
“Okay, put me down,” she orders.
I don’t.
“Jude!”
I set her on her feet once the doors are shut.
“You’re being a cave man.”
“Damn straight,” I say and lean in. “A date? Wearin’ a dress like that for somebody that isn’t me? I do not fucking think so.”
“You’re saying I’m not allowed to date anybody? What gives you the right to set that rule?”
“You know exactly what gives me that right,” I tell her.
And I see realization in her eyes and also… more panic.
“You’re pretending you won the bet just ‘cuz you’re mad that I was on a date because you’ve decided we’re in some sort of warped one-way relationship?”