The Dimple Strikes Back Read Online Free Page A

against the booth, the hurt etched in his whole body—every muscle tense, his mouth tight. A minute slipped by. I said nothing more, needing to hear his answer without giving him any sympathetic wiggle room. My willingness to let him wiggle had got me more familiar with my vibrator than him as of late.
    He nodded and a haggard smile appeared. “How can I fault you for thinking that? I just—” He took another drink.
    I picked up my wine and followed suit.
    “I just wanted you to tell me…that you cared.”
    Well, that made me feel like a grade-A asshole. My stomach twisted around on itself. I took his hand and held it to my cheek. He immediately began stroking my skin, and I couldn’t bear to fight anymore. “I can be patient,” I said. “I don’t exactly have a traditional job anymore, either.”
    He swept in for a kiss that nearly snapped my bra off. His lips were hot and desperate, fired up by angst. Pulling back, he said, “You know that I think you’re the funniest and most brilliant actress alive, right? You pretty much steal whatever you’re in, my short redhead.”
    What egocentric thespian wouldn’t grin after a line like that? “Yes, I’ll sleep with you. You don’t have to go on and on.”
    “I know you’ll sleep with me. It’s my principal certainty in life, besides you crying when I don’t want you to. Which is always.”
    Oh, sure, mock me just because I tear up faster than you can say, ‘Look, a Sarah McLachlan commercial about abused animals.’
    “Maybe I won’t sleep with you,” I muttered before polishing off my dinner with one giant bite. I wasn’t that easy!
    “Yes, you will.”
    Yes, I was.
    He downed the rest of his beer and caught the eye of our waiter. Sam handed over his credit card without looking at the bill. I wondered which alias’ name was on it. Sam was definitely his actual, real, birth-certificate first name. After that, things got fuzzy. “Should I be thanking Richmond for my meal, or Bert?” I asked. “Perhaps Ernie?”
    He pulled my arm and drew me to him until there was no air between us. His whisper was hot on my ear and danced down my neck. “How, exactly, will I be thanked?”
    “Who, exactly, are you?” I finished my wine, my stomach warming to it, and him, and our game. “I’m not familiar with Bert. Perhaps he doesn’t like it when I unzip his pants with my teeth.”
    A small, breathy moan escaped his mouth. It blew across my neck, already over-stimulated. I could swear it blew across my pussy, too. His voice got low and deep, the way it did when he pushed me into the mattress and… “ Everyone here at Thief Industries enjoys it when you do that. How about this—” His fingers skimmed upward and unzipped my dress a scant inch, and then teased the exposed skin at my nape. I locked my jaws together to stifle my whimper. “Let me take you back to the apartment and convince you that I have the utmost respect for your heart. And for,” he nuzzled my earlobe, “a lot of your other places.” He tugged the zipper pull up again, one millimetre at a time. “Maybe you can teach me that teeth thing.”
    I find that most things in life would go so much more smoothly if sexy people suggested them. ‘Let’s create world peace,’ a saucy lady might say, or ‘Sheltering the homeless is a capital idea,’ says the half-naked male model, and suddenly—boom!—all problems ever are solved because of the worldwide orgy. I guess that’s called ‘advertising’, and was why the characters on Mad Men were always raring to get it on.
    Sam craned his neck to see my face. “I’m not sure I want to know what you’re contemplating, but I believe you’re agreeing with me?”
    I smiled. “Mmm-hmm.”
    We rose to leave, his hand in the small of my back and straying lower. I giggled and swatted him away. I did not need a cell phone pic of me getting goosed by an international fugitive. No way was I so famous that folks were stalking me hoping to get a moment