On the Razor's Edge of Paradise Read online

  "Isa!"

  "What?" I responded, mid-lick, somewhat impatient at having been interrupted in my little ritual.

  "What you're doing is absolutely obscene! Stop fellating that spoon, for Chrissakes—there's no more cheesecake on it!"

  I did stop, long enough to fix her with a haughty glare. "If I was, as you suggest, orally gratifying this spoon, you can be damned sure that it would most certainly have been moaning throughout the process, and by now, it would have been screaming my name."

  My response had everyone in hysterics, so much so that I thought Dan was going to pass out. But at least he wasn't one of those easily offendable types, and he had proven throughout the night that he had good sense of humor and was even a good sport about being teased.

  It wasn't long after that that, Randy and Eve got up and said their goodbyes. When Sharon and Carl returned, Sharon sat on the floor in front of Carl, leaning back against the couch.

  "How did you and Sharon meet?" Dan asked. He'd stolen my spot in the corner of the couch when we'd gotten up to stood to say our goodbyes to the older couple, not allowing me to sit where he'd been—in the middle of the middle couch cushion, but pulling me towards him and looping a deceptively strong, wiry arm around me so that I had no choice but to conform to the curve of his body.

  But, although I found that a bit high handed, he didn't do anything more than that, and I had to admit that it felt good to be tucked up against a man's warm, strong body again.

  I was perfectly fine on my own, but I was also quite willing to admit that I enjoyed being touched, even in this kind of relatively undemanding manner.

  When I tried to rest my head back against him, though, the bun I'd pulled my hair into made it impossible to get comfortable, so I leaned forward a bit—as far away from him as that arm would let me, anyway, to reach back and remove the pretty, elastic sea green ribbon that had been holding it there, sending its length cascading down into Dan's lap.

  Belatedly, I turned my head to try to look back at him. "Sorry, I should have asked if you minded before I dumped all my hair into your lap."

  When I leaned back, he pressed his lips to my ear, murmuring, "You need never apologize for that. Your hair is gorgeous. If I'd known it looked like this when it was loose, we would never have made it out of your parking lot."

  I shivered once, involuntarily, at that, and he rubbed my arms, then pulled me back against him again, wrapping his around me to keep me warm. And keep me tight to him, too, I guessed.

  When I yawned loudly, Dan chuckled. "Sounds like I'd better get someone home to bed."

  And with that, he rose and held his hand out to me.

  Part of me wanted to ignore it, to get up on my own as a kind of non-verbal, "Fuck you," but those usual rebellious parts had gone strangely quiet. It was the usually shyer, much more submissive me that did place my hand meekly into his, and his soft smile at my acquiescence was nearly my undoing.

  I hadn't had a drink all evening, but I have no memory of saying good bye to my good friends and thanking them for a wonderful evening, nor of the drive back to my place, but I don't think we talked very much at all. I don't remember anything except the startlingly sexual feeling of my hand in his, the whole time. I don't usually check out like that quite so completely when I'm with someone I don't know very well, and I have no good excuse for why I did so.

  Except that, for some reason, he made me feel safe, on a very basic level.

  But then, so had Gary, I reminded myself with a start once he'd walked me to my door.

  Despite the reservations that crowded my head, leftovers from my disastrous previous relationship, as well as a natural reticence I would probably never let go of, I still turned to him once we were on my stoop and I'd opened my door. "Would you…like to come in?"

  Dan just gave me one of those sublimely serene smiles of his and, although I was on the top step and he was on the next one down, he was still a little taller than I was, and he still had to bend down to brush a hand down over my hair and kiss my forehead.

  "I am a firm believer in delayed gratification, and even if I wasn't, I don't think you'll ever understand just how much I do want to come in, Isa, but I don't think you're really ready for me to yet, because once I have you, there's going to be no going back."

  My gasp was quite audible, as well as irrepressible, my eyes widening as I stared up at him, body throbbing in a way it hadn't in quite a while—in a way I wished it wouldn't.

  "When I finally have you," he breathed down on me.

  And I could practically taste the whiskey on his breath, realizing with a start and a surge of desire so strong it frightened me, that I desperately wanted this man to kiss me—and more.

  "And that moment, I think, is not too far off. I will claim every bit of you, in every way. And I want you to know that and be very aware of it when I finally merge our bodies together. I will take you for my own—with all that that entails." Those soft lips nuzzled the hair away from my ear as he growled, "And I will never let you go."

  But then he did, leaving me feeling very bereft of his warmth and inclined to offer to have him in again. I didn't get the chance to, though. He took both of my hands in his, pressing them together and kissing the backs of each one, then gazing down at me, his face open, hiding nothing from me, his desire for me flagrant in his eyes, in his ragged breath, as well as the straining fabric of his pants that my eyes flickered down to for only a second. But more than long enough to make me gulp.

  Then he took my chin in his fingers, forcing me to look up at him.

  "It's taking everything I have to leave you right now, but that's what's right. I can feel your hesitance about me, and I understand it. Parts of me even applaud your caution—other parts, not so much," he smiled ruefully. He let go of me abruptly, saying, "Go inside before you grow cold." With a delicate, slow touch of his fingertips to my cheek, he turned away with what I felt was great reluctance, as I put my hand on the doorknob.

  "Isa." The quiet, authoritative command met my ears and—without thinking about it—I turned back to him.

  He was standing in the middle of the walkway, looking up at me. "Be good."

  I grinned mischievously, vowing fervently, "I make absolutely no promises."

  Dan laughed at my audacity, as I'd hoped he would. "That's kind of what I'm counting on."

  He stood there for a moment longer, as did I—caught at the sight of him standing there—all tall and proud—in the moonlight, looking as I would imagine a vampire might, pale and golden and undeniably hungry.

  "Lock the door behind you."

  There was no way he could know me well enough yet to have been familiar with my slightly paranoid tendencies—even though the town I lived in was quite small and quiet and mostly safe.

  "I always do."

  "Good girl. Sleep well."

  "You, too."

  I SURPRISED myself by doing exactly as he'd said—quickly descending into a deep, dreamless sleep once I'd performed my evening ablutions.

  I don't know why, really, but I had kind of thought that I might have had a message from him—either last night or this morning. But I didn't, and somehow, that left me feeling a bit sad. I thought about texting him, but decided against it, not wanting to seem needy when I truly wasn't—or, at the least, tried very hard not to be.

  In fact, I didn't hear from him for three days, and I was mortified to admit to myself that I had spent all of those days waiting—aching—for him to contact me, in the very same way I often scoffed at when friends mentioned they were in the same situation.

  "Call him," I'd say blithely.

  Now, the all too quiet phone was on the other foot.

  So, when he finally did text me, I had a very hard time not being inordinately happy, much more so than I would have liked. Who was this man to waltz into my life with his pseudo English accent and his charmingly old fashioned manners and his dominant airs to blithely disrupt everything I'd carefully reconstructed after the devasta
tion that Gary had left, making me act like some tween schoolgirl with a crush on Harry Styles.

  Are you behaving as you should?

  Of course not, I replied. Where's the fun in that?

  Oh, dear. I had a feeling I shouldn't have left you alone for so long, but I was terribly busy at work and I didn't get home until late every night. I didn't want to wake you with a text or a call. But you'll obviously get yourself into trouble if I don't keep a close eye on you, hmmm?

  Typing, (in a Cockney accent) I'm a good girl, I am.

  LOL Why is it that I highly doubt your assertion, Miss Eliza?

  Oh, dear. He even got my obscure references to fifty-year-old musicals.

  Well, damn.

  I haven't a clue. I am an angel, I tell you. All I've done for the past three days is work, sleep and eat.

  Well, then, such good behavior definitely deserves a reward. I know I'm asking terribly late in the week, but might you be free for dinner this Friday?

  I couldn't hold back a snort. This man obviously knew nothing about me. Unless I was getting together occasionally with friends from work to commiserate of a Friday night, or seeing Sharon, or, even more occasionally, going to see one of my siblings for the weekend, then I was home, my cat and my laptop on my lap, and something good I'd saved up to watch on the telly. Apparently, he thought I had much more of a social life than I did. And far be it for me to disabuse him of that notion.

  I knew the rules of fibb—embellishing. Give out as little information as you could and keep what you did reveal as close to the truth as possible. Yes, this Friday night is spoken for, I'm afraid.

  Almost as soon as I'd sent my message, his appeared on my screen, as if he'd already typed it in, just in case I'd said no.

  Saturday?

  Not wanting to appear too eager, I waited a beat—or three—before answering him—I think I could squeeze you in on Saturday—but I never got a chance to send it, because my phone rang at that point.

  Of course, it was him.

  My, "Hello," was deliberately tentative.

  "Hi."

  This was an inauspicious start. "So you called me because your fingers got tired?"

  "No," he replied promptly. "I called you because I wanted to hear your lovely voice. Texting has no nuance, no tone. You can hide things from me in a completely honest text."

  He couldn't have been suspicious of my extremely tiny social deception, could he? Already? What—did he have some kind of "Dom radar" about these things? I certainly hoped not!

  "Ah. Ok." But I was glad to hear him—his own lovely voice was doing very naughty things to me, in a way I hadn't allowed any man to do in quite some time.

  "So?"

  "So what?" I stalled, just because I could, knowing full well that he would realize that that was exactly what I was doing.

  "Isabella, you don't know me very well, but I will confess right now that one of my many faults is that I'm not a particularly patient man at times."

  "And this is one of those times?" I guessed, glad he couldn't see the slight smirk on my face.

  Rather than answering me, he gave me another warning about himself, "Another is that I do not suffer bratty behavior very well at all, as I have a feeling you will come to find out for yourself in the very near future."

  A "Yes, Sir," was on the tip of my tongue, but I caught it just in time, and he spoke again before I could say anything.

  "Saturday night, yes?"

  I did love that British tendency to end a sentence with "yes" when one expected agreement.

  "Yes, I think I can work you into my social whirl. What time?"

  "That depends. Are there any films out that you'd like to see?"

  We discussed what interested us in the crop of recently released films, and I was gratified to realize that we had similar tastes—not exactly the same, enough different that, if this evolved into an actual relationship, he'd expose me to new things that were more to his taste, which I liked, and I'd do the same for him, which I hope he liked the idea of, too.

  CHAPTER 4

  We ended up going to The Revenant, which saw him laughing at me when I unabashedly rooted for the bear, despite the fact that, afterwards, we both agreed that it was about time Leo got his Oscar. Dinner was at his favorite Mexican restaurant, which surprised me, and I told him that as he seated me—the waiter, of course, having made no effort to do so—then took his own seat, not across from me, but next to me.

  "Why does it surprise you?"

  Damn, when this man decided to be attentive, it was a downright breathtaking experience! He looked at me as if every word I uttered was going to be a jewel of wisdom, and I knew I was bound to disappoint him, starting now.

  I shrugged. "I don't know. I just don't think of Brits eating Mexican food—my bad."

  "Well, I am an American, after all, despite all the time I've spent in England."

  We munched happily on fresh, homemade tortilla chips—not just cut up and fried there, but actually made from corn tortillas that were made from scratch daily—dunking them into a mildly spicy sauce, in my case, and a very spicy sauce, in his.

  But then I watched him push the hotter sauce away and begin to use mine.

  "Chickening out?" I teased.

  "No," he said, catching my eye with a serious look I hadn't expected. "I intend to kiss you later, and that's not quite how I want to make your lips burn for me."

  I was almost sorry I'd asked, but only because of how I could feel my face flushing unbecomingly. I wasn't at all sure what to say about that, so I didn't say anything.

  "You're even prettier—if that's even possible—when you blush," he murmured, reaching out to take my hand off my own lap and put it on his hard thigh.

  "Oh, God, stop that—you could fry an egg on my face!" I tried to hide it behind my other hand with limited success.

  "No, I'm afraid you're just going to have to get used to being complimented, although I hope you'll always blush at them."

  He was a natural talker, so I let him, asking the occasional pertinent question or two, at first, then just letting him go.

  But as I did so—besides the wonderful ear candy that was his voice—I really listened to what he was saying, and began—however involuntarily—to withdraw from him a bit, becoming even quieter than I might have been because I could see several gulfs widening between us as he spoke. He was very smart and had been extremely well educated, two traits that I could, in no way, lay claim to. I have a reasonable vocabulary, but I was allergic to reading what I was told to read in high school. I'd never finished college—where I'd unfortunately exhibited the same stubbornness when it came to reading assignments—and thus, although I understood the words he was using, I often didn't get the frequent literary reference he made and began to seriously wonder what the hell he was doing with me when he could calmly and without the least expression of ego both summarize and dissect great classical works in the course of a casual—if deliberately one-sided—conversation.

  To his credit, when our dinners arrived, he blushed this time—beautifully, of course—saying, "Why didn't you stop me? I've completely monopolized the conversation with all of my ramblings."

  Although I could have looked at that slightly pinkened face for a discourteously long amount of time, I forced myself to begin to construct my fajitas as I spoke, using one of the few, feeble quivers in my bow. "Well, to be honest, at first, I was quiet because I like to listen to you speak. You're very animated and funny, and I have to confess that I'm definitely enamored of how the traces of your British accent mingle with your stronger American one, which is already very pleasing."

  More blushing, but with a slight grin of pleasure at my words.

  "But—about halfway through—I decided to take a page from Lincoln's book."

  He gave me a quizzical look.

  "I used to think that it was either Twain or Rogers, but I looked it up once and discovered to my surprise that it was Abraham Lincoln who said something to the
effect of—and, of course, I'm paraphrasing badly here—that it's better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought at fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

  Dan chuckled softly. "Oh dear. I'm very sorry if I came off as pedantic or elitist or anything like that. That was not at all my intent."

  "I know. I don't even know you very well and I can see that you're not that egotistical type." Or you certainly wouldn't be hanging around me, I thought to myself.

  "Good," he said emphatically. "But I didn't mean to make you feel stupid, either, or inadequate or anything bad."

  "I realize that, too."

  He put his fork down and turned in his chair to face me more head on. "You can see that about me, too?"

  "Yes. I saw that in you at Sharon's party that night. I watched you—covertly—working your way around the room, and I saw how affectionate you were and enthusiastic about everyone you met—old friend or new—it seemed to be entirely genuine, and I haven't seen anything from you yet that counters that."

  He blushed brighter. "I'm glad you're able to perceive that, because I would never want to make anyone feel that way, least of all you. I've had the advantage of well-to-do parents and very good schooling and a reasonably good mind."

  The last was damning with faint praise if I ever heard it.

  "But that doesn't mean that I think I'm better than anyone else, especially not you."

  I nodded. "I know that."

  "You know quite a bit about me already, don't you? You're very perceptive and intuitive, both qualities I prize very highly." He leaned towards me, putting his hand on my chair, near my shoulder, and fixing me with a very intense stare. "I hope you want to learn more, Isa, because I would like to learn everything about you and share everything you're interested in learning about me with you. I know I'm probably going too quickly for you—you're a cautious person and I'm glad of that—it probably saved you from being hurt by a lot of asshole men."

  Unfortunately, not one in particular, but he was right, otherwise.

  The pain I was feeling upon remembering him must've shown on my face.