Page 68 of X's and O's

Wyatt had shielded me from it like I was something precious. Something to be taken care of.

I couldn’t remember anyone else ever making me feel like that.

Even if it was completely unnecessary.

I shook myself a little, remembering this was the sort of thing he got paid for. If he turned up here, acting like a regular slob who scratched his ass and burped in my face, I doubted he’d have any return clients. I stepped back, putting some space between us so I could breathe. “Wow. You’re good,” I muttered.

He squinted. “What was that?”

“Nothing. Not important.”

He stopped me and put his finger beneath my chin, tilting it up again so I was staring into his blue eyes. “If it came out of your pretty mouth, sweetheart, it’s important to me.”

My mind went blank. I couldn’t even remember my name, let alone what I’d said.

Apparently, my face said all of that, because he just tucked me against his side again, so familiar, like I had every right in the world to be this up close and personal with a man I’d only just met.

But it was also entirely possible he knew his wholepresence was completely overwhelming and that I couldn’t walk straight without him there supporting me.

How embarrassing. And yet I didn’t want him to stop. I was starting to get swept up in the fairy tale he was spinning for me, and I didn’t care if, logically, I knew all of this was just because I was paying him.

For once in my life, I was getting a taste of what other women seemed to find so easily.

Before I knew it, we were striding inside Sinners, and Wyatt was greeting the maître d’ as if they were old friends. I tried to keep my eyes from bugging out at the lavish restaurant interior and the low, sexy music playing through hidden speakers. There were no rowdy groups celebrating birthdays or work promotions like was normal at the sort of restaurants I normally went to. Sinners was all single tables, with no more than two elegantly dressed people at each. The vibe was dark and intimate, and I felt wholly out of place in the cheap dress I’d picked up at a Goodwill for eleven dollars.

The dresses of the women around me probably cost more than a month of rent on the apartment I shared with Toby. Their hair was all long and glossy curls. Mine were limp noodles in comparison.

I caught the eye of one woman looking at me curiously, and I just knew what she was thinking.

How did a woman like me, end up out to dinner on the arm of a man like Wyatt DeLeon?

Was that a smirk on her face? She knew, didn’t she? That I was paying him to be here with me?

Fuck my life. I was such a loser. “I should—”

Wyatt caught my arm and slid his fingers down it until he was holding my hand. “You should come sitdown and have a meal with me. Stop thinking or I’ll find a way to do it for you.”

I glanced up at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means your self-doubts are so loud the entire room can hear them.”

“Everyone is staring at me.”

“Because you’re beautiful. No other reason.”

I so wanted to believe him. The maître d’ indicated we should follow him to a table, so we did. Heads turned as we passed, and Wyatt leaned down to whisper in my ear.

“Hold your head up high. Act like when we sit down at this table, I’m going to crawl beneath it and lick your bare pussy until you come.”

My eyes bulged. “Oh my God. You can’t say things like that.”

“Why? Because you might ask me to actually do them?”

Yes.

“No, of course not. That would be…” Hot. “Inappropriate. So inappropriate.”

The maître d’ stopped at a table, and Wyatt stepped in front of me when I went to pull my chair out, completely cutting me off. He pulled it out for me instead. I sat before I could do the wrong thing again.