Eight Ways to Ecstasy (7 page)

Her dry voice bore the tiniest hint of a tremor. “Let me guess. Your treat?”

“If you'll let me,” he said, aiming for assuredness, but it came out weak.

And there was that snicker of a laugh. “Not sure I have much choice. I know what dishwashers get paid by the hour.”

Of course she did. She was a waitress, right? When she wasn't working on her art.

He couldn't stand it a minute longer. He wanted her to reach for him, but here he was again, extending his arm across the table, placing his hand over hers, and the contact made him sing with relief. At the same time that something inside him went unbearably, impossibly sad.

“I want you to enjoy yourself, Kate. Have whatever you like. I want to give this to you.” This experience. This night.

Her chest rose and fell. But after a second, she nodded. “All right.”

She didn't stumble over her order when their server came around, didn't even argue when Rylan asked for a bottle of wine.

If only Rylan knew if that was a good sign or not.

Kate had never had a more delicious, more painfully tense meal in her life.

It was a pathetic movie trope, the unsophisticated girl who didn't even know what fork to use, but tropes were tropes for a reason. Kate worked her way in from the outside of the place setting like the etiquette teacher in some trite old film had instructed his plucky heroine to do, and she hoped for the best. Drank her wine and ate the world's most amazing, most shockingly expensive steak.

Through it all, Rylan kept looking at her, not with the apprehension he'd had in his eyes as he'd shown her to the car, but with something almost worse.

When they were done, he paid the bill without even looking at it, and led her out. Their car was already waiting. She held her breath. “Where to now?”

Rylan ushered her in, but closed the door before she could slide across to the other side. Oh. Right. Because this was a nice car. A nice dress. Only she wasn't very nice at all.

He got in on the other side and made a gesture at their driver to wait. They stayed there idling at the curb, quiet music and the muted sounds of the traffic filtering in, but the silence felt like it would strangle her all the same.

Rylan turned the full power of his gaze on her. “I have tickets for the ballet.”

She tried to hide the way her eyes wanted to bug out of her skull. “The ballet?”

He'd said they'd be heading to a show, but that was the last thing she'd been expecting. The corner of his mouth twitched. “You don't want to go.” It wasn't even a question.

“I didn't say that. I just—I've never
gone
.” The small-town performance of
The Nutcracker
when she was eight didn't count.

“We don't have to.”

And he sounded so resigned. So disappointed.

What had this whole evening looked like to him? She'd barely remembered to thank him for his extravagant gifts, been too worried about embarrassing herself at his fancy restaurant to make much more than small talk with him. And now she was turning up her nose at something he must've thought she'd like.

Her hand hovered in the air, poised to reach for him and touch the warmth of his skin. But in the end she chickened out. Set it back down in her lap and chewed the inside of her lip. “Yes,” she said, more confident than she felt. “We do.”

“No.” He shook his head.

So she spoke over him. “I'd like to.” She forced a smile. “First time for everything, right?”

His gaze darted to hers, and there was that fire. That light that had been missing this entire night. “Yeah?”

“Sure,” she said, more firm.

At least it was worth a shot.

About five
years
later, Kate couldn't decide what was worse—the ballet, that she apparently hated the ballet, or that Rylan gave every sign of hating it, too.

It'd been pretty enough. Degas's pastel studies of dancers had come to mind with every arched back and pointed toe. She could imagine drawing those graceful forms herself, trying to capture the energy and motion, the space and the sparkle.

But to sit there in a secluded box, alone and yet surrounded by all these other men and women in outfits even more formal than hers and Rylan's, watching a story without words, listening to music she felt no connection to…They'd barely made it through the first act, or movement, or whatever it was called before Rylan was squirming. He wasn't the only one. Restlessness had had her digging her own nails into her palms to help her sit still.

There were just so many other things she could be doing. Her portfolio for the fellowship committee wasn't going to assemble itself, and her apartment needed cleaning. Hell, catching up on her sleep would've been a better use of her time. She almost did, she got so bored.

As the performance dragged on, she folded in on herself more and more, crossing her arms and then her legs, and even that seemed like such a waste. She and Rylan had never really been to a show before. She'd always figured he'd have been all over her if they had, fingertips trailing over her arm, lips whispering kisses against her ear, their feet tangling together in the space between the seats.

But he kept to his side of their armrest, face stony, jaw set. Like he knew as well as she did that this had been a mistake.

The frustration of it all, the waste, made her grit her teeth. He'd made it out like this was important to him, and now they were simmering in their own pots of separate, stubborn endurance, seeing it through.

God. What if that was how their whole second chance went? Seven nights—five more after this. If they went the same way this one had…

She couldn't bear it. They'd had a good run of it in Paris, but she'd said it herself even then. They'd been living in a fantasy, divorced from the pressures of real life, and some dreams couldn't stand up to the light. He'd shattered her dream well enough when he'd admitted to being a whole different person than he'd led her to believe, and maybe they should've let it end like that.

They hadn't, though. He'd picked up the fragments and held them up as if they could glue them back together. Sought her out and begged her for more, and she'd let herself be convinced.

But what was the point? Of any of it?

She wasn't so ill-mannered as to not applaud when the curtain finally fell. Rylan made the same motions beside her. She avoided his gaze as he ushered her out. His car was one of the first in line outside, and they got in without a word. Sat there together and apart as his driver wove through the theater traffic and off into the grid of city streets.

At her apartment building, she got out and crossed her arms, rubbing her bare skin against the evening chill. Rylan got out as well, and she opened her mouth. She'd had that whole long, awful car ride to figure out what to say, and she'd practiced it the same way she'd practiced her French. It came to about as much good.

Look, this clearly isn't working.
Or,
Thank you, it was nice, but
…

Then she met the dark power of his stare as he rounded the back of the car, and the words evaporated on her tongue.

“I'll walk you up,” he said, voice gruff, tone clipped.

It should have been a relief, to hear the same frustration from him that she felt in her heart, but it only made her stomach sink farther.

“Right.” She turned toward her building. It would be better to do this in private.

So she led him inside.

The easy letdown was almost a taste on the air, a scent like dry tinder at the back of Rylan's throat.

The whole way up the stairs, Kate had dragged her heels. At the door to her apartment, she fumbled with her keys until he stepped forward and took them from her to get the lock himself. She walked inside with her shoulders tense, her fingers white where she gripped her own arms. Rylan's breath stuttered in his chest.

Since halfway through the disaster that had been the ballet, he'd been scrambling, trying to figure out a way to spin this. But he'd come up empty.

Closing the door behind them, he held out her keys. She stepped in close, and his heart pounded. At the touch of her fingertips to his, something inside of him broke.

This was it.

The jagged metal dug into his palm, probably into hers as well, but he didn't care. He caught her hand in his, twisting their fingers together. Her pulse seared into him, and he shook his head at the way her lips parted. He didn't need to hear it, whatever it was she'd been working up to telling him. He knew.

“I fucked up.”

Her eyes went wide, jaw going slack.

“It— I thought—” He stopped. What had he thought? Besides all the wrong things? “I should have known.”

“Rylan—”

“I thought I could give you the fantasy.” A laugh bubbled up, harsh and painful in his throat. “I always knew you'd hate the money, but it's not going away, Kate. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. I thought I could show you that.”

“By flaunting it around?”

“By giving you a nice night.” He let her go then, and it hurt, how fast she pulled away, keys secure in her grasp. Leaving him inside her home but still on the outside, with no idea how to work her locks. “You like art, and the ballet…”

She winced. “It was a nice thought?”

A thought he'd had without any consideration for who she was.

“The ballet was a mistake.”

She'd put her back to the opposite wall. Her chest rose with the force of her breath, her breasts on display in a way they never would be normally, pushed up and out by the bodice of that dress he'd sent her. The trappings he'd asked her to wear. Her voice cracked. “The thing is…” She blinked, lifting her gaze to the ceiling. “What bothered me was that you didn't like it, either.” Finally, she looked at him. “Did you?”

He'd promised he would never lie to her again. “I liked sitting next to you in the dark.”

“Hardly. You couldn't have been any farther away without buying another seat.”

The accusation stung.

Worse, it was true.

The corner of his lips trembled, until the smile he'd tried to force became a false, flickering thing. “You didn't exactly seem to want to be touched.”

It was in every line of the way she'd held herself, the rigid set to her limbs as she'd occupied that seat.

“What did you want? An engraved invitation?” She gestured at herself. “I wore the dress you wanted, went to the show you said you picked out for me. I tried.”

She'd tried so hard to fit herself to the shape he'd outlined for her, the…

A light went on inside his mind. A harsh, too-bright bulb illuminating the ugly corners he hadn't wanted to see.

It was fucking Chase, telling him all women were the same, all wanted the same damn thing. It was him, latching on to that idea, because he didn't know how else to make this work.

“I put you in a box,” he said, suddenly numb. Her brows furrowed, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek. But the pain didn't help.

“You…”

“I like you.” Another verb sat on his tongue. Another way to look at everything he'd done, and he wasn't fooling himself about how he felt. He didn't think he had been. But the word was too big for them right now. Too much. He raked a hand through his hair, mussing it up. It'd been too perfect. Everything he'd planned for them had been. He'd just been too blind to see it until now. “I like you more than I've liked anyone before.”

It'd taken him all of three days to figure that out, their first time around. He'd been so clever, picking things he'd known she'd love, tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants and neglected wings of famous museums. And then as soon as he'd realized her value, her worth—the moment he'd grasped the uniqueness of her—

He'd started to treat her like everyone else. First Versailles, and then this. Outings designed to impress, when he'd never had to. When he could have treated her like
herself
.

He tugged even harder at his hair. “This is what I know.” Letting go, he pointed to her and to the dresses lying discarded across her bed.

It was how people in his life showed they cared. A fancy new car instead of a pat on the back.

“And you're better than all of it,” he said.

For the first time since he'd picked her up, her gaze softened. Her shoulders dropped. “Just—is it—is that what you want? Boring nights at shows you don't even care about? Stuffy dinners?” She plucked at the neckline of her dress. “Clothes you can't
breathe
in? For yourself? For me?” Her voice faltered. “For us?”

That she still might think there was a chance for an
us
made him bold. “No.”

“Then what do you want?”

And wasn't that just the question? It'd driven him to another continent, driven him to waste an entire year, refusing to decide. Nothing had changed in that time.

And at the same time, everything had.

When he didn't answer, she pushed off the wall. “I'm not your manic pixie dream girl, Rylan. I won't solve everything for you.” A shiver racked her frame. “And I won't let you turn me into yet another thing that's bound to bore you by the end.”

He couldn't imagine it.

“Never.”

“Then what do you
want
? Not what do you think you're supposed to want, what you think I should want. What do you want?”

The question hit him in the center of his chest.

The day Kate had left, she'd told him he needed to make some decisions about his life. She'd hated him for lying to her about who he was, but she'd called him out on lying to himself, as well. The accusation had burned like a bullet lodged in his lungs for months.

Until a week ago, nursing a hangover and staring lovelorn at her sketchbook, when he'd finally figured it out.

“So many things,” he said, choking on lead. “I've made such a mess.” With his father's company and with his family and with her. “I came back here to fix it all, but I don't know how.”

“I told you. It's going to take time—”

He shook his head. “Not just between us.” This, here, between the two of them was the most important piece, but it was far from the only one. “My father's company is a wreck. Lexie's been doing her best, but if we want to save it, then I have to step up and play a part, and I don't—I don't know if I can put myself back in that box.”

His father had built this kingdom, and he had groomed him to become his heir. Rylan wanted to have hope again, to try again, but returning to New York had him stepping right back into the role and the life he'd been running away from in the first place.

But he didn't have to be that man. He didn't have to do things the way they'd always been done.

“I've been trying old solutions to old problems,” he said, a light beginning to dawn. “With you and with my family, and they won't work. Things have to change.
I
have to change.”

This night had been a failure of the most epic proportions. But maybe it was an opportunity, too.

“I have to start over again.”

He had to start with her.

In a half dozen strides, he crossed the room. Standing before her, he fit his hands to the cool, smooth skin of her shoulders, and he cursed himself. Stupid, sending her these tiny dresses, not a one of them with proper sleeves. All night, she must have been freezing. Well, he'd warm her up all right. Her body seemed to go to liquid beneath his palms, and it filled him with a rush of power, a certainty the likes of which he hadn't felt since he'd gotten on that plane and come a supplicant to her door.

The flimsy cover of her shawl hit the floor, and a gasp left her lips as he spun her. With her back to him, he dropped his brow to the top of her head and took a moment. Soaked in the shape of her against him, the sweet, soft scent of her skin. The fact that she was still here, that he was still here. For now.

He sucked in a breath, then stooped to press his lips to the back of her neck, sweeping her hair out of the way. She trembled, and he closed his eyes.

He found the zipper that ran the length of her spine. Tooth by tooth, he pulled it down, stripping away the costume. “This.” He chased the fabric from her arms, caressed her sides as the dress slid to the ground. “I want you like this.”

A weak hint of a laugh passed her lips. “Naked?”

“Yes. No.” Of course he wanted her bare, all that gorgeous skin laid out for him to kiss and touch and worship. But it was more than that. “I want you just the way you are.” He left a trail of kisses along her shoulder and squeezed her waist. “Naked or clothed. Sexy dresses or ratty jeans.” With his fingertips, he traced the edge of her hip, right above her panties. His throat went dry, his flesh stirring as she molded to his touch. “I want to take this night off of you.”

“Then take it off yourself, too.”

He had to squeeze his eyes shut tight. It wasn't mere arousal, wasn't only sex, though they seemed to be headed in that direction. Opening his eyes, he took his hands from her sides and brought them to his tie. He loosened it, pulled it over his head, and dropped it. The buttons on his shirt parted like water beneath his fingertips. Cuff links and jacket, belt and slacks and socks and shoes. She stayed just the way she was, her back to him, her whole body motionless but for her breath.

When he was down to his underwear, he paused. She was still in her heels, and low as they were, they changed the way they stood together, changed the height her head hit on his chest.