Axel knew her words were meant to insult, but they made him smile instead. Little Ms. Priss knew nothing about him, or what he did or didn’t have. He enjoyed that fact.
“You’re absolutely right. I can’t stand these uppity places and much prefer to go to a good honky-tonk bar on the outskirts of town,” he said with a deep southern drawl.
She paused for a minute, and then, to his surprise, laughed. “Okay, I can admit when I’m being a bit of a brat. I don’t know you, and I don’t know where you hang out. You just seem to be a steak-and-fries sort of man over lobster and caviar.”
“Well, considering caviar is killing poor defenseless little fish-to-be, I can’t stand the stuff,” he said, making her lips twitch again. “And I’ll take a good hearty steak any day of the week over a tiny piece of seafood that you have to work far too hard at to eat.”
“Do you want to know a secret?” she said as she leaned in and he got a nice glimpse of her succulent cleavage.
“More than you can imagine,” he told her.
“I can’t stand caviar, either, or escargot. But whoever thought it was a good idea to cook up slimy snails and then charge exorbitant prices for them was a damn genius, wouldn’t you agree?”
Axel was rarely thrown off-kilter by anyone, let alone a woman, but as Ella’s eyes sparkled awaiting his reply, he could admit, if only to himself, that at this moment he was thrown.
And intrigued.
More intrigued than he could ever remember being. This woman lived in a million-dollar home, was currently wearing a diamond necklace that probably cost more than a typical middle-class annual salary, and yet had a sense of humor and said things that were completely unexpected.
Who was the real Ella Brooks? Axel was determined to find out.
“It seems your date is running late, Ella,” he said, his voice almost hoarse.
“Then I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I rarely agree to go on blind dates, but Bryson’s been hounding me for so long that I finally threw my hands up in surrender. It was either that or next he’d be showing up on my doorstep to drive me crazy.”
“I guess you’re stuck with me for the evening.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked toward the door and then back at him again. Ella was far from stupid, and he could see the pieces clicking into place. She didn’t look too happy about it.
“You’re my date.” It wasn’t a question. He wondered if she was going to slide off the bar stool and click her way out of the nice establishment. Somehow he doubted it. She didn’t seem to be the type of girl to run away. “I guess the least you can do is buy me a drink, then.”
Axel smiled. This was going to be one hell of a night.
Wanting to tug on the ridiculously short hem of her dress, Ella cursed Maycie, thinking revenge was on the horizon. Her friend had insisted on lending her the skimpy, cleavage-baring dress. She’d said it’d been forever since Ella had gone out and had a good time, and she needed to wear something that would knock a man’s socks off. Of course on Maycie, who was only five four, it wasn’t quite so indecent.
One thing was sure, though: the outfit had certainly garnered a reaction from Axel. She hadn’t necessarily wanted it, but then again, whom was she fooling? It was always nice to be appreciated, even if she didn’t trust the man sitting next to her.
The sad part was that he made her smile, made her laugh. He wasn’t exactly bad company. Still, she wasn’t going to sit there and banter with him too much longer. She didn’t want to put ideas in his head. This wasn’t a real date.
She reasoned with herself that she had spent the time dressing up, so she may as well have a few drinks before heading home to watch a sappy Hallmark Channel movie and eating something deliciously greasy and salty followed by a heaping serving of ice cream.
“I’ll buy us both another drink,” Axel said as he signaled for the bartender.
“Sounds good,” she said, her voice just a little too seductive, making his attention snap right back to her. What was wrong with her? Why was she flirting with this man, giving him hope that something could ever happen?
Maybe it’d been too long since she’d been on a decent date. Maybe she was scared after everything that had happened with Felix, or maybe she just wasn’t drinking enough. Whatever the reason, she needed to pull herself together.
If only the look he was sending her wasn’t making her insides stir, wasn’t making her want to climb from her seat and right into his lap. She wasn’t even sure who she was at the moment.
“I can see that you’re berating yourself internally, but why try to fight what you’re feeling? You like me. Admit it,” Axel said as he reached over and took her hand, his thumb making circles on her wrist, right where her pulse began to speed up.
“I’m not attracted to you,” she lied as she pulled on her hand to no avail.
“Come on, Ella. There had to be a small part of you that knew it was me you were meeting tonight,” he said, those lazy arcs his thumb was tracing driving her slowly insane.
“I had no idea.” If she had thought it for a brief moment, she wasn’t going to admit that to him.
“Why don’t we stop the games and just have a good night?”
She was being pulled in, could feel it with every fiber of her being as his touch sizzled through her. And then at the last second before she leaned forward and discovered what his lips tasted like, she snapped back to reality. This man was a Casanova, and she’d be a fool not to remember that.