I blink. “Sure. I bet you say that to all the girls,” I tell him lightly, filling my plate with crusty French bread and some delicious herbed olives. “I bet you’re swinging from the chandeliers every weekend.”
He arches an eyebrow at me. “Chandeliers aren’t really my style, sweetheart. And is that what you think of me? That I’m out here, partying twenty-four seven?”
I pause. “No,” I say slowly. For all his reckless spontaneity, I can see that there’s something deeper lurking beneath Dex’s surface. A dark undertow, the shadows of a scar that hasn’t healed. “I guess I don’t know what to think of you,” I admit. “I’ve never met a rock star before. Your life couldn’t be more different from mine.”
I try to imagine Dex getting up at six every morning to go to the gym, and then heading to a desk at work by eight, double-checking expense reports and eating salad from a takeout box at lunch.
I have to hold back a laugh.
“What?” Dex asks me, looking curious.
I shake my head, swallowing back the giggle. “Nothing, I was just trying to picture us trading places,” I explain. “You arguing with my business partner over wholesale silk prices.”
“And you partying until dawn, naked in the pool at the Chateau Marmont in LA,” Dex finishes for me. “Although, that I’d like to see,” he adds with a smirk.
I have to laugh at the idea. “Never going to happen.”
“Don’t be so sure.” Dex eyes me thoughtfully. He leans back in his seat, tilting his head to watch me with a slow-burn gaze that sets my blood burning hot in my veins. “I think you’ve got a wild streak in you. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
“The wildest thing I ever did was get on the back of your motorcycle,” I tell him, a note of regret creeping into my voice.
“Then you came to the right place.” Dex gives me a wolfish smile. “We’ll make a rebel of you yet.”
His eyes meet mine, and I gulp in a nervous breath. It’s been lingering between us, unspoken, ever since I arrived: the reason I’m here, the point of his proposition. I feel self-conscious even thinking about it, but we both know one thing.
I didn’t come here to talk.
“How’s this going to work?” I blurt. I know I sound naive, but I figure I have no choice now but to press on. “I mean, I’ve never done anything like this before. You know I don’t have much experience with guys,” I add, looking down.
Try next to none. Aside from losing my virginity in a drunken college fumble, my sex life has been non-existent.
“First, you need to relax.” Dex’s calm voice cuts through my tangled nerves. I glance up to find him watching me gently, like I’m a skittish deer about to bolt. “You’re over-thinking this,” he tells me softly. “It’s just us, we’ve been here before. Except instead of being stuck in a crowded city with our real lives making demands all day, we’re here, with space to breathe. And instead of just a few hours to get to know each other, we have days. A whole week.”“One week,” I repeat slowly. A plan, that’s what I need to hear. Some structure to make sense of this bizarre situation.
He chuckles. “Don’t do that. I can see your brain ticking over already, trying to fit this in a neat little box.”
“But if we lay out some ground rules,” I start to protest.
Dex shakes his head. “No rules,” he says firmly. “We’ll be honest with each other about how we’re feeling, but there’ll be no limits, apart from the ones you absolutely need to set.”
Limits?
“You mean…?” I stop, thinking of the books I’ve read. My stomach curls in a delicious knot.
“I’ll always respect your boundaries.” Dex gives a wicked smile. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t have some fun testing them.”
I reach for my glass and take a gulp of cold water. “This is a lot to process,” I mutter, my heart pounding.
He smiles, getting to his feet. “Like I said, you’re over-thinking this. It’s not about a purpose or a plan. Except my plan to make you scream the house down in pleasure,” he adds with a wink.
I laugh, glad to break the tension.
“That wasn’t a joke, sweetheart,” Dex murmurs. “It was a promise.”
My laughter dies on my lips. My hand shakes, and I lose my grip on my water glass. It plunges towards the floor, but at the last second, Dex reaches out to grab it. He places it down on the table.
“You look exhausted,” he says smoothly, as if nothing just happened. “Let me show you to the guest room.”
Guest room?
I can’t help but feel a strange pang of disappointment as I follow Dex back through the house. He picks up my bag from where he left it by the door, and continues down a hallway to a room at the end. “I thought you’d like this one,” he says, opening the door and flipping on the lights. “You can’t see now, but it has the best view of sunrise in the morning.”
I step inside the spacious room. The same balance of modern and vintage extends in here, with a velvet-tufted headboard on the king-sized bed, and crisp white linens that match the pale walls and moroccan shag carpet on the bare floorboards.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, looking around. “Thank you.”
There’s a pause. I turn back to Dex, waiting for what, I’m not sure. The air pulses between us, an energy that makes me want to step closer to him, to reach out and—