Page 72 of The Maverick

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We ate.

We talked. Not about anything heavy. About the morning. About Marco from the kitchen. About the song she'd written before her shift and didn't sing for me. About her phone call to Wren Calloway. About the boots, which I told her I'd noticed in the lobby, and which she rolled her eyes about and then admitted, quietly, were the only good ones she had.

The wine was good. Not great. That had been the point.

The food was enough. I'd told the kitchenenough,and the kitchen had listened. By the time we'd put our forks down, she wasn't full, she wassatisfied,which was a different state and which was the one I'd been after.

I leaned back in my chair.

"You ready for dessert?"

Her eyes flicked—small, quick, before she could school them—toward the bedroom door.

I laughed.

I couldn't help it. It came out of me before I could decide whether to let it.

"Sweetheart, that's later. That is one hundred percent later. I haveplansfor later. But that is not dessert."

She bit her lip. The flush rode up the side of her neck.

"Okay," she said.

"Don't go shy on me now. I've been thinking about that flush since I saw you do it in the donut shop."

"Tommy."

"Come here."

I held my hand out across the table.

She put hers in mine.

I didn't let go. I stood up, walked around to her side of the table, and pulled her up to standing, slow. Held her by both hands. Looked at her.

"You trust me?"

"Yes."

She didn't pause to think about it. She didn't qualify it. She didn't ask what for. She saidyesthe way she'd saidI want you inside melast night—immediate, level.

It hit me low, the same way the boots had.

I let go of one of her hands. Reached into the inside pocket of my jacket. Pulled out the silk.

It was black, soft, six inches wide. A blindfold.

She looked at it.

She looked at me.

"Close your eyes," I said. "I want to take you somewhere."

She didn't ask where.

She didn't ask why.

She closed her eyes.

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