The trembles spread across my body, heating me everywhere and anywhere, and most inconveniently between my legs.
Maybe Nadia was right.
Maybe we should play our roles.
8
Daniel
She’s Scarlett, but she’s also not Scarlett.
She’s this entirely new creation, stitched together from bright, bold cloth and silken flaming red hair.
She’s as alluring as ever, maybe even more so, but she’s also reinvented herself.
She smells different too—a heady, enticing perfume.
That is intentional.
And it’s a deliberate invitation.
I step closer, inhale the lush scent of this woman, then run my thumb along her wrist. “You wore that to wind me up, didn’t you, Mrs. Dickens? That’s the one I sent you? The perfume?”
She shivers as I touch her. “Yes. It was such a lovely wedding present from my husband,” she says, sliding right into the pretend.
Becoming this character.
Entering from stage right.
Playing in our theater of make-believe.
“As soon as I inhaled it in the store, I knew it was perfect for you,” I say, and offer another drag of my thumb over her soft skin, eliciting another shiver from her under my touch.
But she doesn’t simply receive touch.
She initiates it. She lifts her right arm, sets it on my biceps, and curls her palm around my muscle. It’s possessive, the way she touches me, and a thrill that sends lightning bolts of lust through my body.
“You shopping for me. That’s so sexy,” she purrs.
“Buying you gifts is easy. Especially when you smell like this,” I say, inching my face even closer, catching another scent of her.
A soft murmur falls from her lips.
Here we are, on the platform, surrounded by travelers. And yet it’s like we’re in a cocoon, all alone with our wishes and wants that are now transparent.
“You know me so well, darling,” she says, soft and sensual. Deliberate too, like she is aware of exactly what her words do to me. “And I think I know you well also, since I suspect you got me this perfume because you wanted to bury your nose in the crook of my neck and inhale me on the train. I think you wanted to be driven mad with lust on the ride to Giverny.”
Yes, what she does to me . . .
I groan.
A nearly savage sound.
This woman.
Who knew she would slip right into this role-play, this alternate version of us, as naturally as if we truly were together?
But then, maybe that’s been our intention all along, ever since Cole set us this challenge—to play at being a couple. Now we’re simply, and finally, giving in.
That’s exactly what I do as I clasp my fingers tighter around her wrist, stepping closer.
A current charges between us. The air vibrates with atoms and ions, molecules shimmying with desire. I drop my face into the crook of her neck and breathe in the scent of dirty heaven.
My eyes fall closed to honeysuckle, falling rain, and a hint of vibrant Scarlett underneath it all.
This brilliant, witty, incredibly sexy woman smells exactly like desire, and as I linger there against her throat, my head goes hazy and my body heats. I record every moment of her reaction as I move even closer.
Her breath catches.
Staggers.
Most of all, the feathery sound she makes reveals the thing I’ve perhaps known about us all along.
Since I met her that day in London at lunch, I’ve felt it, and now I’m certain she has too.
Attraction.
Undeniable, powerful attraction.
I want this woman badly. The sight of her, the feel of her, the smell of her—they do wicked things to my senses.
They crank them up, driving wild sensations through me. Perhaps through her too, judging from the telltale signs—the hitch in her breath, the goose bumps on her skin, and the slightest whimper that seems to tumble from her red lips as my nose brushes her earlobe.
Should I resist?
Screw resistance.
Right now, she’s my wife. I draw the soft skin of her earlobe between my teeth, and I nip.
She shudders.
I take my time, running my nose along her neck, then I whisper, “I’ve thought about you all day, pictured you in your office, wondered what you’d wear to the train station. And now, here you are.” I pull back.
Her eyes are glassy. She’s in a daze. “Now here I am.”
So’s the train though.
As it rumbles into the station, we separate, but I don’t want to. Do we have to draw a line between fantasy and reality? Or for one glorious week, can we exist in this blurred world?
My eyes stray to her left hand and a shiny red stone in a platinum band. She’s such a planner—always thinking.
“Your wedding ring is even more gorgeous in person,” I say, running my thumb over it.
I show her the band I picked up at a jewelry store.
She runs her finger across the metal. “I love it. It says you’re mine,” she whispers.
I reach for our bags and take her hand in my other, threading my fingers through hers like I would if she were my wife.
The sleek silver bullet rattles to a stop, doors sliding open, and we step on.
I feel like I’m stepping into another world.
We settle into our seats in the first-class cabin. The train ride is only an hour. She’s distracted, checking her luggage, checking her phone, checking her tablet. She takes out a book from her purse. Sets the purse down at her feet. Opens the book.
I watch her, more emotions than I’m accustomed to rising in my chest. Desire? Passion?
But there’s more.
There’s longing.
Affection too.
But lust seems to win out, like the solo instrument in a Beethoven concerto.
Or perhaps I’m simply feeling the way that only music has made me feel before. Music and women.
Everything seems possible, beautiful, sensual.
I don’t want to stop the charade with Scarlett.
So I don’t, but I slow the pace, steer the moment around the corner, sensing that’s what she needs. As the train pulls out of the station, I don’t return to Daniel and Scarlett.
I stay as Mr. and Mrs. “Did you have a busy day, love?”
That seems to ease her mind. She sets down the book. “I did,” she says, and then we pretend as newlyweds.
We play these parts. She tells me about the book she’s been reading, an adventure tale, and where it’s taking her. She talks about how much she loves the story and the escape it gives her.
I begin to understand her a little more. The way she reads so ravenously, the way stories both seem to help her leave her own head and drive her to think more deeply.
“It’s the same for me,” I tell her, showing her the fantasy novel on my phone I’ve been enmeshed in. The story of another world, another realm, where anything is possible, and where heroes with tragic flaws overcome their Achilles’ heels.
Soon, we’re farther away from Paris, closer to Giverny, but not quite there.
We’re in between.
It only seems fitting to turn the corner once again. Move closer to where I want to be, where she wants to be.
I set my hand on her thigh. “We’re almost there. Did you think about our trip all day?”