He didn’t listen.
She knew he wouldn’t, somewhere deep down he couldn’t, or maybe he just didn’t think she was adult enough to make such a final decision.
The second she’d asked, no begged him to leave her alone, he’d grabbed hold of her heart and dragged it up the garden path after him.
Twenty minutes after Shannon left, once Tori was a little more alive, and fully clothed in her skinny jeans and an old AC/DC t-shirt, with a bit of colour on her face thanks to her trusty old compact blusher, he was once again darkening her doorstep.
“I’ll be honest, Jay, if I thought you were going to pop up like a bad penny every two seconds once I told you to piss off, I’d have probably done it when I turned thirteen,” she mused, moving aside to let him in, once again, “What is it?”
He didn’t look so sure of himself any more, hiding behind a huge bunch of red roses that looked decadently expensive. “I brought these,” he said, looking quite shy all of a sudden, oh for fuck’s sake! She hardened her heart, he couldn’t come in here after everything, offering flowers expecting every wrong in the world to turn right. “I uh,” he coughed, “I’m taking you out. Be ready at seven.”
Shoulders back, head up, looking her straight in the eye, as if the last twenty seconds of shyness, or the last week, no year, no lifetime of emotional torture was nothing.
The cheek of him!
“No.”
He couldn’t have looked more comical if she’d have thrown a bucket of water over him. That was obviously the last thing he’d expected to hear from her. His jaw clenched, “Yes, Vittoria, you bloody well will! You’re going to at least hear me out, this is too important.”
“Since when?!” her jaw dropped open, he wasn’t for real, “It’s a non-event, didn’t happen, and we won’t be going anywhere! If you think I’m adult enough to take a spanking over my dressing table, Jayden, then I’m seriously fucking adult enough to make this decision. I’m going nowhere, I’ve got things to do!”
She went to turn her back on him, fully intending to walk away, but he dragged her back to his chest with a firm grip on her elbow, and bent his dark head to kiss her neck softly. “I know you’re an adult, babe, that’s half the fucking problem! I’ve wanted to bend you over and spank your ass since long before it was probably acceptable, and way before you were ready for it. I just don’t want you pushed into this, without understanding everything, without knowing what you’re in for. And even if not, we need to talk about it, even if we’re only talking about it to wrap it in a box and never talk about it again. But that won’t work. For either of us, not really.” He was still dropping moist kisses along her jawline, drawing a murmur of pleasure from her lips. She was so fucked.
So that was how she came to be waiting at the window at 6.45, dressed quite demurely in a short, pale pink dress that wisped around her knees, a diamante covered bodice keeping it secure around her ample bust. Because she couldn’t say no to him. She’d grown up, yes, she wasn’t going to be falling at his feet like she was thirteen and he was a God, but she didn’t own a bone in her body once he touched her. It was his.
Chewing the edge of her thumbnail, she wondered about the night ahead, prayed that she could stick with her new found strength in the face of her Achille’s heel.
Her iPhone let out a shrill ringtone, signalling that he was waiting downstairs, and she should join him. He’d always done that, called the phone, letting it ring twice, cutting it off, and she’d come running out to him.
Fuck, she’d spent her whole life playing to his tune.
He did look stunning in a suit though. He never styled his hair differently, it constantly hung in disarray, slightly longer than you’d expect, just over the tops of his ears. Matched with that charcoal shade of stubble around his jaw, he was primitive, but not Neanderthal; just that little bit rougher than average.
God, she shivered, as he kissed her cheek in a greeting, how the hell was she going to keep it together?
Climbing into the passenger seat, he closed the door of his Audi 4 x 4 behind her, and strode casually to the driver’s seat, spinning his keys around his index finger and whistling as he passed the windshield.
Smug bastard.
She still couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“So,” she started, after almost five minutes of silence, “Where are we going?”
She started to bite her lip nervously, but he turned to her with a smirk; he’d been stubbornly waiting for her to speak first, so that she knew that she couldn’t resist him.
She huffed out a sigh and turned to the window, if the cold shoulder was what he wanted, she’d happily oblige.
His left hand settled on her thigh, “Dinner first,” he said, “Don’t be angry with me Tor, I need ...” Deep breath, “I need you to listen to me, to what I’ve got to tell you tonight, babe, it’s kind of important I guess, or ... well I don’t know, yeah it is. It’s really important. Please don’t give me the silent treatment babe ...” his voice had suddenly turned all soft, his fingers drawing a “J” over her thighs, like he’d done to her clit, in front of her own window, before he’d started all this madness.
Her breath came out shaky, and his face fell into a sloppy, boyish grin before he looked back to the road, “That’s my girl.”
And she looked back out of the window, because there was absolutely nothing to say to that, he was bang on the money.