The Collector | 18+

【12】Corner Booth

My legs were still tender, so I clung onto the railway on our way down, worried my thighs might give up under me. I also hadn't eaten anything since lunch—which I'd barely touched—so I was severely in need of sustenance.

"What are you in the mood for?" he asked once we were outside.

"There's a pub that serves one of the best fish and chips I've ever had, three hundred yards that way. Is that okay?"

"It's perfect. Lead the way, Miss Connelly."

Less than three minutes later, we were entering the ever-lively pub Gigi and I often went to. There was a soccer match on, so the crowd was mostly gathered at the bar, actively watching the massive flat-screen hanging on top of it. It was warmer than I'd thought, so I removed my blazer, hooked it on the rack, and then scanned the place for a free table.

An electric prickle abruptly appeared in my spine, and right after, the soft pressure of a hand. He was touching me, barely, but enough to make my skin all warm and tingly, right where his hand was—slightly below the middle of my back.

After a second of stupor, shocked by how intense my reaction to this slight graze was, I turned to look up at him. He gestured with his chin, and my eyes followed the direction he'd shown. From his vantage point, he'd found us a booth. The pressure of his hand increased as he encouraged me to head over there.

I expected his fingers and palm to leave once I willed my feet to move, but they stayed right there against the thin layer of my silk shirt. It tortured me all the way there, making my entire body heat up even though he was barely even touching me. With a soft caress, he let me go once we'd reached the empty booth. It was in a retreated corner, far enough from the bar to be spared from the soccer enthusiasts.

"Do you also get a discount here?" he teasingly asked as we sat down.

"Only when the night ends with me dancing on the counter after too many pints." It had only happened once, but Gigi and I had gotten a pretty decent price cut from it.

"And how many is too many?"

"Why? Would you like to see me dance, Mr. Westergaard?"

"I'd rather be the only one in the audience, but I'll take what I can get."

Heat flashed across my cheeks, my insides pulsing. Discreetly, I squirmed on the leather bench, attempting to shush the way my core awakened. This damned man...

The waitress, a sturdy woman in a black dress with white polka dots under her green apron, came to our table with an empty tray in her hand. "What can I get you, lovebirds?"

"We're not—This isn't—" I stumbled on my words, flustered. I wanted to explain this wasn't a date, but I wasn't sure what it was, if not one. We weren't here for work, we hadn't just come across one another... He'd come to my place to get me, and I'd even put on the sexiest lingerie I owned. I'd been on actual dates that hadn't felt this much like one as this did.

Maybe this was a date, and I was just too far into my delusions to have accepted it.

"I'll have fish and chips," I ended up saying, unsure what our little outing could qualify as. "And a pint."

"She'll have five pints," he amusedly interjected before looking at me with his damned intense eyes. "Let's start with that and see where it takes us."

I was grinning so widely that it was hard to tell the waitress, "No, just the one, thank you." She nodded, unamused by his antics, and then turned to him for his order.

"I'll have the same."

Just like our lunch the day before, he'd gone with the same as me. He didn't strike me as someone who didn't have his own opinions. On the contrary, he looked like someone who knew exactly what he wanted. Was it that our tastes matched, or was it some sort of psychological technique to get me to trust him?