because she’d been aching to hear it. Not that she’d been aware of that need until this moment.
An answering laugh bubbled up inside her, but she shoved it back down, opting to continue with what had been working so far. Talking. The irony that this was the longest conversation she’d indulged in with a person outside of her family in two years wasn’t lost on her. Cruel experience had taught her to be wary of strangers, especially those with pretty faces wielding charm like a Highlander’s claymore. The last time she’d trusted a beautiful appearance, she’d ended up in a loveless, controlling, soul-stealing sham of a marriage.
But in the dark...
In the dark lived a kind of freedom where she could lose her usual restrictions, step out of the protective box she’d created for her life. Because here, she couldn’t see this man, and he couldn’t see her. There was no judgment. If he were attending the Du Sable City Gala, then that meant he most likely came from wealth—the kind of wealth that had once trapped her in a gilded prison. Yet in this corridor in the middle of a blackout, money, status, lineage traced back to the Mayflower—none of that mattered. Here, they were only two people holding on to each other to make it through.
“My next favorite sci-fi is Avatar. Which is kind of funny, considering the famous line from the movie is ‘I see you.’” She couldn’t smother her laughter. And didn’t regret the display of amusement when it garnered another squeeze of her hand. “Do you have a favorite?”
She held her breath, waiting. Part of her waited to see if his panic attack had finally passed. But the other part of her wanted—no, needed—to hear his voice. That part wondered if it would match his build.
Being tucked away in a mansion’s dark hallway in a blackout...the insane circumstances had to be the cause of her desire. Because it’d been years since she’d been curious about anything regarding a man.
“The Terminator.”
Oh. Wow. That voice. Darker than the obsidian blanket that draped the city. Deeper than the depths of the ocean she sorely missed. Sin wrapped in the velvet embrace of sweet promise.
A dangerous voice.
One that invited a person to commit acts that might shame them in the light of day, acts a person would revel in during the secretive, shadowed hours of night.
Her eyes fluttered closed, and her lips parted, as if she could breathe in that slightly abraded yet smooth tone. As if she could taste it.
As if she could taste him.
What the hell?
The inane thought rebounded against the walls of her skull, and she couldn’t evict it. Her eyes flew open, and she stared wide into nothing. For the second time that evening, she thanked God. At this moment, she offered her gratitude because she couldn’t be seen. That no one had witnessed her unprecedented, humiliating reaction to a man’s voice.
“A classic.” She struggled to recapture and keep hold of the light, teasing note she’d employed with him BTV. Before The Voice. “But I take your Terminator and one-up you with Predator.”
A scoff. “That wasn’t sci-fi.”
Isobel frowned even though he couldn’t see her disapproval. “Are you kidding me?” She dropped her hand from his chest and jammed it on her hip. “Hello? There was a big-ass alien in it. How is that not sci-fi?”
A snort this time. “It’s horror. Using your logic would mean Avatar was a romance.”
Okay, so this guy might have the voice of a fallen angel tempting her to sin, but his movie knowledge sucked.
“I think I liked you better when you weren’t talking,” she grumbled.
She was rewarded with a loud bark of laughter that did the impossible. Made his voice even sexier. Desire slid through her veins in a slow, heady glide.
She stiffened. No. Impossible. It’d been years since she’d felt even the slightest flicker of this thing that heated her from the inside out.
If she harbored even the tiniest shred of common sense, she’d back away from this man now and blindman’s bluff it until she placed some much needed distance between them. Desire had once fooled her into falling in love. And falling in love had led to a heartbreaking betrayal she was still recovering from.
No, she should make sure he was okay, then leave. With moving back to Chicago, raising her son as a single mother and working a full-time job, she didn’t have the time or inclination for something as mercurial as desire.
You’re sitting here in the dark with him, not dating him.
One night. Just one night.
She sighed.
And stayed.
“Is something wrong?” A large hand settled on her shoulder and cupped it. She gritted her teeth, refusing to lean into that gentle but firm hold.
“Nothing. Just these shoes,” she lied, bending and slipping off one and then the other to validate the fib. “They’re beautiful, but hell on the feet.”
He released another of those soft chuckles that sent her belly into a series of tumbles.
“What’s your name?” His thumb stroked a lazy back-and-forth caress over her bare skin, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip. Heat radiated from his touch. Until this moment, she hadn’t known her shoulder was an erogenous zone. Funny the things she was finding out in the dark.
What had he asked? Right. Her name.
Alarm and dread filtered into her pleasure, tainting it. Gage had done a damn good job of demonizing her to his family, and then his family had made sure everyone with a willing ear and flapping gums knew Isobel as a lying, greedy whore. It’d been two years since she’d left Chicago, but the insular ranks of high society never forgot names when it came to scandals.
Again, she squeezed her eyes shut as if she could block out the scorn and derision that had once flayed her soul. She still yearned to be known as more than the cheap little gold digger people believed her to be.
“Why do you want my name?” she finally replied.
A short, but weighty pause. “Because I need to know who to thank,” he murmured. “And considering we’ve known each other all of ten minutes, ‘sweetheart’ seems a little forward.”
“I don’t mind ‘sweetheart,’” she blurted out. His grasp on her shoulder tightened, and a swirl of need pooled low in her belly. “What I mean is we don’t need names here. In the dark, we can be other people, different people, and I like the idea of that.”
The bit of deception plucked at her conscience. Because she had no doubt that if he was familiar with her name, he would want nothing to do with her. And selfish though it might be, she’d rather him believe she was some coy debutante than the notorious Widow Wells.
That large hand slid over her shoulder, up her neck and cradled the back of her head. A sigh escaped her before she could contain it.
“Are you hiding, sweetheart?”
