“So, Emily, you’re really beautiful,” Natasha remarked from across the table. “Have you ever, like, thought about getting into modeling? You’re over eighteen, right?”
“Um, yes, I’m twenty-four. But I’ve never thought about doing anything like that. Besides, I like food too much,” she laughed, handing the menu back to the waiter.
Dillon reached for Emily’s hand and looked to Natasha. “I wouldn’t want her modeling anyway.”
“And why is that? She’d, like, make totally awesome money, and I have the best agent in New York that I would totally introduce her to.”
“She doesn’t need to worry about money.” Dillon leaned back in his seat. “It’s just something I’d prefer her not to do, that’s all.”
Natasha shrugged and flipped her hair to the side.
“So Dillon said that you’ll be teaching in the city this year?” Gavin asked, glancing in Emily’s direction.
“Yes,” she replied, placing a napkin in her lap. “Over in Greenwich Village.”
“Yeah, she’s teaching first graders, so I don’t have to worry about any of her students developing a crush on her,” Dillon laughed and leaned over to kiss her neck.
“Ah, but you may be incorrect on that, Dillon,” Gavin said. “I had a thing for my first-grade teacher when I was a kid.”
Dillon took a swig of his whiskey on the rocks and laughed. “Are you for real?”
“I am,” Gavin leaned back in his chair. “If I recall…” He paused for a second and smiled. “Her name was Miss Molly. And, man, let me tell you, I had it bad for her. She drove something in me that I couldn’t quite understand.”
Emily shot him a wry smile and rolled her eyes.
Natasha laughed, playfully smacking him on his arm. “Like, you were totally after women even then, huh?”
“Apparently, he was.” Emily tented her hands under her chin and eyed him from across the table.
Smirking, Gavin drew up a brow but remained silent.
“Holy shit, if it isn’t Dillon Parker!”
Emily turned around and observed a tall man around their age beaming a smile, his brown hair slicked back with a good amount of gel.
“No fucking way!” Dillon stood up, rounded the table, and shook hands with the man. “Where the hell have you been hiding?”
The man smiled. “Down in Cancun with the luscious señoritas, but I am back and hotter than ever.”
Dillon turned around to Emily. “Babe, this is an old buddy of mine from college, Keith Jacobs. Keith, this is my girlfriend, Emily.”
She shook his hand, and Dillon introduced him to Gavin and Natasha. Small talk was briefly exchanged, and Dillon excused himself from everyone to go chat it out with Keith at the bar for a few minutes.
Figuring she could play the game just as good—if not better—Emily smiled and turned to Natasha. “So, Natasha, have you had the chance to visit the New York City Public Library yet?”
“Oh, well, not yet, but I like to read magazines. I’m sure they have some there, right?”
Gavin smiled in Emily’s direction, thoroughly enjoying her wiseass remark. He knew exactly the conversation she was referring to by bringing up the library.
“Absolutely they do.” Emily widened her green eyes. “Hundreds, if not thousands, of magazines would be right at your fingertips.” She took a sip of her much-needed Cosmopolitan and smiled. “I bet there’s a ton of Vogue magazines as well.”
Natasha smiled. “Thanks for the suggestion. Like, I’ll totally have to check it out one day,” she giggled. “But, right now, I have to powder my nose. I’ll be right back.”
She stood up, dropped a chaste kiss on Gavin’s temple, and scooted her way across the restaurant, her ass chucking firmly from side to side as she adjusted her tube dress.
“That was pretty funny,” Gavin laughed as he slightly leaned across the table. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, you’re a pretty funny girl.”
“Really, Gavin? A man of your stature dates a ditz like that? I guess you weren’t kidding when you said you attracted the all-beauty-and-no-brains type.”
“I told you we all have ways of filling voids in our lives,” he shrugged. “She gives me what I need, and I give her what she needs. It seems fair to me.”
“Oh, that’s right, ‘cause who could honestly miss the rock hanging from her neck?”
“You seem…upset?” he replied, his voice monotone and his face impassive.
Emily inwardly flared but kept her tone to a whisper. “You want to know what I’m upset about?” He nodded, not taking his eyes off her. “I’m upset that you blatantly go out of your way to make me uncomfortable. What happened to your whole wanting-to-be-friends gesture?”
“Am I making it that hard for you?” he asked mockingly.
“Yes, Gavin, you are,” she quietly spat, her fingertips white-knuckled around her glass.
With his need for her trapped inside—blistering hot, sweltering, ready to explode—he leaned in closer, dropping his voice. “Good, because whenever you’re near me, I fucking lose every bit of self-control I have left.”
Emily’s throat tightened at his unexpected words. She breathed out heavily, the sound hanging in the air as the tingles coursing through her entire body came in crashing waves. And, to top it off, with every second he stared at her the way he was, she was getting hotter. The impact created an explosion between her legs, causing a chain reaction of anger mixed with more desire for him than ever before.