by K. T. Samois
“Sorcha?”
“One of my many older sisters,” is her exasperated reply. “She’s famous on the internet or something. It took her two months, and she’s got sponsors. Who do you know?”
“People,” Hardin says and gets a flat green stare in return. It’s like being assessed by a bodega tabby. Or a fucking Sphinx.
“I know someone who knows the owner,” he says, eventually, because she won’t stop smiling expectantly at him, like she cares to hear what he has to say.
Indulge the lady, soldier. If she wants to listen, give her the generals.
“He -Theo- recommended it… but then, most of the meals he and I shared were ready to eat, and used sand for flavouring. You must let me know if it’s passed your standards.”
The server chooses that moment to swoop in. A pot of tea is arranged first; the fragrant steam smells like a night-time garden. The menus are thicker than mission briefings. Riona looks down at hers, and then back up with a sly grin.
“Tell you what — let’s play a game. We’ll have a taste test — you order, and I’ll be the judge. What do you think?”
Interest piqued, he leans forward in his seat. The server beats a discrete retreat; Riona barely notices. Hardin doesn’t even dignify it with a blink.
“On one condition. We have to take photos before we try the dishes? I’ve heard the presentation here is really elegant.”
“You would be the sort to take photographs of food.” Hardin teases her, because of course — he remembers little designs worked into foam, or drinks made with exquisite attention to flavour. He’s quickly realising that Riona shows her appreciation through care. He also notices, however, that she doesn’t take a sip until he does. She never quite looks at him, either; it’s as though she can’t endure being caught peeking again.
The recognition makes his smile widen.
You were so bold in the airport, Riona. A lioness. Now you’re timid as a kitten. Let’s see what’ll make you unsheathe those little claws of yours.
***
Ree’s quickly learning that Hardin has the driest affect of anyone she knows. He’s nearly unreadable — not because he’s hard to read, but because he mimics very well.
He’s been treating her like his VIP all night. From the moment her steps had faltered at that foul man’s leer, Hardin’s hand had found a home between her shoulder blades. It hadn’t been flat-palmed, like a shove. Rather, he’d kept his fingers relaxed and his palm elevated, ready to push down, or pull to the side, or heave back. He’d helped her into her seat and poured her tea first.
Hardin orders quickly and confidently. The server nods her head, says her pleasantries, and leaves them alone, tucked away in the glow of a delicately lit corner. The low, warm light suits Hardin well; it highlights the sharp bone structure of his face, the high cheekbones, and generous mouth. He has the north stamped into his very bones. She can imagine Hardin in some technical winter gear, squinting off into the distance like he’s in some action thriller.
Be real, Ree. He’d probably be the bad guy.
That’s a problem, because Ree’s always been a sucker for the villains. And I bet he’d look great in the snow…
She smiles up at the server when two tiny amuse-bouche arrive from the kitchen, compliments of the Chef. That makes Ree’s eyebrows raise, but she doesn’t mention it to him.
She snaps a quick photograph of the meal to distract herself. It isn’t about the angles, or even showing off. She just wants to commemorate the occasion. Sorcha would be so appalled.
“Màn màn chī,” he says as she tucks her phone away. “Take your time and enjoy the meal. Wise words, don’t you agree?”
He thinks he’s so smooth… but it’s kind of working, Ree, so don’t laugh too hard.
“I do! And it’s a lovely sentiment, said well. You’re really well travelled, sir!”
She can imagine it: the humid equatorial air of Honduras; cinnamon and clove, chile and lime; the cry of hawkers and the sizzle of street food; textiles in the market and music pouring out of chipped-paint buildings —
All while you’re stuck behind a counter, slinging venti no-foam soy lattes for bored business travellers. She refuses to allow her insecurity to join her on date night, so she soldiers through it instead.
“So… of all the places you’ve seen, are there any you’d go back to? Off the clock, I mean.”
“Colombia,” he says finally. “Friendly people, off the clock. Good music, food’s solid. Arepas, especially. Scenery is nice enough, and a diversity of it. A night life with enough events to stay interesting...”
Ree gives him a bit of a look at that last one; she wonders what he might find interesting. His smile’s gone a little sharp, though, so she doesn’t bring it up.
“You’d appreciate the Salt Cathedral,” Hardin adds, voice warm. “One of the modern wonders of the world — pitch darkness, with tiny pinpricks of blue light. It’s deep in a cavern, but it looks as though you’re staring at the night sky. Disorienting, but lovely.”
He takes a slow sip of jasmine tea, content to leave her in suspense for a moment.
“Now, what’s yours?”
Ree blushes at the insinuation, and blisters him with a look. “You’re a cad, but if you’d like to know, I’ll bite! I love the idea of swanning around in a ballgown playing princess for a day. If I could do that in Paris, or maybe Vienna? Even better!”
She lets her imagination run away with her a bit as she daydreams, hands moving through the air, sketching out staircases, simulating the swish of a gown. She’d dreamed of dancing on all the great stages, but being in the glittering audience isn’t a bad consolation prize. Hardin’s watching with interest, and wanderlust spurs her to continue. “But then there are places like Patagonia. Maybe Antarctica.”
“You’d stand out. They could use your hair to signal planes to land.”
“Guess that means I won’t get lost!” Ree replies cheerfully.
“No doubt. But that also means you’d be easy to find. A leopard seal would eat you right up.” Hardin says, looking at her with such feline consideration that Ree feels pinned under it.
“I don’t think that’s exclusive to the seal, sir.”
She realises what she’s said a mere half-second before Hardin does, but it’s enough to give her a perfect view of his face. She’s able to see what shock looks like on him, and appallingly, all it does is just make his eyes bluer, his cheekbones sharper.
“Actually,” she stammers, desperate to change the topic. “Can I change that? It might be too cold in Antarctica. And it’s a really long trip, over really rough water. What if I get seasick? I’m changing my vote to New Zealand. They’ve got glow-in-the-dark cave worms I’d like to see. I think it’s like your salt cathedral, right? Only this one lets you sit in a wee boat and float down a cave river. I think it looks beautiful. And I hear the acoustics are great.”
His face contorts itself into a little moue of disgust. His nose crinkles just the slightest bit, and she can’t help but find it endearing.
“What?” Ree asks. “Do you not like New Zealand? Or is it the enclosed spaces that bother you?”
“It was the terrible pun.” He lies, and Ree nods, accepting his judgement with an amiable smile.
“Mm. And?”
“It’s the slime.” he mutters eventually. “Dripping everywhere, making a mess of everythi-”
Whatever expression Ree’s own face is wearing stops him in his tracks. She herself feels a little arrested. She’d never thought of it like that.
“No, see — that makes perfect sense.” she says, bright as a sunbeam. “I mean, it’s a cave, Hardin. It’s going to be a little weird. Anyway, I kind of like that slimy texture! Come on, didn’t you play with that white glue as a kid? It was so much fun to squish around. Remember how you could tap your two fingers together and pull them apart and get those gooey lines? And if it dried in a thin layer, you could peel it off—oh, sorry, was that gross?”
He’s looking at her with an odd expression, as though he can’t believe what he’s hearing. Has she offended him? She doesn’t think so — they’re just glow worms, and white glue, and-
And, she realizes with a rush of heat between her legs, Hardin’s pupils have dilated. In fact, he looks like he’s deciding whether to eat her up in one bite or play with his food. Ree’s got a few suggestions on that point, but reins herself in.
“I just wouldn’t have pegged you as the adventurous type,” he says with impressive evenness, and that isn’t a lie… but it doesn’t feel quite honest, either. Their meals arrive as a small constellation of dishes taking up the real estate of their two-person table. Taking another desultory picture, Ree puts her phone away with relief and grins down at the spread, a bit of mischief back in her eyes.
“Did you just get one of everything?”
“Variety is the spice of life, Riona.” he murmurs. “But… I believe the lady posed a wager.”
“And the gentleman is welcome to make his first selection. Should I close my eyes?”
She doesn’t really expect him to say yes, but when he sweeps his hand in assent, a flare of latent competitiveness rears its head within her. She opens her mouth and lets her eyes close.
Immediately, the energy changes. It’s the moment the conductor moves into the orchestra booth, the second an anticipatory silence falls over the audience. It’s the instant when the curtain rises. That’s when Ree feels most alive, and even with her eyes closed, every other sense strains towards him. She can hear the way he moves in his seat. She can just smell the faint richness of his cologne. Ree’s mouth waters. Hardin’s shifting in his seat, chair creaking as his balance alters, and the next time he speaks, his voice is closer. Much closer.
He’s leaning forward…
Ree’s breath freezes in her lungs, even as her pulse gallops in her ears.
***
When he brings the sliver of tea-leaf smoked chicken to her mouth, he puts the backs of two fingers gently under her chin to guide her. He can feel the heat of her blush against his skin, and her breath brushes against the back of his hand in sharp pulses. Her green eyes flash open in surprise, pupils so wide they look nearly black.
He smirks. She flushes coral all along her high cheekbones, and he can’t help but wonder if the rest of her is as reactive. He gets his answer when she closes her eyes again as she swallows. This time, the blush follows the curve of her neck down.
He can’t help but feel a low throb of desire; he’d like to peel that conservative dress off of her and see what colours he can put on that parchment skin — a palette of reds: blushes ranging from the ballet-slipper pink of a good morning selfie to the incarnadine red she wears whenever her silver tongue works faster than her common sense. He can picture the red of desire or the purple of love bites, marking her as his—
“Mm, that’s so good,” she interrupts, like she’s confessing to some decadent sin. “You’ve got to try it.”
His gut swoops as though he’s missed a step.
“The chicken, Hardin?” Riona says. “What did you think I meant?”
His smile is tight, which makes hers widen a little. Hardin wonders, for the first time, if perhaps he’s a bit more obvious than he might care to believe.
“More?”
“Maybe in a moment,” she says, and his eyebrow raises. “Sir!” Riona tacks on, as though that was missing.
“There it is again,” Hardin murmurs aloud, and Riona stills.
“Where’s what?” She asks, and he can sense the wariness in her now. It wouldn’t be obvious to the untrained observer, but he can see the way she shifts in her seat, weight moving to the ball of her back foot. The instinct to flee—
“You prefer it to my name. Why is that, Riona?”
He adds insinuation to the rounded vowels, turning her name into something decadent. It suits her, delicate and just a little old-fashioned. Meanwhile, the woman it belongs to is attempting to analyze the tablecloth at the microscopic level.
***
“Why is that, Riona?”
There’s no escaping it now. That’s a direct question, and it puts her in a terrible bind. If she lies, he’ll know — and if she lies about something that matters, she knows he’ll never trust her again. Conversely, if she tells the truth, she’ll only be confessing her most secret musings to a man in a restaurant as he feeds her morsels of sixty-dollar dumpling — and that’s not a woman Ree recognises.
What, one with a spine? You’re a grown woman. You can seduce him if you want to.
And she really wants to. That’s the bitter irony of it all. It isn’t fear that keeps her rooted in her spot. It’s a surplus of desire. She’s afraid that if she starts, she won’t stop… and Ree’s been reliably informed that she can be a bit intense.
“Promise not to judge me.” She says in a quiet rush, like jumping off of a diving board, and she should have known that would turn his attention on her with sharklike interest.
Ree can’t help the instinctive shiver.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He promises her.
She beetles him with a glare. “I’m serious, Hardin! It’s, um, personal? So please don’t freak out.” He’s keeping his face professionally blank.
“I’ll do my best,” he adds, deadpan, and Ree can all but feel his bone-dry sense of humour.
“Okay. So… um… how much do you know about kink?”
Of all the reactions Ree’s dreading, a moment of absolute blue-screen shock, followed by a bark of laughter, is not it.
They are the ones she gets, and for a moment, she’s torn between indignation and relief. Indignation wins out, and she scowls at Hardin, feeling like a cat that’s just discovered baths. “Hardin, you promised!”
“I’m not- what was your term… ah, ‘freaking out’-” he has the nerve to sputter out, and Ree’s temper flares.
“No, but you’re laughing at me!”
“Not at you. In awe of you, Riona. You’re not afraid of much, are you?” He truly sounds admiring; Ree feels her cheeks heat and cools them with the back of her fingers.
“Sure,” she says, because honesty’s the best policy. “I really don’t like spiders, or those scary Japanese horror films. Those are terrifying,”
“You know exactly what I mean, Riona. Don’t dissemble. And continue — presume I’m familiar with the general topic. Is that why you prefer to use my title?”
His tone is gentle, but firm, leaving her no option but to respond.
“Yes, sir,” she admits, eyes glued to the steaming baskets between them. “And because it suits you. You are a Captain… but… yes. I, um… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to presume.”
“One day, we must discuss the fine nuance between ‘presumption’ and ‘cold reading’. It was an excellent supposition to make. Say we were to continue this conversation…”
“Are you saying you won’t be running away screaming?” Ree asks, and Hardin stares at her with the inscrutable expression that she’s realizing is his way of laughing at her.
“I think I’ll manage,” he says, and he sounds perilously close to fond.
“And what about you, Riona? I’ve answered your question and now pose it to you: how much do you know about kink?”
Her own words repeated back to her are more potent than any drug. She’s never said it so bluntly before. It’s always been a secret shared between herself and a tatty-eared book she’d rescued from a rummage sale. Now, she’s told someone else — someone who wants to know.
“I, um… a bit?”
“Elaborate,” he says with not a small amount of slow pleasure, and Ree’s vinegary look could pickle a brick.
“Wow. That was high-handed. I was getting there! Anyway — I was in high school-“
“Early bloomer.” He comments neutrally, and she rolls her eyes at him.
“Not like that! The year between graduation and university, if you must know. There was a sale at the library for books with th
e torn covers or the coffee on the pages and I had to share a room with Roisin on the family trip, so I grabbed whatever I could and bought like four pounds of books to read. It was one of them… and-”
His face has that curious blankness to it again. “This book. What was it about?”
“A young French fashion photographer who joins a hobby group of etiquette aficionados,” she says, which isn’t technically a lie.
“Ah, so you’ve read L’Histoire d’O.” His accent is flawless, and he pronounces the book with easy familiarity and some amusement.
“Well, not in French!” Ree says tartly, and then claps her hand over her mouth as though she can catch and eat her words. Mortification prickles her cheeks, but Hardin only laughs again with genuine delight.
“Oh, Riona,” he says, shaking his head ruefully. “You are far too clever for your own good. I wish you could see yourself. You look like a kitten that’s bitten its own tail.”
Clearly, she’s found a fellow hobbyist. She’s mortified, but refuses to back down now.
“Regardless”, he murmurs, waving away her indignation and insecurity like so many mayflies. “Tell me what you thought of it.”
And that, she knows, is an order. Ree takes a breath, wills herself to centre-stage boldness, and meets his gaze.
“It frightened me,” she admits. “I didn’t like it, exactly, but… I liked the idea of it. I must have read it a million times that summer. I always hid it afterwards, because something about it scared me as much as it interested me. Or maybe the more it interested me, the more frightening it became. When we came home and it was time to pack for college, the book came with me.”
But Ro had snuck around until she’d found out, and-
No. I’m not letting her ruin this. He doesn’t think it’s weird.
“You liked the idea of it?” Hardin’s voice interrupts her anxious mind, and Ree shifts closer to hear him better. To the rest of the world, they’re just another couple. Heads together, sharing plates and low conversation—
Without thinking, Ree selects a piece of the chicken and offers it to him on the end of steady chopsticks. He leans in with an economy of movement. His hand steadies itself on her wrist as he bites into the morsel. He makes an appreciative noise as he swallows, and she freezes in place, goosebumps pebbling her skin. His eyes sweep over her, taking everything in.