Chapter Nine
At eight on Friday night, there was a knock on the cabin door and Lilith couldn’t help but smile.
Vance was knocking on his own door after having given her a head’s up a couple hours ago that he was on his way and giving her an updated ETA about fifteen minutes out. All of this after he’d told her he was planning to come check up on her tonight earlier in the week. Her, she had noted, not his cabin.
She’d protested, telling him he didn’t need to do that, but he’d said if it was a matter of inconveniencing him, she shouldn’t worry. If, on the other hand, she wanted him to stay the fuck away, that was a different matter entirely.
But the truth was, she’d liked it when Vance was here last weekend. After the initial shock of course, and after he’d apologized for bat-napping Flaps and using him as a hostage. It had felt kind of empty here since he’d taken his substantial body and gone home.
Initially she’d bristled at his daily texts. She’d said she wasn’t going to hurt anything and she’d kept her word. If anything, the cabin was cleaner than when she’d arrived because she’d scrub something down when she was sick of trolling for jobs. Which was often because there wasn’t much out here and she was getting desperate.
Whatever, she could worry about that later. For now, Vance was here and she’d actually come to enjoy their little text exchanges. She’d maybe checked her phone embarrassingly frequently yesterday when she hadn’t heard from him before nine.
Now he was here and she alternately hated and loved the way her heart fluttered like a bunch of moths in her ribcage. What the hell? She’d known the guy for all of a week, and most of that had been over text. Which hadn’t stopped her from offering to make dinner so he could leave Clover City sooner to make it up here at a reasonable hour.
She waited for a second, but it wasn’t until she called, “Come in,” that she heard keys jingling in the lock. Vance might be a spoiled trust fund baby, but at least he did his best to respect her privacy.
It was really unfortunate that he was more handsome than she’d remembered when he shouldered his way into the big room that made up the entire cabin and dropped a duffel and a messenger bag by the door.
Yep, tall and broad shouldered, pinstripe grey suit jacket slung over his shoulder, and still wearing the matching pants that showed off powerful thighs and a mouthwateringly thick waist. More substantial than a dad bod, and she knew his bulk made for ridiculously good cuddling.
He’d obviously had the suit tailored—if the whole damn thing weren’t bespoke anyway—because it fit him really well. As did the light blue shirt he had on. She even liked the look of the sunny yellow tie around his neck.
It was obnoxious. How dare he be attractive? And how dare he come straight here from work without bothering to change into something more comfortable for driving? She could almost believe he wanted to seeher. Which she shouldn’t. He was just a surprisingly decent human being who was maybe charming and pushed all her lust buttons. So what?
She wiped her hands on the apron she’d found in the small pantry and resisted the urge to walk over to him and demand a hug. He’d probably give it to her, but what business did she have asking? It was just the little side of her that had been so frustrated and lonely and foot-stompy this week. That was a side of her very few people wanted to see.
Carey couldn’t deal with Lilith’s angst when she had problems of her own, and her friends all thought of her as the calm, reasonable, and matter-of-fact one. That’s what Flaps and her binky were for, to comfort that part of her, because anything that breathed couldn’t be bothered.
Vance toed off his shiny and enormous black shoes and padded over to the galley kitchen, smile on his face.
“Smells great in here, what’re you making?”
“Squid ink pasta with shrimp. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
The pasta had been a bit of a splurge—especially when she wasn’t bringing in any money—but she’d scrimped on the rest of her groceries and besides, it made her happy. The glossy black linguine with its briney flavor was just too good with seafood and cherry tomatoes to pass up. It had nothing to do with wanting to impress Vance. At all.
“Awesome, I’m starving. Let me just change outta this suit and I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Sure,” she murmured, dipping her head over the pan where the tomatoes and shrimp were cooking in the sauce.
It was weird how…domestic this felt. Wasn’t it? Like this was something they did all the time instead of the victim and a perpetrator of a B&E, a black-hearted goth and a prepster to his probably-made-of-polo-mallets bones, sitting down to break bread at the scene of the crime.
Well, Lilith wasn’t going to let the weirdness ruin their dinner so she drained the pot of pasta and added the linguine to the sauce pan, stirring the entire concoction together. It did smell good, and she hoped he’d like it.
She scooped it into a couple of large dishes and set them out on the trestle table, not at all noting that it was probably about the right height for Vance to bend her over and fuck her from behind. If he wanted to. Which he didn’t. And even if he did, that would be the world’s worst idea, so she’d better stop thinking about it before her blush got so high she couldn’t blame it on the heat from the kitchen anymore.
* * *
Dinner was delicious. Vance liked to cook but he didn’t have a ton of time for it, and it wasn’t any fun to just cook for yourself. Half the fun of making food was having someone else appreciate you for it. He made sure to heap praise on the woman sitting across from him.
Her pale skin flushed when he did and she murmured her thanks while looking at the pasta in her dish. If he laid it on any thicker, he thought she might start to squirm. Which would be more delicious than dinner but would also be manipulative as hell and he wouldn’t do that. Even if there was little he wanted more than to make this fiercely independent woman blush and press her thighs together, feel the warmth of flattered embarrassment.
Their conversation was stilted, but what could he expect? It’s not like they knew each other real well and he knew Lilith felt awkward about not having a job to talk about. Seemed like she didn’t much care for expounding on her job search either, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Sounded miserable, especially around here.
He’d offer to bring her back to Clover City, but how much of a difference would that make? And he’d be taking her farther away from her sister without a great way to get back so he doubted she’d say yes even if he offered her a spare room, no strings attached, at his townhouse.
When he’d slid the last bite of his squid ink pasta through the light sauce Lilith had paired it with, he popped the lot of it in his mouth and chewed. Perfect.