Protect & Serve(69)

“It couldn’t have been all bad,” she said, scooting herself a little closer to me on the seat. “Must have had your pick of the local girls, did you? Cute boy like you?”

“No,” I said, frowning as I gave myself a bit of room from Ms. Atmore. “The Afghani women don’t take kindly to soldiers defiling their daughters and wives.”

My date frowned, obviously displeased that I’d rebuffed her flirtations. Normally I’d have played along, teased and flirted for the entire car ride and on in through dinner, but something felt wrong about all of this. It was almost like the setting was right, but the person that was on it with me was entirely wrong. I didn’t want Patricia. I wanted someone else.

The driver pulled us up just in front of the restaurant’s main doors, opening the door for the two of us as we made our way inside. The car ride had gone on with an uncomfortable amount of silence, one that perhaps would be fixed once the two of us were happily filling ourselves with food.

While Patricia and I were both from money, it seemed that neither of us were particularly fond of the stuck-up attitude of London’s upper class, something that Gwen must have known when she picked the place that we’d be sharing dinner. The dress code was rather lax, sort of an “upscale casual” feel with a modern twist in the decor that I actually rather enjoyed, especially over those faux-French-style places that you’d find people of our “class” inhabiting.

The two of us were seated at a secluded table toward the back of the restaurant, all the better for a romantic evening. At least that must have been what my sister had thought. There was wine already chilling for us as we sat down and a centerpiece of roses that I’d not seen on any of the other tables. Gwen was pulling out all the stops for this, and that only seemed to make me feel worse about it.

“Seems like someone wanted this to be a special night,” Patricia purred as she took her seat, eyeing the wine chilling beside the table. “I’m normally not the biggest fan of sit-down places like this, but I’ve got to give it to your sister—this place is really nice. Not like all those other old fashioned and boring places my dad kept dragging me to when I was younger.”

The two of us ordered fairly quickly sending the waiter off about his business, though I’d have personally have preferred him to stay for the rest of the meal. I didn't want to truly be alone with Patricia, not when I knew that she’d try to turn what could have been a moderately pleasant experience into something I wasn’t intending on our first date.

Even the thought crossing my mind sounded wrong. Normally I’d have been the last person to take things slow on the first date, but for some reason I had almost zero interest in Ms. Atmore, especially not sexually. I knew who I wanted, I knew exactly which woman I had been craving for days… and it was the only woman I couldn’t have.

I went through the dinner on a strange sort of autopilot, my responses short and rather vague at times, something that Patricia seemed to notice only slightly. Perhaps she knew that I was playing hard to get, because the more detached I was the harder she pushed to turn things more and more… adult.

Patricia, despite my feelings at the time, seemed to be a lovely woman, and were I feeling like my old self I would have skipped dinner and had her bent over a public bench before the clocks had chimed for six-o’-clock. But I didn’t feel like my old self… I felt like someone different… someone I’d never met before.

I knew that I should be more interested. Patricia was honestly everything that I should have been looking for in a partner—she was smart, charming, witty, and as a bonus she seemed to have almost as dirty a mind as I did, every other word out of her mouth a veiled flirtation that evoked the thought of stealing away to somewhere private where I could have my way with her. Before the Army I might have taken a woman like her in a heartbeat, using her for my own satisfaction before we parted ways to find our next temporary lover.

Small talk had never been my strong suit growing up, and it certainly wasn’t a favorite pastime now, either. Our conversations were stilted and awkward, especially with my own disease seeming to make matters worse. When the time came to leave, I happily paid for the check and the two of us made our way out to the limo that had been waiting for us yet again. We had the car for the whole night.

Normally when I had the pleasure of a personal driver and an eager woman at my disposal, my first thought would turn to the abundance of trouble we could get up to in the back seat. It had been so long since I’d had the two in combination that I almost didn’t even consider it at first.