Elettra was leading them to a booth, her hips swaying sinuously in her teeny-tiny dress. When they got there Sidonie could see that they had a bird’s eye view of the entire place, and almost immediately after Elettra left—with clear reluctance—an equally stunning-looking waitress was there to take their orders. She was dressed in tiny shorts and a white shirt with very low-cut buttons. She had a pinafore-style apron that did little to detract from the sexiness of the outfit—if anything it fetishised it slightly.
Sidonie felt seriously out of her depth.
After Alexio had given an order he leant back and looked at her. She knew she must look like some wide-eyed hick.
‘Well? What do you think?’
Sidonie sat back, overwhelmed, and gave a little laugh. ‘I think that we’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.’
Alexio frowned and Sidonie explained with a wave of her hand. ‘When Dorothy ends up in Oz...’ She shook her head. ‘This is out of this world. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m used to grimy college student bars.’
The waitress came back with small plates of finger food and a bottle of champagne. Sidonie groaned softly. She hadn’t realised she was hungry and she stole a glance at Alexio, who was watching her with amusement.
‘My appetite is just one big joke to you, isn’t it?’
He shrugged and prepared some pitta bread and tzatziki, handing it to her. She ate it with relish and took a sip of the sparkling wine.
Joking, she said, ‘I could get used to this, you know.’
She missed Alexio’s enigmatic look as she plucked an olive from a bowl. When she did look at him he was lounging back, regarding her with an expression that had her blood heating up. It was that look. The one that made him look hungry and made her feel hungry. But not for food.
‘I want to dance with you.’
Sidonie swallowed what she was eating. The mere thought of dancing with this man made any appetite she did have flee. A slow, sexy hip-hop song was playing, its beat sending tremors of sexual awareness through Sidonie’s body.
‘Okay...’
Moving out of the booth seat, Alexio stood and held out his hand. He looked so young in that moment, and so breathtakingly gorgeous, that Sidonie had to relegate it like a snapshot to the back of her mind because it was too much to deal with.
His hand in hers, Alexio led her to the dance floor, which was filling up with similarly minded couples. He drew her into his arms, close to his body, and it was the most natural thing to loop her hands and arms around his neck.
His hands were possessive on her, sexual. One hand rested over her buttocks. The other slid under the gaping hole at the side of her dress to splay across her naked back. Lord. How was she expected to stay standing when he touched her like that? As Sidonie looked into his eyes the infectious beat of the music throbbed through every vein and made her tingle. She realised, not for the first time, how far under her skin he’d sneaked.
There was something so...so up-front and unashamed about him. He was too confident to play games. Too assured. She knew exactly where she stood. And even though that brought misgivings about how cool she was with that—which was a lot less cool than she pretended—she couldn’t blame him for her growing confusing emotions. Her attachment.
The fact that she trusted him was huge. She’d never trusted anyone, really...not since those awful days when her mother had exposed a very ugly side of reality and herself. Sidonie suspected now that her highly developed reticence had influenced her experiences with her first two brief relationships. No wonder they’d been unsatisfactory; she hadn’t let either of them get too close.