Jaded (8 page)

She laughed. “It’s not such a mystery. All throughout my childhood, my parents took us on expensive vacations across the country and the rest of the world. They work an insane amount and travel all the time, to this day. Their lifestyle is quite extravagant. I remember visiting Paris for the first time and begging my mom to take me to the Louvre but we had to catch the pre-party of Fashion Week instead.” Isabella laughed, recalling. “Both are cultural events, I guess.”

“And what about your sister? I can’t imagine what this girl must be like.”

“She better conforms to my mother’s ideal of pretty, skinny, and airy.” She paused. “I think the first time I showed an interest in books and writing, my mother shoved a
Cosmo
magazine in front of my face and encouraged me to take lessons from it.”

“Well you didn’t turn out to be a
Cosmo
girl; why’s that?”

“I’m not sure. Freak accident, maybe. I’ve always been different from the Moreno family. I taught myself how to balance a checkbook, I learned about mortgages, I started my own savings accounts. They’re all things my parents do, but never really instilled in us. It’s like they just want us to be their pretty little dolls for the rest of their lives. But I was never happy being a doll.”

“Well, you have a brain.” Luke winked. “Doesn’t your sister have one too?”

Isabella laughed. “Of course. She’s just different than I am. Easier to fawn over, easier to look at and sigh and say, ‘How pretty you are!’”

“It’s not too hard to do that with you, though.” Luke grinned shyly, seeming a bit hesitant.

Isabella looked down. “Thanks. That’s sweet.”

“Hey, you took a compliment! You’re making progress.”

“Only because it wasn’t about my ass!”

Luke smiled. “Fair enough. So anyway, since you mention dolls, is that what your mom did for you, bought you your very own doll house?”

Isabella blushed, liking his astute nature and wittiness. “Of course. You know, she ordered this renovation as a pick-me-up. She said it herself. She wanted to remodel my house and my love life.”

“So we’re there just so you’ll stop crying over a boy?”

“In essence, yes.”

“I feel used. Did her plan work?”

Isabella paused, examining her napkin. “Well, I remodeled my love life, that’s for sure, but not because of the renovation project.” She looked up at him and smiled. “She has the right intentions; I suppose that’s all I can ask for. Besides, she’s spent money on more bizarre gifts than this.”

“There’s a weirder gift than a surprise home renovation when you didn’t want one? Now this I gotta hear.”

Isabella laughed. “This is only our first date. If I start this epic story, it might turn into our second ,then our third.”

Luke’s eyes lit up. “So this isn’t just a one-time thing? You’re not doing this as a pity date?”

Her cheeks got red and she looked hard at the basket of breadsticks sitting on the table between them, fighting a grin. “We’ll see.”

Luke watched her coolly for a few moments, smiling like he knew a dirty secret. Then he said, “So let’s hear it. What has your mom bought for your sister? Wild horses? A trip in the space shuttle? Plastic surgery?”

“Well, that last one is about right. The other ones though, they’re much too wild for the Moreno family.”

“What was it? New boobs, nose, jaw implant...?”

“Boobs all around, except for me of course.”

Luke bit his lip and winked at her. “Good choice.”

Isabella took a deep breath, slightly uncomfortable with how quickly he could ignite all her senses simply by biting his lip and training those dark brown eyes on her.

“Anyway, the most expensive gifts recently have been for Kitty, my younger sister. She’s getting married in a couple months.”

“To who? Must be somebody glamorous.”

She grinned. “He’s a great, normal guy, actually. They’re college sweethearts and painfully made for each other. It’s going to be a glamorous wedding though. I think Kitty’s been planning it since she was seven years old.”

“How old is she? Shouldn’t you be getting married first?”

“Oh, please, don’t go there. I hear this enough from my mother.”

Luke smirked. “Hey, there’s something in common! Mothers nagging us to get married, have children, continue the family line...”

Isabella sighed. “Exactly. Like if we’re not married, we’re worthless.”

“I think my mom’s given up on me. I might be in the clear now.”

She laughed. “I wish it were that quick for me! I think my only way out is to become a lesbian. In the meantime, I’m the eldest daughter and expected to marry well.” She sighed again. “So this upcoming wedding has been throwing a shit storm of pressure on me. And my family doesn’t know how to process the concept of voluntary singledom.”

“You know what helps when I feel pressure?” Luke leaned in close to her and narrowed his eyes.

“What’s that?”

“Sex. Lots of it.”

Isabella laughed despite herself. “Oh, come on.”

“Really. A nice, hot night of uninterrupted sex...or, lovemaking...whatever you want to call it. That really takes the pressure off.” He leaned back and winked at her again. She fought to keep the heat from rising up her neck and into her cheeks.

She hesitated, watching him for a moment before responding. He was starting to make a case for himself, and the more she was around him the more she wanted to see it become a reality. Maybe she could control the emotional aspect; maybe she could approach it from a new angle. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the waitress arrived at their table with their main courses. After offering fresh-ground parmesan and drink refills, Luke and Isabella looked at each other over steaming plates of pasta.

Isabella leaned in close to him. “Just tell me one thing. Are you, or are you not, a sex-crazed maniac?”

Chapter Four

Luke was shocked by her abrupt forwardness, but his cool grin never wavered.

“Who, me? Come on, it’s not like I get the shakes if I don’t get laid every day.”

“How many girlfriends have you had?” She narrowed her eyes at him, deftly twirling spaghetti around her fork without breaking her gaze.

His thoughts screeched to a halt. Now this was a tough one. He’d been with too many women to count, whispered too many empty, sexy things into too many moist ears, and fondled too many heavy, augmented breasts to be expected to remember each one. But they weren’t girlfriends. They were one-night stands, flings, bets, or bad decisions in his youth. But she hadn’t asked him that, so he had her on a technicality.

“Three.”

“That’s it? Just three?” She seemed horrified. “That’s an average of like, one girlfriend a decade.”

“Interesting math, Isabella. That would make sense if I’d started dating girls when I was born, maybe.” He laughed.

“Okay, so I’m a writer, not a numbers girl. But, really, just three?”

“Really.”

There was another moment of silence. “Okay fine,” she said, “and how many times have you been in love?”

Another tough question, one that made his heart wrench in his chest. Why did women need to know these things, and why did he feel suddenly guilty about his lack of serious relationships? He was a ladies’ man, and that’s how it had always been. Maybe this was why he avoided relationships—they made him confront the fact that he was, perhaps, actually a player. He just liked the variety, the never-ending sea of women available to him, should he choose. To settle down with just one seemed a little strange. Why pick one when you can have all? His adventures with relationships had been relatively boring and unfulfilling—but he realized in retrospect that that had probably been due to the IQ of the women involved. It had never seemed like he’d find someone to change his mind on it, so he’d never tried to look.

“I, uh...I love my mom.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed, for a moment before bursting into laughter. “I don’t mean
that
kind of love.”

“Well, I guess I’ve never been in love then,” he mumbled, pushing a breadstick around on his plate.

“I find this hard to believe,” she said. “You haven’t even been almost in love? Like, right on the cusp?”

He was suddenly annoyed. If that was so outlandish to her, he had a whole list of things that would give her a heart attack. And besides, he didn’t like how he felt suddenly inferior to her, as though his confession made her pity him.

“I haven’t met the right girl,” he said with a harsh exhale. “And to be honest, I’m not really looking for her.”

She eyed him cautiously. “I know what you’re looking for.”

“So?”

“Just admit it. You’re a womanizer.”

“No. If I were a womanizer, I would say something like, ‘Your tits look great in that top.’ But I’m not a womanizer, so I’ll say, ‘You look really great tonight’, because you do. That makes me just a normal guy.”

She watched him, smiling. It seemed she liked what she was hearing. She’d be putty in his hands soon enough.

“Well, explain why you’re so cocky.”

He feigned a look of shock. “Me? You think I’m
cocky
?”

She pursed her lips.

“I’m cocky because I choose to be. It’s endearing.”

“It’s
not
endearing.”

“Maybe not to you.” He winked.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “So I know your game.”

He sighed loudly. “Listen, I’m gonna tell you something straight up, and if you repeat this I’ll deny it until the day I die, because honestly, babe, I can’t take too much more of this third-degree here.” Luke leaned in close to her over the table and lowered his voice. “I used to be smart; I used to use big words like you, but that’s not part of my life anymore. It wasn’t a choice; it just had to happen, you see? With where I work, with who I work around, I can’t use that part of me.”

Luke paused, took a bite of his breadstick, chewed it, and then said, “There’s a different Luke buried inside me, okay? He’s the real Luke Peterson, and actually he prefers to use his full name, Luke Titus Peterson, because it sounds more impressive. But I can’t be him every day; with the world I live in, I have to revert to some sort of...” He paused, feeling the exact word swirling deep inside him, and struggled to pull it from the murky depths of his vocabulary. “...primordial male mode. All that’s required is that I eat a lot, drink a lot, and ogle a lot of women. Those expectations of me are much lower than somebody like, well, you.”

Isabella didn’t miss a beat. “So who do you talk to?”

“What do you mean? I talk to lots of people.”

“No, I mean, really
talk
to. Who does Luke Titus Peterson come out to?”

Luke paused, struggling to remember the last time he’d been required to have an opinion about something other than a pair of legs or a new flavor of beer. “Nobody.”

Her eyes softened and she took a sip of wine. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine with it.”

“Are you really?”

He bristled. “You might not understand, being privileged and all, but when you’re dealt a certain set of cards, you just gotta roll with it. I’m providing for myself; the rest doesn’t matter.”

“Well.” She lifted her eyebrows and took a big gulp of her wine. “Looks like I touched a sore subject.” She paused, watching him a moment. “If you want, I can readjust my requirements so that we can drink, laugh, and ogle lots of women.”

Luke bit back a smile, hoping she wouldn’t think he was starting to seriously fall for her. He was acting like such a child at times, unable to contain his blushes and grins, as though every noise or phrase she uttered were exactly the thing he wanted to hear. As the night went on, he knew without a doubt he was with her because he genuinely wanted to spend time with her. The bet hadn’t propelled him here at all. In fact, the bet continued to weigh heavy on him. He wanted to tell her, just to clear the air, to get it out there for his own peace of mind. But how could he bring it up?

Luke decided to steer away from the touchy subjects and they enjoyed the rest of their dinner talking about lighthearted things. By the end of the meal, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d had so much fun on a date, and he most certainly couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such warmth surrounding his heart. He felt almost lightheaded as they left the restaurant, unable to focus on anything other than each moment with her as it occurred.

Luke was surprised to learn that Isabella was beautiful
and
intelligent. He hadn’t known that such a girl existed outside of lame date movies, and he certainly hadn’t known that such women were capable of inspiring him, challenging him, and poking around inside his head. He felt almost embarrassed about his confession earlier, but at the same time he felt relieved. Like he’d reminded himself that there was something redeeming deep inside.

He knew how crude his lifestyle could seem, especially to someone like Isabella. If he didn’t think about it, he was fine, but it was unnerving that Isabella was suddenly making him confront a lifestyle he’d come to view as completely normal. And it wasn’t like he could just write Isabella off as a dumb rich girl anymore.

On the car ride back to her house, all Luke could think about was how much he wanted her. She’d proven herself to be sexier than hell, but now that he knew more about her, there was something about getting the whole package—intelligence, sexiness, wittiness—that made him mindless with desire.

“You’re really sweet, Luke,” she said as they pulled into her driveway. “You’d do well in a relationship.”

He laughed. “Doubt it.”

“I’m serious.”

Their eyes locked and Luke couldn’t think about anything but how her tight behind would feel in the firm grip of his hands.

“Do you want to come in for some drinks or something?” she asked softly.

The question held more weight than mere drinks and conversation; all he could do was nod under her penetrating gaze.

They walked up to the house hand-in-hand, as though it were the natural thing to do. She unlocked the door and they walked inside. There was something unspeakably romantic about their night together...and right now, Luke thought he was beginning to experience the hot, spreading sensation of an intense crush, something he hadn’t felt since his school days.