‘I think you’re too hard on yourself.’
‘Maybe you are too,’ she responded. The mood had shifted. This was easier, safer territory. ‘So, were you really good at football? Like Jonny Wilkinson was to rugby?’
‘Something like that. I take it he’s good,’ Oliver said with a smile.
‘I can just see you in the outfit.’
‘Uniform,’ he corrected.
‘Tight, white pants, bigger shoulder pads than Joan Collins…’
‘I looked hot in that uniform.’
‘I’m not saying otherwise.’
The thought of him in tight pants was causing an involuntary reaction. She was hotting up from the tips of her toes and the flush was moving upwards at a rapid, unrelenting rate. He was looking right at her, sultry, like if they weren’t in a populated restaurant, he might rip all her clothes off.
‘Is that your boardroom face? Because it’s totally working on me.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘Right now, I’d do anything for you,’ she whispered. What had come over her? Was this the wine talking or her innermost thoughts jumping out of her lips? Her heart was racing now.
She watched his composure drop away and he wet his lips. Before she knew it, she was slipping off her shoe and stretching her leg out under the table until she connected with him. Keeping her eyes on his, she slowly began to inch her toes up his calves, past his knee and up onto his thigh.
‘You are a bad, bad, girl,’ he whispered, his eyes not leaving hers.
She jolted in her seat as she felt his foot on her, moving latently upwards.
‘We shouldn’t be doing this in a family establishment,’ she said, swallowing as she felt his foot slip up onto her chair and begin parting her thighs.
‘Absolutely not,’ he agreed.
Her delicate foot was kneading his groin and he was powerless. He was raging with lust, completely out of control. He should stop but it was too good, erotic, sensual, something more than that all atonce. He pressed his foot forward, inch by inch, knowing he was so close to the most intimate part of her and wanting to feel it.
‘Have you still got the uniform?’ Hayley asked, her voice raspy.
‘What do you think?’ he whispered.
He watched her squirm as his toes made contact with her. He pressed a little harder.
‘Is it getting hot in here?’ She fanned a hand at her face as she looked back at him.
‘You tell me.’ He felt her furl and unfurl her toes on him and he knocked his knife off the table with his elbow.
‘Ditto,’ she said, eyes wide, lips parted.
‘A large Capricciosa and a Tre Gusti,’ Tony announced, slamming their plates down with no finesse at all.
Oliver shot his leg down from Hayley’s chair. His face was flushed and he made a grab for his napkin. ‘Thank you, that’s great.’
‘Fast service around here,’ Hayley remarked.
‘Almost a little too quick,’ he replied.
Oliver watched her, tearing apart her pizza and eating it like she was a famine victim. There was nothing superficial about this woman. She wasn’t sat there putting on a show for him; she was who she was and that was a breath of fresh air. Everything about her invigorated him. Everything she had going on in her life and she was still able to be so… natural, so free. If it wasn’t so stimulating, he would probably feel jealous.
‘This pizza is so good,’ Hayley said, wiping a sheen of grease from her lips with a finger before grabbing a serviette.
‘It’s the best pizza in the whole of New York, in my opinion.’
‘So,’ she took a sip of her champagne. ‘Why did you stop coming here?’
