Jesus Christ, this man.She honestly had forgotten just how…potent he could be. This date was exactly what she needed after her interaction with Etienne. Mateo was clear and direct. He wanted her, and he had made that known up front. She didn’t need to waste any more time fawning over someone like Etienne.
“Hi. I’m not sure if I’m in the right place ’cause I don’t see an alleyway.”
She was so curious about him. She enjoyed the way he made her feel, so perfectly sensual. Almost dangerous in a way.
“Oh, let me come for you,” he said. Ophelia’s mind immediately went to hundreds of filthy innuendos.
A few moments later, she saw Mateo’s tall frame turn around the corner. She began gathering her things to get out of the car, but Mateo opened the passenger door and rather abruptly bounced into the car. He filled the whole space as his long legs scrunched up against the dash.
“Hi,” he said, smiling. His lips were plump and stretched over his beautiful white teeth. Magnetic.
Ophelia’s heart fluttered, and her eyes felt heavy again. “Hi.”
Mateo leaned in and lightly kissed her cheek. “You look wonderful,” he said. “This costume is perfect for the theme.”
His scent instantly overpowered all air in the vehicle. The heady scent caused Ophelia to muffle a cough behind her hand.
“Thanks. I can’t believe I already had this,” she said, trying to refocus as she smoothed down the bustier lines of her costume.
She felt dizzy from the strength of his smell. It reminded her of the unfortunate scent of Lysol in a bathroom that was clearly over-sprayed to cover up a more offensive stench. It was shockingly odd for someone so seemingly beautiful and obviously well-groomed. Her body whiplashed from horny to confused to potentially grossed out. Was she being rude? She smiled at him reassuringly to show she wasn’t judging him for his scent.
Mateo returned her grin with a smolder that wouldn’t be out of place on the cover of romance novels. It did not have its intended effect on Ophelia, who turned away, unable to hold his gaze yet.
“So am I in the right place?” she asked, grabbing the steering wheel and wondering if it’d be rude to crack a window.
“Nope. Just turn the corner, and you can park right in front of the entrance.”
Ophelia restarted the engine and drove the car around the street, nervously parallel parking in front of the alley. She was good at parallel parking, but the smell was beyond distracting and made every movement seem difficult. She needed to get out of the car.
The moment she placed the car in park, Mateo hopped out and jogged around to the driver’s side to open her door. He still maintained his self-assured demeanor, but Ophelia could tell he was excited, which she found endearing.
Ophelia stepped out of the car and rushed to gulp down fresh air. She tilted her head up as if to examine the night sky and breathed in deep. Better.
“And where’s your costume, sir?” she asked, gesturing to his casual attire of jeans and a perfectly fitted T-shirt.
“Haven’t had a chance to put it on yet.”
Mateo moved back to allow her to walk away from the car door, and she could feel his eyes wander all over her body. She sauntered around him and stood on the sidewalk as he drank her in slowly. His eyes tracing her from the light petal-pink slippersto her firm calves, up to her runner’s thighs that revealed themselves through the sheer green fabric of her costume. His eyes narrowed and darkened at the apex of her thighs for the briefest of moments. His gaze continued to swirl around her hips to the curve of her waist, and when he reached her full breasts that pressed against the green fabric, he sucked in his bottom lip just enough to catch it in his teeth. Finally, he met her eyes.
The full body sex scan that Mateo just embarked on was flattering, truly, but she was still regaining her composure from the smell of him, letting the fresh humid air revive her.
To a normal person, a bad odor probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but Ophelia had that weird thing about smells. And the fact that she had such an intense reaction to Mateo’s scent was unsettling. She recalled the night by the pool that Jolie so fatefully interrupted. He had an interesting scent then. It was tangy yet sweet-smelling, one of those smells that was curious but not quite right. The memory of his scent fully came back to her. Vinegar. Metal. Clay. Nectar. His scent still had those notes, but it was amplified in a putrid way.
Ophelia took in one more deep breath of the clean air and composed herself. She called on her sensual side. It was a date, after all. “You just gonna stand in the street staring?” she asked with a smirk.
Mateo cleared his throat and slammed the car door. He ran his eyes over her again. The way he looked at her was obscene. Practically pornographic. His eyes were locked on the beauty mark above her glossed pink lips. She raised her brows with intrigue.
Oh, he wants to play. Okay.
Ophelia turned, arching her back and swaying her hips as she walked down the sidewalk, and Mateo’s footsteps quickened.
He reached for her hand and, with the force of a skilled dancer, turned her to face him again, an inch separating their bodies. Mateo leaned into her ear and rumbled, “You’re going in the wrong direction, wild one.”
She caught a hint of the sickly-sweet smell again, less intensethis time. Swiftly and with grace, Mateo led Ophelia by the hand through a damp, narrow alley that felt eerily familiar. She could feel the wood-paneled wall on the right and the brick wall on the left sweating and expanding from the heat of the air. While it was early fall, New Orleans typically didn’t get its first cold snap till Halloween.
He guided her through a door at the back of the alley and up a stairwell into a studio apartment.
“Wow,” she said softly. His apartment was flooded with artwork. The multitude of pieces created wonderful, deep textures and dynamics in the single room space. Ophelia admired the display of art from the doorframe, unable to move from all the beauty. Art hung on every inch of the wall. The paintings and sculptures felt like they were alive. The pieces almost connected like vines, growing roots from one frame or one sculpture to another, searching for light through cracks in the wall.
