I kiss him chastely on the lips and turn around leaving him watching the sway of my ass as I walk away.

***

The waiter seats us at a table for two in the corner next to the floor to ceiling windows that face outside to the streets of Manhattan. A beautiful view of the Brooklyn Bridge lights up the clear night sky off in the distance.

“You know we’re not getting dessert,” Jax says.

“Why not?”

“There’s a mirror calling my name upstairs as soon as you’re done eating.” His voice is low, deep and seductive. I feel the swell in between my legs and cross them to stop it from throbbing. Jax arches an eyebrow with a wicked grin…he knows exactly what I’m doing.

“What can I get for you to drink this evening?” The waiter hands us both the wine selection menu.

Jax looks it over quickly, double checking with me before he orders. “Red?”

“That sounds great.”

He hands the menu back to the waiter and orders. The waiter nods and disappears. “So you’ve mentioned two glasses of wine makes you sleepy. What does one do?” Jax sips his water eyeing me.

“Nothing much,” I say, lifting the menu and pretending to read it as I continue. “Except it makes me lose my inhibitions.”

I glance up, finding a wicked smile spreading across Jax’s handsome face. His eyes sparkle as he leans in to speak. “We could have that glass of wine and skip dinner.”

“But I was so looking forward to eating yours,” I tease playfully, selecting my words purposefully.

“Oh. I’ll give you something to eat.”

My face pinks when the waiter clears his throat, no doubt he’d heard Jax’s last comment.

“Are you ready to hear the specials?”

“Are we?” Jax arches an eyebrow, his eyes gleaming with delight. He’s not the slight bit embarrassed, but knows I am and is enjoying himself.

“Yes. Please.” I give him the evil eye and force my full attention to the waiter. The entire time the waiter talks about the specials I feel Jax’s eyes burning into me.

“I’ll give you a moment to let you decide.” Graciously, the waiter excuses himself.

“Why did you do that?” I scold, my voice low.

“Do what?” He leans back in his seat, crossing his arms over his thick chest.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Do I?”

“You enjoy watching me flustered, don’t you?”

Jax arches both eyebrows. Bad choice of words.

“You know what I mean.”

Leaning in, his voice gritty and sexy, he looks me straight in the eyes when he speaks. “I love watching you. Period. But what I like best is watching you pretend you’re unaffected. It’s like an unspoken challenge.” He pauses and leans in even closer. “I love the pink that creeps up your cheeks when I say something dirty. The way your pu**y throbs when I mention what I’m going to do to you later, and you wiggle in your seat trying to control it. So yeah, I guess I do like watching you flustered. You sit and give your attention to the waiter, trying to pretend you’re listening to whatever he’s saying instead of thinking of me feeding you my c**k later, but we both know you didn’t hear one word he said. Hell I didn’t hear one word watching you, just knowing what you were thinking about.”

This time, I see the waiter before he’s close enough to hear us. He smiles as he reaches our table. “So what can I get for you this evening? Did I interest you in one of our specials?”

I look at the waiter, then Jax, who arches an eyebrow with a knowing smirk on his face, then back to the waiter. “The specials all sounded delicious. I just can’t decide for myself. I’m going to defer to my date to pick one for me.” I return my eyes to Jax with a cheeky grin. He throws his head back with a chuckle and looks at the poor confused waiter.

“We’ll take whatever two are your favorites. Surprise us.”

***

The fact that we are sitting in a five star restaurant in a luxury New York City hotel doesn’t deter Jax from eating half his meal off my plate. “So have you thought about what you’ll do when Joe retires?” Reaching over to my plate, he finishes off my risotto.

“I have, although the thought of him not being around every day seriously freaks me out. I run the business side of things, but there’s so much I still don’t know about the operations. A few weeks ago I ordered hand wraps for all the locations, they were on sale for a quarter of what we normally pay. It wasn’t the Fairtex brand we usually buy, but I figured a hand wrap is a hand wrap.” I shrug. “Joe got the delivery when it came in. Told me they were too long and too thick, they wouldn’t fit under the gloves. We sent them all back before we opened the cases. I had no idea.”

“So you’ll hire someone.”

“That’s easier said than done. You know how many regional managers my dad went through before finding someone he could trust? It seriously took him two years to find Clive, the southern manager. It’s hard finding someone with a good business acumen and a love of the sport.” I sigh. “I had thought Caden might be a good candidate, but I need to seriously start looking.”

Jax jaw clenches at the mention of Caden. “Maybe you would have been better off finding a partner to help you manage things, rather than a silent investor after all?”

“I guess we were just worried I’d get stuck with a partner that wanted to turn Ralley’s into a chain with a fancy juice bar and group classes.” I smile thinking of a conversation Dad and Joe had when they were approached by a group that wanted to franchise the gym. “Dad said the day he had to put hangers in the lockers, he was out.”

Jax furrows his brow. “Hangers?”

“He didn’t want the gym turning into a place a suit and tie stopped at on his way home from work.”

“A suit and tie?” He arches an eyebrow. “You mean like me?”

“You’re not the normal suit and tie.”

“I’m not huh?”

“Nope. It wasn’t as much the clothes Joe and Dad were talking about as where the heart of the member lies. They wanted to keep the gym to members whose hearts were in the sport, not a hobby.”

“So you think my heart is in the right place?” Jax asks, his eyes questioning more than how dedicated he is to the sport.

Holding his gaze, I tilt my head and search his face. “I do. I think your heart is right where it belongs.”