Trapped (Caged #2)(33)

“I’ll just get myself the hell out of here,” Elissa said. She smiled broadly toward Tria, gave her a little wave, and then disappeared out the door.

The giggling ought to have annoyed me, but it didn’t. Tria’s whole face lit up when she smiled and laughed, and I’d do almost anything to put that look on her face.

It had been so damn long since I actually drove a car, I had a pretty difficult time parallel parking. The car was still partially sticking out—one tire a good two feet from the curb while the other one was about a quarter inch away—when I gave up and just left it as it was.

Tria held in her giggles, but her eyes still shone bright. I tried to glare at her, but it didn’t work.

“I think I’m a little out of practice,” I said.

“How long has it been since you were behind the wheel of a car?” Tria asked.

“Um…quite a while.” In fact, the last car I drove was my Lexus, which I had sold for thirty grand in cash over nine years ago. I blew through the money in about four months, mostly on dope.

“I’ve never eaten Mediterranean food,” Tria admitted as we walked through the doors.

Aladdin’s was a small place in a strip mall, had about twenty tables in it, and was hardly ever crowded. I was never quite sure how they managed to keep the doors open, but they had been in the same spot forever. Though I hadn’t been there since high school, the place hadn’t changed much. The décor was dark red and gold and there were candles and little vases filled with plastic roses in the middle of each table. There was a huge case right when you walked in full of incredible looking cakes.

“You’ll want to save room for dessert,” I informed Tria as she eyed the chocolate. “They have the best cake in the world here.”

We were shown to a table near the back where it was quiet and cozy. I helped Tria figure out the items on the menu, and we ended up sharing a plate of falafel, pitas, stuffed grape leaves, and baba ghanoush. Tria didn’t like the grape leaves, claiming they had too much vinegar or something, so I ended up with all of them. She loved the falafel, though, and thought she might even have a recipe for it in one of the books she had checked out from the library.

“Is this what you ordered when you came here with your family?” Tria asked.

“Not usually,” I replied. “I liked stuff with lamb in it.”

“You weren’t a vegetarian then?”

“No, not until later.”

“So when did you become a vegetarian?” she asked. “And why?”

I glanced up at her darkly. The last thing I wanted to do this evening was hash up any crap.

“Why did you nearly go through with marrying that douchebag in Beals?”

Tria’s eyes cooled a bit.

“So, no serious talk tonight?” she finally said with a wry smile as she caught on.

“I think that would be good,” I responded. “Besides, it’s time to order dessert. You don’t want anything to interfere with that!”

The server brought over the list of the day’s desserts, and we settled on one giant piece of cappuccino cake with chocolate and caramel drizzled all over it, along with two forks. Tria moaned when she bit into it, and the sound circled around my dick and gave the moody little bastard a tug.

Unable to help myself, I carved a bit off with my own fork and then held it out to Tria. Her eyes stayed locked with mine, peering up at me through her lashes, as she slowly took the bite into her mouth and hummed again.

“This is incredible,” she said.

I couldn’t have agreed more, and I hadn’t even tasted it. Tria was determined to rectify that fact and fed me a bite from her own fork. The chocolate was creamy, and the deep taste of coffee and caramel just made the whole experience nothing short of decadent.

As she leaned toward me, I could see through the outline of Tria’s form-fitting dress that there weren’t any bra lines.

Yeah…decadent.

Or is that depraved?

We continued on, feeding each other bites and ignoring everyone around us. We didn’t speak, just tasted—the silence only broken when Tria groaned at the taste of every bite. As the cake disappeared, Tria ended up with a bit of it on the side of her face, which I had reached out and wiped from the side of her mouth. As I did, she turned toward my hand and licked the chocolate off my finger.

“Holy shit,” a deep voice called out. “Liam? Is that you?”

The familiar voice made me sit up straight, and a whole stampede of emotions went through me, the first and foremost being annoyance. I should have realized running into someone I knew was a possibility, and maybe I had in the back of my head and didn’t want to admit it.

“Hey, Ryan,” I replied as my cousin walked up to our table. He had his arm around the waist of a voluptuous blonde in a silver dress and ridiculously high strappy heels. She tossed her hair over her shoulder as she looked down at me.

“Liam,” she said simply.

“Amanda,” I replied with about the same tone.

“Damn, bro,” Ryan said. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

Ryan snorted.

“Michael said he saw you,” Ryan said. “He said something about…ah…”

He moved his hand around in little circles for no discernible reason. His gaze bounced around, going from me to Tria, back to me, over to Amanda, back to Tria…