“I can really kiss you? Your lips look so perfect, though. I hate to smudge them,” said Bisi with a longing look at the lips in question.

Mari ducked her head and smiled. “I’ll risk it. I can always reapply before we leave. I’m glad you like the dress, you scared me for a minute. I thought maybe I’d oversold it.”

Bisi, you really have got to do better. You think you’re the only one who will notice her tonight? Pull yourself together. “Mari. Temi. The dress, the hair, the shoes, the face, the… everything. My mind went blank, that’s all. Lovely girl, how can you possibly think I might not like it? Look at you. Turn for me? Let me see this dress.”

Mari flushed but she lifted her chin and pivoted in a slow circle, sweeping the shining waves of her hair over her shoulder so Bisi could see the back of the dress, but the dress was not what Bisi was staring at. She wanted to grab a handful of that hair and bury her face in the curve of that neck. She wanted to reach a hand inside that dress, under that dress… “Marisol,” she croaked. “You are such a beauty. I would like that kiss now. Maybe, though, maybe I could kiss you? Here?” Her eyelids at half-mast, pulling every last bit of Mari’s scent into her body as she went, Bisi lowered her head to Mari’s neck, where she had so obligingly exposed it. There, without the barrier of clothes, with nothing but warm honey-colored skin before her, Bisi slowly ran her tongue over Marisol’s scent gland. Her eyes turned. For the first time in her entire life, she really understood the impulse to claim one’s mate. 

Mari’s little scent gland was right there, the source of all the unreasonably tempting scent that was filling the air. Bisi could sink her fangs in, she could mark her, she could hold her in place as she sank deep inside her and filled her and knotted her. She could fill her hands with those luscious breasts. Weigh them. Bounce them. Pinch the nipples between the sides of her fingers. Mari might sigh and cry out in pleasure as she had the other night. She might—

She might scream, you psycho. A kiss. That’s what’s on offer here. And she probably meant on the mouth. 

But just as Bisi recalled herself, through the thin satin of her blouse, she felt the heat of Mari’s small hand on her chest, hot as a sidewalk in summer. Is she going to push me away? Bisi braced herself mentally, but Mari only squeezed the side of her breast and ran a thumb over the jutting nipple. She moaned against Mari’s shoulder, part pleasure, part relief that she hadn’t offended her mate. She lowered her mouth to Mari’s scent gland again, sucking gently at the skin above it as Mari shivered in her arms, her thumb clamping Bisi’s nipple against the side of her index finger. She was all softness, all give, all trust. Ok. Alright. Stop now, Bisi. Bisi brushed a final light kiss over the spot and began to straighten. She wasn’t going to claim Mari or anything like it, not for a long time yet, and maybe never if Mari didn’t want that. It had just been a wild impulse. A mating Alpha thing. She was going to have to get used to the very loud instincts, because she did not think they would get any better from here on out. Likely they would only get worse, but Bisi was better than that, much better than that. She would figure it out. Somehow. Mari was worth it.

“Temi,” said Bisi as she straightened, “I’m sorry, I got carried away.”

Mari let her hand fall away from Bisi’s chest, nodding. “Yeah, I… Me, too. Also sorry.”

“I’m not really sorry.”

“Me either.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think you had better go and get your jacket now. We need to be at ‘the location’ by a quarter to seven, and it takes a little while to get there. Ah, look. I may be a scoundrel, but at least I left your lips in unbelievably perfect condition.”

“Staaaahp,” said Mari as she crossed the room to grab her shrug and coat.

She returned and Bisi took them from her and helped her into each in turn. As Mari gathered her bag and her keys, Bisi said, “Letting you cover up all that beautiful skin really hurts me, Marisol.”

“Maybe not quite as much as the cold will hurt me.”

“You make a valid point. Do you need a scarf, too? Where’s your scarf? What about gloves? Are those shoes warm enough? Of course they aren’t! Your toes!”

Mari laughed at her and opened the door a few inches before Bisi caught the upper edge and pulled it open for her. “Stop,” she said over her shoulder to Bisi, as she walked through. “I’d say you sound like my mother, but my mother had the good sense to raise me on a nice, warm island and so she never had to prepare me to go out and suffer in the cold. You sound like someone’s mother, though. As long as ‘the location’ is indoors and heated, I think I should be able to endure the long journey from the car to the indoors without too much trouble.”

Bisi pulled the door closed and waited for Mari to lock it, wondering if the lock didn’t look a little old and the door a little flimsy. Was Mari safe enough behind that door? And what about the balcony she’d seen on the far side of the living room? Were the glass doors that opened onto it secure? Could someone climb up there? What had they been talking about? Oh. Right. The restaurant. “It’s indoors, and heated. We should be very comfortable there. Things might get a little weird, though.”

“Are you taking me to a Swinger’s Club on our second date? How weird are things gonna get?” said Mari, indignantly, but she gave Bisi a quick wink and a smile over her shoulder.

Unfortunately, the charm of the wink and the smile were somewhat overshadowed by the ferocious burst of rage Bisi felt at the mere idea of some other person, or persons, trying to touch her mate. She thought maybe flames were leaping in her irises as she said, “No, that is not at all what I had in mind. And I haven’t been to this location yet, and I hear wonderful things, but still, it sounds as if it will be a little weird.”

Forty five minutes later, they were seated comfortably at a table in an elegant restaurant. Mari had her hands held over a large stone bowl and a man was slowly pouring melted chocolate over them. Ridiculously, this made Bisi jealous. At least chocolate was sort of warm and sensual, she reflected, thereby semi-justifying Bisi’s irritation, but Bisi had also felt dislike for the valet who had held Mari’s door and goggled at her as she exited the vehicle and the staff member who had held Mari’s chair for her and pushed it in. Since Bisi had chosen the restaurant in part for its reputation for excellent service and had known all about the chocolate hand-washing in advance, she could hardly convince herself that her internal outrage was reasonable. Still. She didn’t like it. Especially when the server suggested Mari taste the chocolate and then watched as she did, and smiled. Bisi, meanwhile, felt a thunderclap of lust echo through her pelvis as Mari sucked the chocolate off of her finger tip, and the urge to shove the table out of the way and snatch her up and run off with her was strong enough that it took her a moment to realize that her own chocolate hand bath had arrived. As she lifted her hands and held them over the bowl, she tried not to look sullen as the server began pouring warm water over Mari’s hands to rinse away the chocolate, and Mari was laughing as she turned her hands to get them fully clean. Irascibly, Bisi honestly felt for a moment that she didn’t like anything except for Mari. She considered hummingbirds for a moment. Ok. That wasn’t true. Maybe it was more fair to say that she didn’t like anything half as well as Mari. 

Then they started pouring the chocolate over Bisi’s hands and the rich smell filled her nose and cleared her head and the momentary lapse into adolescent moodiness was over. Only twenty courses to go  and then they could be alone together again