In another world, another time

As she circled around the booth he couldn't keep his eyes off her, the ultra-low scooped back broken only by straps connecting to a gold ring on her lower left back that left nothing in him but the urge to pull her close...

Run his fingers along her skin...

Seating down next to him, close enough for her presence to further assault him, far enough to make the longing rise...

Crossing her legs she watched him, the intensity in her eyes battering at his newly constructed defences, driving rationale away.

"You're here," he stated, voice somewhat hoarse.

"Yes, as one can clearly see." She gestured her head behind him.

Bill turned his head to find Genevieve talking to Justin, his friend looking at the French woman intently as she spoke, absorbed.

"Doesn't explain what you yourself are doing here." He turned to face her, wanting her, needing her to say it.

And realising that she was almost as stubborn as he was...she wouldn't capitulate to that easily.

"I don't need to explain it." Her tone told him she didn't want to argue

He knew if he pushed she would barricade herself away again. She was here, of her own volition, and he couldn't resist the enjoyment he derived from it.

He moved closer towards her, eliminating all distance, their legs touching.

"I don't need you to." He leaned in close, boring into her eyes.

"I just care that you are." The veracity of that statement resonated inside him, and he knew she felt it, saw it in his eyes.

All rationale had fled the moment she had placed her fingers on him, whispered softly as she sang to him.

She smiled at him, and the sight of it, being the cause of it, warmth flooded him.

"Now tell me how she roped you into being a model."

She snickered, explaining, "In the end, it was simply easier to just give her what she wanted. She can be such a headache when she's pouty. All the time I had was preoccupied by other things. I didn't want to add her to the mix."

"What other things?"

"You know."

"I want to hear you say it."

"Why?" she breathed.

"Say it."

She turned her head away from him. Placing his glass on the table, he urged her face back towards him, fingertips on her jaw as tendrils of heat erupted at the contact.

"That wall you're trying to construct even as we talk has no ground to stand on, " his fingers trailing down her jawline, "I know you feel it, I can practically smell it in the air when you react," fingers running down soft skin, her pulse pounding, "almost hear the jump in your heartbeat when I touch you," her pulse drumming faster beneath his fingers, "just about feel, taste the pleasure that little contact brings you," her eyes glazing over with his words, "you can't deny this..." lowering his head more, eyes locked, " just as much as I can't."

Steffy's chest rose as she bit back, "Doesn't change the fact that you're married to the woman you picked over me once before."

Bill saw the pain in her eyes as she said it, the urge to drive it away an unalterable entreaty he could not reject.

"Even that doesn't change the fact that you are all I think about," he leaned in closer, "all I seem to want, no matter how wrong it should be," lips pressed gently against hers, "or how right it feels," tongue licking her lips, her shocked gasp giving him the opening he needed as he leaned in, sealing his mouth over hers, her inebriating taste flooding him...