a very sensual experience from where I’m sitting.”
She blinked at him, saw the hot appreciation in his gaze and felt herself blush. Again. “How’s your steak?”
“Exceptional. And rare. Just the way I like it.”
And just the way he liked his women, she figured. There was nothing rare about her. And yet she couldn’t quite stall a little shiver of awareness as his gaze swept from her face to her neck, then dropped ever so subtly to the swell of her breasts before he smiled into her eyes.
“Have another bite of your fish. I want to watch you indulge some more.”
He’d done it again. Managed to make her face burn with a fire that wasn’t fueled as much by irritation as it should have been. Awareness…of him as a man…of herself as a woman, played a bigger part. And it was time to get on top of the situation.
“I think I’ve waited long enough. It’s time to talk about your other condition for turning over Jess Golden’s things.”
“You haven’t been paying attention,” he said, that maddeningly amused grin tipping up one corner of his mouth. “I already named it. The condition is we strike a deal. I’ll agree to do something you deem as adult and you’ll agree to do something I deem as juvenile.”
He insisted on pushing. Okay fine. She’d push back. But how?
And just like that, it came to her how she could call his bluff.
“Okay. You’re on.”
He did a double take. Then sat back in his chair and considered her with a pleasantly disbelieving look. “For real?”
She nodded. “For real.”
“Well, okay then, Chris-tine,” he said, drawing out her name, “what do I have to do?”
“Run for mayor.”
That wiped the smile off his face. “What?”
“You’re so confident that Gretchen Halifax will make a lousy candidate? Then you need to make sure she doesn’t get the position.”
“Hell, sweet cheeks, I’m no politician.”
“All the better. You already run a business. It’s not much of a stretch to run a city.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Oh. Now it’s ridiculous. Now that I’ve called you on it.”
“But it’s my game,” he whined with the express intent of making her laugh.
And she did. It just sort of bubbled out, surprising her more than it surprised him.
“Lord, that’s sweet,” he said. “You really ought to do that more often.”
“You make me sound like I’m a stuffy old curmudgeon,” she grumbled, but she was still grinning.
“There is nothing stuffy about you, darlin’. And nothing old. Everything’s new—especially that laugh. Did you know your eyes sort of dance in that beautiful face when you laugh?”
His eyes had turned dark again, fueled by a fire that was far too warm and far too intimate for her comfort. She felt exposed…and as alive with sensation as if he’d physically touched her.
“You’re full of charm, Mr. Thorne. And you do so love to use it, don’t you?”
“When it gets results like that, yes, ma’am. I truly do.” He reached across the table, took her hand in his. “You have the most kissable mouth. I bet you didn’t know that, either, did you?”
Yikes. Okay. Time out. He was way too fast on his feet for her. And the way she was feeling about him was too confusing.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, pulling her hand from his. “I’ll be right back.”
Then she hightailed it to the ladies’ room while her bones were still in solid form. Another few minutes under his seductive gaze and said bones might just fold like licorice. And then where would she be? Believing he didn’t say those things to all the girls, that’s where. That belief would be a mistake of major proportions.
She knew that for a fact. But knowing it didn’t take the sting out of the truth that a teeny, tiny part of her wanted to believe he really thought she was special.
Wasn’t that just the most asinine thing? She didn’t even like him. Well, she hadn’t liked him. She still didn’t want to like him. And yet…she was having fun tonight. Kind of. When the mood struck him, he could be very sweet and attentive and…Stop!
Just stop. This was the same man who had tormented her for the past five years. For all she knew, tonight was just a precursor to another kind of torment. The kind that could leave her wounded instead of just ticked off.
“Had a good time tonight, Chrissie,” Jake said as he pulled up in front of her apartment.
As he walked her up the sidewalk to the door of her first-floor apartment, his hands were tucked oh-so casually into his trouser pockets. Of course, to accomplish that he’d had to brush his suit jacket aside. So, of course, Christine’s peripheral vision was filled with the way his white dress shirt hugged an abdomen that, if memory served, exemplified the term six-pack abs.
“The dinner was excellent,” she said, aware of the warmth of the July night, ultra-aware of the height and the rich scent of the man walking beside her.
“Exceeded only by the company.”
When she’d returned to the table after her trip to the ladies’ room, she’d very quickly steered him away from the topic of dancing eyes and kissable lips. Fortunately he’d taken her cue and backed off all the Mr. Charm talk. They’d discussed the weather, her work at the hospital and the Royal Museum. When she’d pressed, he’d reluctantly told her about his business—if you counted, “It’s doing well,” as talking about it.
Since he hadn’t seemed to want to talk about it any more than she’d wanted to discuss her family, they’d opted for talk about their alma maters. She was an Aggie and he’d been a Longhorn, and since the two schools were huge interstate rivals, verbal competition about which university was better had kept them occupied through the ride back to her apartment.
But now he was in flirt mode again. And she was going to nip that in the bud because no good could come from her falling for his practiced lines. She had it all planned in her head. She would turn to him when they reached her door, shake his hand, thank him for dinner and get while the getting was good.
She no longer cared that they hadn’t sealed the deal over Jess Golden’s things. She’d revisit the issue another time when she wasn’t so confused. With all his charming talk and heated looks and walk-on-the-wild-side banter, he’d thrown her totally off-kilter.
She wasn’t used to feeling so off balance. She didn’t know how to handle the sensation. But she did know how to handle him.
Thank you, handshake, good night. A good, solid plan.
“Thank
