told you I was being silly.”
“I know this thing has turned your life upside down. I admire the fact you were brave enough to take on embezzlers and terrorists. Not everyone would do that.”
She shrugged.
“I’ll get you back home to your normal life as soon as possible,” he said, though he didn’t look forward to pushing her out of his life. But that was inevitable. Tempted though he was, he couldn’t allow Lucy or any woman to get close to him. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t safe.
“It certainly hasn’t been all bad,” she said with a sniff. The ocean breeze had all but dried her tears. “At home I don’t get to dress like this or have dinner at a gazillion-dollar mansion or meet publishing luminaries.”
“Publishing luminaries with bad manners,” Bryan added with a rueful laugh. “Ah, Lucy, you’re a good sport.”
He gave her a spontaneous hug, which he’d intended to be brief and brotherly. Instead, Lucy put her arms around him and hugged him back, hard, pressing her luscious body against his.
Almost of its own accord, his hand slid down to her slender waist, then lower, flirting with the curve of her bottom.
When he realized what he was doing he froze. He’d been about to grab Lucy’s butt! He forced himself to ease his grip on her, to gradually pull away.
She looked up at him with those vibrant green eyes still dewy with tears, her pink mouth slightly parted. And the expression in her eyes, one of such utter trust, did him in completely.
No one had ever looked at him that way. Before he knew what was happening, he bent his head and closed the few inches between them, capturing those moist, pink lips with his.
Her lips were rose-petal soft, and as open and giving as a rose in full bloom, too. Bryan’s energy collided and melded with Lucy’s as their vibrations became one, breathing and heartbeats in sync, until he wasn’t sure where he ended and she began.
His body, which had been tuned to Lucy’s station almost from the moment they met, leaped to life with a craving so keen it was painful.
She tasted faintly of the wine she’d been drinking, and he tasted more deeply, coaxing her with his tongue to open even more. She did without hesitation. Again the utter trust she showed blew him away.
It was that trust that finally dragged him to his senses. He could not take advantage of this situation. He’d gotten Lucy into her current position and had promised to protect her. She was depending on him for everything—food, clothing, shelter. To abuse his position was unconscionable.
He pulled back again, and this time he put his hands on her bare arms and gently pushed her away as he broke the kiss.
“We shouldn’t do this.”
She blinked a couple of times, and he wondered if he imagined the hurt look in her eyes. But in the span of another heartbeat, she smiled mischievously. “Why not? We’re supposed to be smitten. I was just playing the part.”
“Honey, if that was acting, you deserve an Academy Award.”
“I’m very talented,” she agreed, leaving him to wonder what exactly she meant by that. A talented actress? Or talented in other ways?
As they turned toward the staircase, Lucy boldly put her hand on his butt and squeezed. “Very talented.”
So, no ambiguity there. She’d practically issued an engraved invitation that she was open to making love.
Regrettably, it was one invitation he was going to have to decline. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t think about it—which he did, through the remainder of dessert and after-dinner coffee, through the farewell hugs and promises to drive carefully, and throughout the drive home.
He was as primed as a sixteen-year-old on his first car date—and unfortunately about as likely to get lucky. Every time he glanced over at her, her blond hair swirling about her face from the breeze coming through the moon roof, her eyes drowsy from good food and wine and pure exhaustion, he wanted to come out of his skin.
He escorted her to the elevator in his building, careful not to touch her. “I’ll be up in a few minutes,” he said. “I need to check on things at the restaurant.”
She glanced at her watch. “Isn’t the restaurant closed?”
“Uh, right. I need to be sure things are ready for tomorrow.” Which was a silly reply, because Lucy knew Stash took care of the day-to-day concerns. But it was the best he could come up with. He couldn’t possibly go up to his apartment with her until he had his libido under control. In his current state, she had only to hint at seduction and he would be at her mercy. Seeing as how he didn’t know what she had in mind, he thought it would be safer to keep his distance.
“All right. Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow. Oh, and Lucy, you did great tonight. Posing as Lindsay, I mean. I don’t think anyone in my family suspects a thing.”
“I’m not so sure about that, but thanks.”
He gave the verbal command that would send the elevator up to his loft, then stepped out and let the doors close between them.
He used his key to get into the darkened restaurant. What he needed was to burn off excess energy, and whipping something up in the kitchen ought to do the trick, he thought. Something decadent, something with chocolate and bourbon, the best substitutes for sex he could think of.
Maeve had given him his love for fine food. When his brother and cousins were outside playing and he couldn’t join in because of his heart ailment, Maeve would take him into the kitchen. He would pick out a recipe from her many boxes and cookbooks, and together they would cook. He learned to associate the heady smells of yeast and chocolate and toasted almonds with happy times, and to this day puttering in the kitchen could take the edge off when he was tense, or when he had to figure something out.
His plan was to dream up a new dessert and play around with the ingredients while he put some serious thought to how to track down Stungun—and either rescue him, find out who killed him—or bring him to justice if he was the traitor.
Instead, his thoughts turned again and again to Lucy—how she’d looked on the beach with the wind in her hair and her clothes molded against her body, the strength in her stance and the vulnerability in her face, her intelligence and bravery.
Soon he had three different sauces on the stove and he was going to work on some heavy cream with the KitchenAid mixer. An orange cake was in the oven—not one of these fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth cakes, but something with some substance. He didn’t yet know what the end product would be, but he planned to eat the whole thing himself, until his appetites were subdued—or he was too sick to even think about making love to Lucy. Only then could he return to his apartment.
Lucy lay in her bed in one of her slinky new nighties, trying her best to find sleep. But she couldn’t help thinking about the kiss on the beach.
That kiss had been no acting job, on her part or Bryan’s. She’d tasted the naked desire in the kiss, sharp as a knife and strong as a tidal wave. She’d felt the answering call in herself, a yearning so strong she couldn’t
