the lawyers driving off for dinner, and Daniel took advantage, grabbing his duffel.
No one had even noticed he’d been gone. Excellent.
When he walked through her French doors, bag in hand, she looked up from the book she was reading on the couch, as if he had disturbed her. Daniel didn’t usually second-guess himself; he didn’t have to. But this time, he did. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” he asked.
“Are you kidding? Don’t worry.”
After that, he stopped worrying and simply enjoyed himself. Dinner was great, and afterward when the shadows of evening had begun to fall, Catherine broke out a bottle of 1982 Rothschild, pouring two glasses. “Grandfather’s got a truly excellent cellar,” she told Daniel. She sat next to him on the couch, curling her legs underneath her.
The wine seemed like the perfect ending to what had been the best day he’d had in some time. Seven years, in fact. Next door might have been When Good Lawyers Go Bad, but here, with the steady sound of the ocean, the quiet of the house, the easiness of her company, Daniel felt peace.
“This has been nice,” he told her. “I appreciate it.”
“You don’t expect much. I like that,” she said, lifting her eyes to his, and Daniel promptly forgot what he was going to say. It’d been too long since he’d been in such a close setting. He could feel the heat under his collar, the slow pound in his blood and the push of his cock against what had been a loose pair of shorts until he had found himself fascinated by a set of wistful brown eyes.
Snap out of it, O’Sullivan.
Even before he could look away, Catherine did. Time for bed.
Alone.
He took a deep sip of wine and then placed it on the table, getting to his feet. “I think I’ll go to bed. Sleepy. Tired. Didn’t get much sleep last night.” He was rambling, pathetically rambling, but he needed to run and fast. The poor kid was probably completely unaware of the ideas that were suddenly flooding his brain.
Catherine uncurled herself from the sofa, and he found himself staring down the front of her bathing suit, which, up to this point, had been sensible and concealing. But now it wasn’t, nope—when a man was staring straight down her front, he saw flesh. Soft, pliable flesh. Soft, pliable bare flesh.
She lifted her gaze again, sending a shockwave through him for absolutely no reason, because it wasn’t as if she was going triple-X on him. No, this was just her being her, and he was suddenly in danger of busting a seam. For nothing. Just a set of dark eyelashes. And the breasts. The soft, pliable…okay, it was really time to leave. Past time to leave.
Daniel told himself to move, but it was too late. He’d found bottles of whiskey that were easier to escape than one single, soulful pair of shadowy brown eyes.
She rose from the couch.
His breathing stopped.
And then she kissed him.
3
DANIEL PULLED AWAY from her. “I should go,” he said, completely and utterly embarrassing her.
Oh God. She had thought…well, who cares what she thought? She’d been so caught up in the rare moment of being in the close proximity of such a man-man and now she’d blown it. Why the heck did she think he’d want to kiss her?
Talk. Yes. Sex. That’s a big No.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done this. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She was rambling. Whenever she got embarrassed, she developed a severe case of foot-in-mouth disease, which was a reason she always managed to avoid embarrassing situations.
“It wasn’t that stupid,” he answered, his eyes crinkling up nicely.
“I don’t mean that it was stupid to kiss you, I mean, you’re…” She waved a hand, searching for words, but found none, so opted for a silent adjective and stared a hole in the floor. He could figure that one out on his own. “I meant that I shouldn’t have intruded into your space without an explicit invitation. It’s rude.”
“I didn’t think it was rude,” he answered evenly, making her like him even more. He was so polite, trying to make her feel better, and she did.
“Okay, maybe not rude, but wrong.”
“It wasn’t wrong, either.”
“I shouldn’t have done it. Let’s leave it at that,” she stated, trying to extricate herself from this with some pride intact.
“No, I think you should have done it.”
At that point, as nice as his ego-bolstering was, she decided to bring him crashing back to reality. “Which is why I put the fear of God in you and you jumped?” she asked, as nicely as she could have when her words dripped with sarcasm.
He shook his head. “Not the fear of God. Something much more basic.”
His voice changed at the end, turning rough and textured. In fact, she was so caught up in this newly discovered sexualvoice experience that she almost missed the words.
Almost. Her stomach pitched and then steadied, and she wondered if he knew what he’d just done. She didn’t dare look up, but she sensed the change in the air. It wasn’t the salt of the sea or the hint of black fruit in the bouquet of the wine. This was heady and strong, and sent bright bursts of fever rushing through her.
“So this is okay?” she asked, her breath thin and forced, coming from freshly squeezed lungs.
His hand curved around her waist, his fingers stroking softly, straying into the no-man’s-land between her bare back and the elastic of her swimsuit. Her body shivered, nerve endings descending into pleasured chaos.
There was something so private, so personal about a man’s and woman’s gazes meeting, and Catherine didn’t do it often. People thought she was shy, but cowardly was the better description. In her chest, her heart thudded painfully, and slowly, questioningly, her eyes raised to his, her Odysseus. Desire darkened the gray to black smoke, and he didn’t look lonely. Not anymore. Catherine couldn’t look away. Not now. Probably not ever.
Her hand reached out, touching the cotton shirt that covered his chest. One touch, to feel him. To touch him at last.
Her palm rested flat on him, over his heart, and she could feel the heated blood pounding there.
Warm flesh was so much better than art. The hard contours of his body weren’t cold granite, or marble, but overflowed with muscle, bone and blood that called to her. She considered herself an expert on the male body in theory, but she wasn’t even close when it came to the real thing. Right now, she was shaking like a kid. Gently, he inched her toward him, until her whole body was aligned with his, sternum to sternum, pelvis to pelvis, woman to man.
Bliss.
Then he lowered his head, covering her lips with his own.
Oh.
Oh.
