him, he’d never worn anything but cutoff shorts or jeans and a T-shirt that molded each and every subtly defined muscle. Just thinking about him had the heat pooling in her center. “And his smile. I really hate it when he smiles at me.”
“I hear you,” Sierra said, then took another sip of her champagne.
“It’s as if he knows things about me that he has no right to know.”
“Unforgivable,” Sierra said.
Zoë leaned forward. “You know there’s more to him than meets the eye. On the surface, he seems so laid-back like some kind of California surfer who’s living for the next perfect wave. But underneath, there’s something else, a kind of power. It’s hard to explain…” It was the same hint of power that she’d imagined in Lucifer, she realized. And she was attracted to that as much as she was to the easy, mocking charm. “If Jed Calhoun gets in your path, you won’t get past him.”
“Yes.” Sierra nodded. “I noticed that, too.”
Zoë took another sip of champagne. Maybe it was helping to talk about it. “He didn’t even kiss me,” Zoë said.
Sierra paused as she was reaching for the champagne bottle. “When didn’t he kiss you?”
“The other night at the Blue Pepper when we were celebrating your engagement to Ryder. He invited me to dance and the next thing I knew we were behind one of those potted palms on the patio. He started to kiss me. And…” Zoë’s voice trailed off as images flooded her mind, and her body began to heat. She could recall those minutes when she’d been in Jed’s arms so clearly. Each sensation had been so intense.
There’d been a brick wall at her back and Jed Calhoun had been standing so close that she could see the sheen of dampness on the skin at his throat. Her own throat had gone dry as dust when he’d used two fingers to tilt up her chin so that she had to meet his eyes.
The tips of his fingers had been rough, and his touch had been confident and firm. This close, the flecks of green in those gray eyes had been darker, and for the first time, she’d detected no hint of the mocking laughter that she’d always seen there.
“I wish I knew why I want to kiss you so much.” His voice had been rough, edged with a trace of annoyance.
The words had so clearly echoed what she was thinking that she’d wondered for a moment if he’d read her mind. While she was still thinking about that, he’d wrapped his other hand around the nape of her neck and lowered his mouth to within a breath of hers.
Her mind had emptied so quickly that she’d felt as if someone had pulled a plug. She’d known she should do something. Push him away. But he’d moved closer still until she’d felt the press of his body, firm, lean and strong against hers.
She’d risen on her toes to close the distance between them. Even then, his lips had barely brushed against hers. Still, the contact had sent a shock wave right down to her toes.
“More.”
Zoë wasn’t sure who’d spoken the word, but his mouth had moved against hers again. It wasn’t really a kiss at all, and it was certainly not the kind of kiss that she’d expected from Jed Calhoun.
“You have a habit of biting down on your lower lip,” he’d murmured. “Every time you do it, I want to do this.” He’d drawn her bottom lip into his mouth and nipped it lightly. His breath had slipped between her parted lips and this time the shock wave had set off explosions. Every one of her senses had sharpened; each nerve in her body had snapped to life. She’d curled her fingers into his T-shirt.
“More.”
His tongue had slipped between her lips and touched just the tip of hers, and she’d let out a shuddering breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding.
Then as suddenly as it had begun, the kiss was over. Jed had lifted his mouth from hers and taken a step back. Her head had been spinning so that she hadn’t even protested when he’d gripped her wrists and removed her hands from his shirt. At the abrupt loss of contact, her body had felt both icy and on fire, both weak and exhilarated. And deep inside of her she’d felt an overwhelming greed.
“Interesting,” he’d murmured.
Interesting? She’d never experienced anything like it, and Jed Calhoun had thought the kiss was interesting.
“Earth to Zoë…”
Sierra’s voice pulled Zoë abruptly back to the present.
“That must have been some kiss,” Sierra said with a grin. “You said more twice while you were in that little trance.”
Zoë frowned. “But he didn’t give me more. I mean…” she broke off as pure anger bubbled to the surface of the emotions swirling through her. She pounded her fist on the desk and Sierra quickly rescued both glasses.
“If he were here right now, I’d make him finish what he started!”
“You go, girl!” Sierra said.
Zoë blinked. “But I can’t. I won’t. I—”
Sierra reached out and took her hand. “Why can’t you, Zoë?”
“Because I have terrible judgment when it comes to men.”
“Since when?” Sierra asked. “Seems to me you’ve got Jed Calhoun’s number.”
Zoë shook her head. “I see all men through rose-colored glasses. Take the guy I dated in college my freshman year. Bradley Harper. My therapist said he was my rebellion against my parents’ plans for me. But I thought I was in love with him.”
“What were your parents’ plans?” Sierra asked.
Zoë waved a hand. “What we’re celebrating right now—my upward climb to success in academia.”
Sierra topped off their glasses again. “So what happened with Bradley Harper?”
“College was my first taste of freedom, my first chance to do things that I wanted to do. Bradley was my initial experiment with getting a sex life.”
Sierra’s eyes brightened with interest. “What exactly did you do?”
Zoë took another sip from her glass and leaned back in her chair. “I started with research. I looked like a nerd, acted like a nerd. You don’t get much of a fashion sense when you don’t get out much. So I collected information on sex from all kinds of places: scholarly journals, popular magazines. I observed other girls who were popular with men and I studied how they dressed, what kind of things they talked about. Finally, I did my best to change my appearance from nerd to sexpot.”
“Amazing! I never would have had the courage to do that. If I’d never met Ryder, I would have stayed in nerd mode forever.” Sierra passed Zoë another chocolate. “Did it work?”
“Yes.” Zoë twisted the paper off the chocolate, but she didn’t taste it. “I picked out the boy I wanted to have sex with, and I didn’t have to ask twice.”
“You actually asked him?”
Zoë
