she hadn’t been thinking at all when he was kissing her. For those few moments, she’d felt so extraordinary, so…wild, and so incredibly wanton. It was as if she were a totally different woman. She took yet another breath.
“Here,” he said, pushing something into the hand he’d been holding. “Do you need this? Or this?”
Once he released her hand, her brain started to clear. Sierra glanced down to see that he was offering her inhaler and the prescription pills she carried with her at all times. Reality check. This was the old Sierra Gibbs, she thought, a woman who suffered from asthma and migraines. That Sierra wasn’t a woman who kissed strangers in bars. So who was the woman who had kissed this man?
It was a new question and her desire to find the answer to it had her fighting off another onslaught of panic. She used her inhaler. Then feeling a bit steadier, she said, “Thanks.” Steeling herself, she met his eyes.
Concern was all she saw. There was nothing of the desire she’d seen earlier. Sierra swallowed her disappointment. All of her life she’d managed to bring out the protective streak in men. Even Bradley Winthrop, the man she was currently seeing, treated her as if he were her caretaker.
Wasn’t that one of the reasons that she’d come up with her five-step plan? She didn’t want to be the baby who was taken care of anymore. And she wanted to be a take-charge woman in the bedroom as well as out. In short, she wanted to be the woman she’d just been in this man’s arms.
She’d do well to remember that she had a five-step plan. But while she was gazing into his eyes, it was difficult to remember the steps. His eyes were as gray as smoke, the kind that could swallow you up in a heartbeat. For the first time in her life, the thought of losing herself that way sent a little thrill through her.
Oh, she was definitely not the same woman who’d walked into the bar a few minutes ago. But she wasn’t at all sure that she was ready to be the woman she’d felt bloom inside her during that kiss. She had to think…she…
“At least let me buy you a drink. You look as if you could use one. I know I could.”
“Yes. Okay.” The words were out before she remembered. “Oh no, I can’t. I forgot.” She tore her eyes from his and glanced around. How could she have forgotten her sisters, not to mention her father’s letter?
“You have a date?”
“Yes.” She grabbed her canvas bag and stuffed the pills and the inhaler into it. “Sort of.” Spotting her day planner under a stool, she reached for it, but he was quicker.
“Sierra Gibbs, Ph.D.” He read the name off the card that had slipped out of the plastic slot on the cover. “What’s the Ph.D. in?”
“Psychology and Sociology.” She glanced around, but didn’t spot the letter from her father.
“Two Ph.D.’s. I’m impressed, Doc. And you’re a shrink?”
In spite of the interest in his voice, she kept her eyes averted. “Not in the way you probably mean. I don’t have a private practice or anything like that.”
“No couch?”
“No. Only psychiatrists use those.” He was smiling, she was sure of it, but she didn’t dare risk another look at his mouth. She wouldn’t be able to think if she did. “I teach at Georgetown in the graduate school. Mostly, I do research and write. I just finished a book.” She was babbling. And no wonder. Her lips were still vibrating from that kiss.
In spite of her resolve, she found herself looking at his mouth again. Immediately, curiosity began to war with common sense. If she just had the courage to lean forward and close the distance, would she experience that same whirl of sensations again? The thought slipped into her mind so easily, as if the man who’d just kissed her was simply some experiment that she wanted to run through again.
But he wasn’t a lab experiment, and she should really get a grip. Her sisters would be waiting for her, she reminded herself. She was never late for an appointment. And she had her father’s letter to read.
Scrambling reluctantly to her feet, she said, “I really have to go.”
She made it halfway to the stairs that led to the upper dining level when she remembered the letter. With a flutter of panic, she whirled around and saw that he was right behind her, the envelope in his outstretched hand.
“It was under one of the stools,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
Ryder grabbed her wrist before she could turn and used a finger under her chin so that she had to meet his eyes.
“The kiss was my pleasure, too, Dr. Gibbs.”
“I…it was…I don’t think…I…”
Ryder smiled at her. This blushing, flustered woman was the nervous Nellie he’d first spotted pacing in front of the restaurant. This side of her contrasted sharply with the determined-looking Joan of Arc who’d strode so purposefully into the restaurant. And then there was the woman he’d held in his arms a few minutes ago. “Kisses are best when you can’t think at all—don’t you think?”
Color flooded her face, and Ryder saw once again the innocence that he’d sensed in the woman who’d kissed him so passionately. How many other women lurked below the surface? Curious, he felt the strong pull of desire. Oh, there were complications here all right.
“That kiss was…” she began.
“Incredibly exciting.”
“Yes, but I think…I’m sure….”
Later, Ryder would wonder if he might have given into impulse and kissed her again right then and there, but his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. The high-tech version of “saved by the bell,” he supposed as he took it out.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said to Sierra Gibbs before, with some effort, he turned away and took the call.
“Ryder, it’s Mark.” Static rattled in his ear for a second. “…delayed…not going…make it.”
Right. Mark Anderson, the man he was supposed to meet. And the man who’d slipped right out of his mind for the past few minutes. “Where are you?”
“I’ve been…think it was worth it.”
In spite of the choppy connection, Ryder could hear the excitement in his old friend’s voice, and something else that he recognized as fear. “Are you all right?”
“…can’t talk…on the phone. Not safe…they can trace the location…?”
“If they have the right equipment,” Ryder said. And just what was Mark involved in that he’d have people tracing his cell? “Are you in trouble?”
“…tomorrow…same place?”
“Sure. Blue Pepper, five o’clock?” Ryder frowned when he realized that the call had ended. He hoped that they had the time straight between them.
He was about to climb back on
