don’t you trust me?” he asked.
“Who said I don’t trust you?” She looked at him with studied innocence.
He chuckled, tilting his head to look at her with his brilliant eyes. “I like you, Diana. I enjoy your company. If at any point you don’t like what’s going on tonight, you can just get up and go. I’ll call you a taxi and that will be that.”
His kindness suddenly made her feel ridiculous. She took a sip of the champagne he’d ordered for them and looked around the restaurant. On stage, a woman had joined the pianist, singing a soulful version of Nina Simone’s “My Baby Just Cares for Me.”
Looking down at the performance, she realized that most of the crowd was actually paying attention to the music, pausing their conversations and their meals to watch the woman with a head of blazing red hair vamp it up while her husky and sensual voice made an invitation out of the song.
“I like it here,” she said after a few minutes watching the singer. “Thank you for bringing me.”
“You’re welcome.”
After their meal came, they sat in a comfortable quiet, allowing the music to fill the spaces between them. The food—a creamy onion soup rich with the taste of butter and garlic, and seared scallops simmered in orange butter and served on a bed of edamame and quinoa—was delicious, probably one of the best meals she’d ever eaten.
Marcus offered to share his braised lamb shank served with red cabbage and gorgeous golden polenta. She declined but watched him eat his meal with obvious pleasure, slowly savoring each bite and licking his lips before taking a sip of the wine.
After the waitress took their dinner plates away, they sat back with drinks to enjoy the performances on the stage. Diana sipped her champagne, sweetly relaxed in her chair as she turned her head to listen to the delicate, intertwined voices of the twin girls, no older than teenagers, who were singing now. She felt Marcus’s eyes on her, a gentle weight, but she did not look up.
“Dance with me,” he said.
In that moment, she couldn’t imagine saying no to him. He guided her to the dance floor near the main stage, where there were only a dozen or so people already dancing. Marcus opened his arms, and she stepped into them.
The twins sang a slow and lulling version of “Blue Gardenia,” one of them sitting on the edge of the stage with her cordless microphone while the other swayed on her feet in front of the corded mic, her voice wrapping the room in a velvet curtain of sound. Their voices were low and deep, surprising for such small girls. Diana tried to focus on them instead of the man whose arms were wrapped around her.
Unlike the last time they danced, she felt an intimacy between them, their bodies moving in slow communion to the strains of the jazz song. He smelled solid and warm, spicy, like cedar and sandalwood.
She pulled his scent into her, unable to help herself. He didn’t pull her into him and force his crotch into hers, only held her delicately, allowing their bodies to come close during the song, then drift back apart. They swayed, and she smelled him. They turned, and his warmth flowed over her. His hand pressed into the small of her back while his thighs brushed against hers during the dance. A whisper of his breath moved at her ear.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured.
And God help her, she believed him.
She slipped her arms around his neck and moved closer, a little horrified that she was so susceptible to flattery. But it felt good that this handsome man thought she was beautiful and wanted to spend time with her. She was enjoying his company. When the song ended, they kept dancing by silent agreement, moving even more slowly as the singers took on a Sade song, “Lover’s Rock.”
Their hips swayed together. Flutters of arousal moved through Diana’s belly, made her skin tingle whenever it touched his. She knew she should be worried, that she should move away from him and regain control of herself, but it felt too good. His touch. The music. The desire winding around them like a silken ribbon.
The song ended and Marcus slid his hands around her waist, pressed his mouth to her forehead.
“I want to kiss you,” he murmured.
She trembled at the urgency in his voice. Her hands tightened for a moment on his shoulders. Her body was hot with the need for that kiss. “Not here,” she said, not sure how she would react to his touch in front of all those people.
He pulled back, took her hand and drew her through the thin crowd of dancers. Down a quiet, wood-paneled hallway. The smell of cigars and wood smoke. Emptiness. He pressed her against the wall, hips against hers, hands planted on either side of her head. His mouth swooped down, lightly touching hers and sweetly asking permission.
Diana parted her lips with a sigh. A sound of pure masculine pleasure rumbled through him as they kissed. Mouths fiercely joined, tongues twining together. He touched her hips, hands hard and warm on her. Arousal rippled through her. She sank her nails into his back through the thin shirt and he made another rough sound, then shoved his hips into hers.
What are you doing?
A part of her rebelled against what she was falling into. But the rest of her rejoiced. She squeezed her thighs together as the arousal built. He licked her mouth, sucking on her tongue, sending a molten feeling straight into her lap. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted him inside her. But...but that couldn’t happen. She wasn’t that kind of girl.
Diana forced herself to pull away from him, palms pressed to his chest, easing away to dim the fires of the sudden and consuming desire.
“Christ! You’re so damn sexy....” He breathed the words against her mouth.
“You’re not so bad yourself.” She bit the inside of her lip to stop herself from inviting him home with her. It had been so long since she’d been with a man she was attracted to like this, a man who was attracted to her in return. Diana dug her fingers into his biceps.
“I want to spend the night with you,” he rasped.
She shook her head, but before the words could pass her lips, he squeezed her waist. “Not like that. Well, I’d like that, but I would settle for seeing the sunrise with you.” He said it as if surprised by the desire. By her. “I want to make the night last.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes. I want that, too.”
He looked relieved. “Good.”
As they walked back to the table, her phone vibrated through her purse. She thought about ignoring it, but the years of being the responsible one in her family wore her down. She took out the phone.
It was a text from her brother, Jason. She already had a missed call from him. His car had broken down somewhere in Coconut Grove, and he wanted her to come get him.
Diana’s jaw tightened as she read her brother’s message. There was no way she could ignore it. But with the fires of possibility burning between her and Marcus, she was tempted to. She bit back a groan of disappointment.
“I have to go,” she said as they got to their table.
Marcus looked at her in surprise, and she winced. Why tonight, of all nights, did Jason need
