drink. Brushed at the drops of condensation with her thumb. “Let’s skip work. I’ll be up to my ears in it for the next few months. This is the last night of calm before I lose my life and identity to the job completely.”
“Ah, you’re a spy, then,” he offered, with an understanding nod and a devastating grin. “Me too.”
Two hours later Jake sat back, enjoying the full-bodied, free sound of Cali’s laughter as her head tilted back, her eyes closed. It was a sound as enticing as any he’d ever heard, and he’d been working all evening to earn more of it. Now, as her laughter eased into a sigh, her smile became hesitant. She pushed a loose curl behind her ear and turned to him.
Damn, she was gorgeous.
He wanted her. And, with the way her heavy-lidded stare kept slipping to his mouth, she wanted him too.
Long, sooty lashes swept her cheekbones and then lifted as her green eyes sparkled under the glittering bar-lights. The errant curl fell forward again, and this time restraint was beyond him. Reaching out, Jake caught the silky strands between his fingers and tucked them gently behind her ear. The slight contact sent lust roiling through his system as a shudder racked Cali’s form. The muscles along her throat moved up and down, and her teeth set into her lush bottom lip, driving the breath out of his lungs. She didn’t know what she was doing to him. Or maybe she did, and that was okay too.
Her gaze flitted back to his, uncertain and suddenly wary.
Hell. What was he doing? He had no business putting a move on a woman like her. She was sweet and sexy and a little bit shy. She wasn’t the kind of woman you picked up for a night, or even a week’s worth of nights, which was about the extent of what a guy like him had to offer.
“Jake,” she half whispered, her voice barely audible above the sultry jazz pouring over them. “I’m not—When we started talking you were so funny and charming…I just figured a little flirting might be fun. I didn’t mean for it to go anywhere. But you’re so easy to talk to and I got carried away.” Her gaze shifted off to the corner. “I’m sorry, I don’t—I don’t really…”
Cali turned aside, though he’d already seen the pretty blush that broke out across her cheekbones. Crooking a finger beneath her chin, he drew her gaze back to his.
“Hey, don’t apologize. I know how to enjoy good conversation and a little flirting without it having to go back to a bedroom.” Getting shut down really shouldn’t have felt like a relief, but the way their small talk had wound its way into something deeper, more meaningful…
He liked her. And that was the problem. Jake didn’t do meaningful.
She peered up at him through those dark lashes and his head began to spin. “It’s just that maybe—”
A persistent vibration at his hip drew his attention from the woman in front of him to matters of life and death. “Hold that thought.” With a reluctant shake of his head he pulled the phone from his pocket. “I’m sorry. This is the hospital. I’ve got to call in and check on a patient. Give me five minutes?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
Cali watched as Jake made his way toward the back hall of the club, where a sign for the restrooms hung above the arched doorway. She needed to get out of there. Like, an hour ago. Her own stupidity was beyond belief. If Jake’s phone hadn’t interrupted—She didn’t want to think about the words that had nearly sprinted off the tip of her tongue. The invitation—agh!
This man was beautiful in a cut-from-granite, his-maker-must-have-been-an-artist kind of way, and his physique alone was screwing with her head. What had begun as sporting flirtation had spiraled completely out of control into something more compelling than she was prepared to defend herself against.
It must be some kind of pheromone thing.
Definitely.
It was the clean, spicy scent of him drugging her senses that had her thinking in bad pick-up lines about a man she shouldn’t have looked twice at. Let alone fallen into deep, lengthy, satisfying conversation with.
Cali sighed.
Just her bad luck he was interesting too. Intelligent and sharp, funny and thoughtful. Captivating in both mind and body. Far more dangerous than she’d realized.
She pushed her glass back on the bar and, clutching her purse, stood up. If she were smart, she’d haul it out of the club and straight into a cab before Jake got back. But that kind of insulting behavior wasn’t in her. She’d run to the Ladies’ Room and when she returned she’d thank him for a wonderful evening and leave. No exchange of phone numbers. No plans. A clear-cut goodbye.
Simple.
Only as she followed the series of switchbacks through the back hall of the club—past the Men’s Room, then a door to the stage, and further on to the Ladies’ Room—images of an easy smile and flashes of fathomless blue eyes began to chip at her resolve. At the end of the hall a sign glowed in neon blue for a phone, with an arrow pointing around the corner. Jake was probably down there and, for an instant, Cali considered following.
One night.
Really, what was the harm if she never saw him again? She’d been so very good, for so very long. Totally focused on work, completely dedicated…
Her gaze drifted down to the end of the hall, her body rebelling against her mind, until finally she pushed open the Ladies’ Room door and stepped inside to splash some cold water on her face and some sense into her head.
CHAPTER TWO
IN the relatively quiet back hall of the club, Jake ended the call about his bypass patient from that afternoon. Heading toward the main bar, he flipped the phone closed and glanced down as he pushed it into his pocket.
A slice of white light pierced the shadows just as Cali stepped out of the ladies’ lounge and straight into his stride.
“Aack!” came her surprised yelp as their legs tangled together.
“Easy, I’ve got you,” he assured her, catching her against him with one arm around her waist, the other braced at the wall.
Her palms covered his chest; her breasts and belly pressed against him so he could feel the rise and fall of her every tempting breath. One of them should have stepped away—put the distance back between them—but neither moved. Her gaze touched on his, hungry and aware, before drifting down to his mouth and holding as her lips parted on a trembling sigh. The air went thick with tension, and need surged to life, pumping hot through his veins, stifling reason.
The lounge door swung closed behind them, dropping the narrow hall into semi-darkness. It was intimate and secluded, and he wanted her. Every muscle tightened throughout his body, straining to take her. He wouldn’t, but, watching the desperate flutter of her pulse at the hollow of her throat, he couldn’t make himself step away either.
A tiny furrow etched between her brows as a single word pushed through her lips. “Don’t.”
Only Jake hadn’t moved, hadn’t given in. He was still holding himself in unrelenting check as he realized Cali hadn’t been speaking to him, but to herself.
“Cali,”
