The images his rough words produced—broad naked shoulders rising hot and hard above her, fevered kisses and powerful heated sex—robbed her of breath.
Power and sex came off the man in tangible waves, totally invincible, unstoppable.
She’d never felt like this in her whole life. Shaky, without bearings, like a toddler taking her first baby steps. She stared up at him mutely, their breath clouding in the chill night air, and then moved away.
“How dare you say that—even think it. Sleeping with me isn’t in the lease.” Her voice shook. “I don’t sleep around.”
His hand settled in the small of her back as he unfurled the big black umbrella over her head and started walking them toward the restaurant. “No.” His voice was low. “I’m sure you don’t.”
Suzanne sneaked a glance up at his face. He wasn’t grinning fatuously like some macho creep who’d just made a pass. His face was hard, unsmiling and serious. A soldier who’d just stated his military objective.
We’re going to take that hill. We’re going to have sex in a bed.
He was a multi-decorated soldier. He was probably used to gaining his objectives.
God help her, what had she let herself in for?
When they reached the restaurant, Suzanne heaved an unconscious sigh of relief, as if they had come in from more than the chilly evening. Moving into the familiar and elegant rooms, she felt on more solid ground, where she knew the rules. Where she could hold her own. In the twenty-first century, instead of in a cave where the man with the biggest club won.
The maitre d’ welcomed them and showed them to a secluded corner table, one of the best, near the huge open fireplace. Suzanne’s eyebrows rose. She ate often with clients at lunchtime here but they’d never been offered this choice spot. John’s dead president must have been a powerful one.
“Are you familiar with French food?” she asked as she opened the large leather-covered menu.
“Yeah. Some.” John shrugged. “But I’m not a picky eater. I’ll have whatever you’re having.” He had seated himself next to her on the banquette instead of across the table and she could feel the heavy muscles of his biceps as his shoulders lifted.
Suzanne lowered the menu. “Suppose I ordered the Rognons à la créme ardennais?”
John settled his wide shoulders against the back of the banquette. He snorted. “You think I’d balk at eating kidneys in cream? You don’t know what crappy rations we have in the field. When we’re lucky enough to have rations. My men and I holed up in a cave once for three weeks and all we had to eat was a mountain goat we captured. We had to eat it raw because we couldn’t afford to light a fire. We ate everything including the eyeballs. We’d have eaten the hooves and the fur if we could.”
“Ugh.” She shuddered delicately. “Where was this?”
His mouth quirked. “Someplace a lot more unpleasant than here, that’s for sure.”
“If you told me, you’d have to kill me?” she teased gently, swirling a lock of hair behind her ear.
“No. Never.” He caught her hand, his face sober. “I don’t hurt women, Suzanne. Couldn’t. Don’t ever worry about that.” He brought her hand to his mouth and brushed a kiss across the back. “But yeah. It’s best for you not to know.”
Her hand tingled where he’d kissed it. It surprised her, scared her.
The waiter came to slip a small plate of warm hors d’oeuvres in front of them and to take their order. John ordered in decent French. The man was full of surprises. He could pick locks, eat raw goat and speak French. An unusual combination for an unusual man.
“You speak rather well. Your French is better than my high school French, that’s for sure.”
“The Navy sent some of us to Monterey for intensive courses. Learning French and Spanish was okay, but Farsi and Afghani were bitches—er, tough to learn. Afghani’s a good language to swear in, though. With the added benefit that no one else understands.”
He didn’t relinquish her hand. With the other arm along the back of the settee, he was effectively holding her in an embrace.
Suzanne cleared her throat. She had the wall to one side and the wall of his chest to the other. She couldn’t see any of the other diners. He filled her entire field of vision, overwhelming her.
The flickering candle cast fascinating shadows over the hard planes of his face. He was closely shaven as if he must have shaved just before coming out. There was no hint of an after-shave but she was acutely aware of his scent just the same—clean clothes, leather and soap. And some indefinable something that must have been…him.
Suzanne coughed and fidgeted. He was so close to her she felt she couldn’t pull in enough air in her lungs. She tugged gently at her hand, then harder. His large hand tightened.
“If you’re trying to get me to back off, it won’t work.” He leaned even further forward and buried his nose in her hair. “You’re too alluring for me to even think of backing off,” he murmured. “You smell too good, feel too good. Christ, I want you.” When his right hand moved from the back of the settee to cup the back of her neck she jumped.
“Am I spooking you?”
“A little,” she whispered.
“Too bad. Because I’m not backing off. No way.” He was playing with her fingers, running the rough pads of his fingers over her skin. His eyes glittered. She still couldn’t figure out what color they were. Dark, but not brown. Not quite blue, either.
He relinquished her hand to stroke the back of his fingers over her cheek. “Soft,” he murmured. “So soft.” One large finger ran over her jawbone, then down her neck. He traced a vein that was pounding. “You might think you’re spooked, Suzanne, but I don’t think it’s that. Do you know what I think? Hmm?”
She was breathing shallowly, her breath coming light and fast. “No.” Her voice sounded husky even to her own ears. “What do you think?”
“Your skin is so fine, I can see the blood pumping through your vein here.”
His finger moved tantalizingly down, stroked her collarbone, and traced the swell of her breast. He circled her nipple.
“You’re hard here, honey. Like a little rock.”
Through the lace of her bra, through the silk of the shirt, she felt it acutely. Felt it down to her toes. And when he brushed back and forth against her nipple she felt—shockingly—her womb clench, the fluttering prelude to an orgasm.
“You want to know what I think? I think you’re…aroused.”
She looked around wildly, hoping to anchor herself with something other than John Huntington, his voice and his hands. But he eclipsed everything and all she could see was his face above her, watching her as intently as any predator ever watched its prey.
His thumb stroked her nipple, his eyes watching hers. She whimpered softly and bit her lip.
“And I—“ He took her hand tightly and—shockingly—placed it over his groin. “I’m aroused too,” he finished in a rough whisper.
His penis felt like a steel bar, only alive and warm. She realized she had tightened her grip over him only when his eyes shuttered tight and his breath came in on a hiss. His penis jumped under her hand and became, impossibly, longer and harder.
Suzanne’s hand fluttered open and she jerked it back. She folded her trembling hands on the table and stared at them. She should say something. She knew she should say something but absolutely nothing came to mind.
This was far outside the bounds of anything in her experience with men. She’d been on plenty of first dates and this was totally outside her experience, way beyond what she considered normal female-male communication.
This wasn’t even supposed to be a date. They should be having a nice business dinner while discussing the details of his lease.
They should be talking about her design for his office and his plans for a new security system. They should be talking terms and utilities. Maybe with a little low key flirting under the businesslike adult conversation.
That was allowed. He was a powerfully a
ttractive man. A very…male man. A gentle little frisson of attraction was okay. A mild flirtatious little flurry.
Not this gale force wind that threatened to blow her over.
He was sitting so close to her she could feel his body heat. A fully aroused powerful male who somehow had the capacity to make her feel as if they were alone in a cave somewhere instead of in a crowded and civilized restaurant.
Suzanne knew that somewhere out there, past his impossibly broad shoulders, was a room full of diners having a good time, eating well, and conversing in normal tones. None of it penetrated. There was just the two of them, both aroused.
He was perfectly right.
She could still feel his touch on her breast, though he’d dropped his hand. Her nipple—both nipples, actually—ached. She ached between her thighs, and knew that she’d turned wet. She’d been less aroused than this while actually making love with other men.
And the tactile memory of his penis filling her palm, hot and iron hard, swelling even larger under her touch, lingered in her hand.
It was so unlike her. Suzanne Barron didn’t do sex. Not like this. Not hot and raw and so uncontrolled she’d basically fondled a man at a restaurant table.
She took a deep breath. “We need—“ she licked her dry lips. Don’t think about what we need. “We need to, um, talk. To talk about that new security system. And—and decorating your office, if you’d like me to take care of that.”
“Okay.” The heat in his eyes didn’t die down and his voice was still husky with arousal. “Let’s talk.”
If she’d expected him to lean back and change body language, she was mistaken. A heavy forearm lay on the table in front of her. With his other arm around the back of the settee, she was still surrounded by large, warm male.
She moved, and her breast brushed his arm. A muscle in his jaw jumped.
She froze.
He drew in a deep breath. “Okay, security. The first thing you need to do is arrange for better lighting outside the building, particularly the entrance.” He scowled at her. “I can’t believe you live in the Pearl district and haven’t taken care of any of this.”
Suzanne frowned. “The entrance is lit,” she protested. She’d designed the lights herself. Crystal and wrought iron in a tulip pattern.
He looked at her pityingly. “Hundred watt globes over the doorway are not what I’d call security lighting. That wattage is totally wasted, with the light going up and sideways. You don’t need to light up the sky. You need light where it will do you the most good. What you’ve got now is pure glare that casts shadows a street punk can hide behind and ruins your night adaptation when you walk out to put out the garbage.”
That kind of thinking had never even occurred to her. And never would. Not in a million years. She opened her mouth and closed it. Opened it again. “Oh.”
“What you need,” he continued, “is a metal halide light with no uplight and no glare. I’m going to install infrared sensor spotlights that come on only when someone walks into the viewfield of the security detectors. It’s very effective for scaring intruders away.”
This was an entirely new world. “Oh,” she said again. “Okay.”
He wasn’t finished. “You’ll also need motion sensors and to put your sound system on a timer so that there’s music when we’re out of the building.”
Motion sensors. Halide lights. Detectors. “I don’t know,” she said uneasily. “All of that sounds expensive.”
“Don’t worry about it. What you designed for me will more than compensate for that.”
“I didn’t design it for you, specifically,” she protested. “I was just doodling one day while I was sitting in the empty rooms. And I felt—“ felt you were coming. She blew out a breath. “Felt it would make a good space for a business,” she finished.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, his deep voice quiet.
She gave him a startled glance.
“I’m only a soldier. Ex-soldier,” he added wryly. “But I’m not blind and I’m not dead. What I saw was exquisite. And functional.”
She smiled, flattered. “Thank you. That’s precisely what good interior design is all about. When you tell me a little more about how your business works, I could probably improve on the drawings you saw."
“You’ll have plenty of time to see how my business works.” His eyes bored into hers. “I’ll be living and working right across the hall from you.”
The thought of it took her breath away. He was such a powerful presence. How on earth was she going to be able to concentrate on her work knowing he was just a hallway away?
Suzanne picked up the dessert fork and started tracing designs on the linen tablecloth. “It must have been hard to make the switch from the military to the business world. Bud told me you retired on a disability?”
She looked up briefly. Disability. It was so hard even to imagine the word disability in connection with this man. Hard, strong, tough. He looked like he could take on the world.
“Mmm.” Clearly, he wasn’t going to discuss anything pertaining to his injury. “It’s funny. When I was in the service, I couldn’t imagine any other life.” He gave a half-laugh. “Shit—sorry, I’m too used to spending all my time with men, I know I have to clean up my language. Anyway, most of my life I didn’t know any other life. I grew up a Navy brat and then spent my entire adulthood in the Navy. So, yeah, a lot of things are new. But you know? I’m looking forward to this new stage. I’m looking forward to building my business and to putting down roots. To having a home.” His dark eyes—what was that color? The lights were too dim to tell—pinned her. “That’s thanks to you. I’ve never lived in quarters like what you designed for me before.”
Suzanne ducked her head. She’d received praise for her work before. She’d even won a prize for the design of a small museum. But nothing—nothing had meant as much to her as his quiet words.
She cleared her throat. “Well…wait until you see it done before saying that. You might not like the finished product.”
“I’ll like it.” The deep voice was even, certain. “You about ready to go?”
Surprised, Suzanne looked around. The fire in the huge open hearth was burning low. Most of the restaurant’s customers had gone. There were only a few couples left, sitting close together. Lovers. Only lovers were left. “Er…yes.”
She looked down and saw that her plate was still full. All she’d done was push the food around, taking a few tiny bites. Amazing. She’d spent the entire evening at Comme Chez Soi—where the appetizers alone cost $25 and were worth every penny—and hadn’t eaten.
Suzanne patted her lips with a napkin, suddenly nervous. Suddenly completely, totally aware of the fact that he was going to drive her home. Walk her up to the front door of the building, maybe inside to the front door of her apartment and…
Their eyes met and her heart lurched. “Let’s get you home,” he said quietly, standing up and offering her his hand.
He seemed to have some magical powers or the ability to communicate telepathically because without giving any overt signs, the waiters brought their coats and he was ushering her out with a large, warm hand at her back more quickly than she would have thought possible.
“Ah, John?” They were at the door.
“Yeah?” He smiled down at her. It was his first real smile. An amazing smile. He still looked tough, probably nothing could change that, but the smile took years off his face.
She suddenly remembered his birth date from his discharge papers. He was only eight years older than she was. He was probably much older than her—eons older—in terms of life experiences, but in terms of actual years, there wasn’t that much of a gap. He was only thirty-six. Still young for a man.
“Don’t you have to pay, or something?”
The smile deepened, showing two grooves on either side of his mouth. On any other kind of face they would be considered dimples. On his face, they were…dents.
“Not necessary. I keep a corpor
ate account here.”
Oh. Well, that explained the special treatment and the magical appearance of a free table on a Friday night.
He reached around her to open the door.
It had started to sleet. Suzanne stopped and buttoned her coat up, wishing again that she’d had the good sense to wear boots. Her pretty Rossetti shoes were going to get so waterlogged.
John looked up at the sky and handed her his big black umbrella. “Here, you carry this.”
“Okay.” Startled, Suzanne took the heavy umbrella, wondering how she could protect the two of them when he was so much taller than she was. In one easy move, he scooped her off her feet.