Page 30 of Love & Rockets

“The other night, when I came over to help Grace,” he clarified, dragging his wayward gaze up as far as her plump pink lips before meeting her eyes straight on. “I should have kissed you again. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t keep thinking about kissing you in your kitchen, and I could act like a semi-normal human being.”

“Only semi-normal?” Her gratifyingly breathless voice came soft, undercutting the hum of the bustling restaurant.

“Brian tells me semi is the best I can hope for most days.”

“I’m not sure he’s a reliable authority on normal.”

She delivered the insult to his brother with such frankness he couldn’t repress his grin. “He’s not, but most of the time I think about what he would do, then do the opposite.”

“And Brian would have kissed me?”

“I’d kill him if Brooke didn’t beat me to it.”

“Which leaves me wondering why you didn’t.”

Pushing his plate away, he reached across the table to capture her hand. “Because I don’t want to confuse things.”

She glanced down at his hand. “Seems to me we have more confusion than ever.”

“I’m torn,” he confessed, figuring he was better at firing with both boosters than wading in. “I don’t want the work I’m doing with Grace to be adversely impacted by my feelings for you.”

“Adversely impacted,” she murmured. “No, we don’t want that.”

“On the other hand, I can’t deny this…spark.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her knuckles, reveling in the feel of her silky-smooth skin against his and tried with all his might not to think about touching more of her. There. Then. In the middle of one of the Gulf Coast’s premiere hotspots. “I should have kissed you again,” he mused, almost to himself. “God, I wanted to.”

“You did?”

Emboldened by the prompt, he held her gaze. “Are you kidding? All I can think about is how delicious you tasted. How good you feel pressed against me. Your perfume.”

She wet her lips, sending his internal temperature shooting through the stratosphere. “My perfume?”

“I catch little hints of it every now and then.” He let his eyes drop to her cleavage. “Did you put some there?”

He was semi-hard from watching the hollow at the base of her throat bottom out as she swallowed hard. God, he wanted to taste her skin, dip his tongue into the vulnerable sweet spot, and breathe deep, imprinting her on his senses.

“Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to find out on your own?”

The air rushed from his lungs as he pondered the options. “Both.”

“You should have kissed me again,” she chided, slipping her hand from under his.

“I want to.”

Hope and fear mingled in his gut as she slid a finger under the thin chain of the handbag she’d hooked over the back of her chair.

“Where are you going?” he asked as she rose from her seat in one fluid motion, treating him to a better view down the front of her dress before she straightened.

“I’m going to powder my nose.” She took two steps, then glanced back over her shoulder. “I’ll meet you up front.”

“Are you done?”

Darla spared the scraps of overpriced beef left on her plate a glance and favored him with a slow smile. “I’m done with dinner, but I’m very much looking forward to dessert.”

He sat still, mesmerized by the not-at-all subtle sway of her hips as she walked away. The second she disappeared from view, he yanked his wallet from his pocket, tossed cash to cover four meals on the table, and shot out of his chair so fast it fell back on the varnished plank floors with a jarring clatter. Their fellow diners looked up in surprise, but Jake couldn’t spare a moment to be embarrassed. He had a beautiful woman counting on him to provide dessert, and he meant to deliver.

Righting the chair, he nodded a brusque apology to the diners at the next table and took off toward the door. An older man waited at the valet stand. Jake tapped his foot and peeked over his shoulder, running his thumbnail along the edge of his claim ticket as a pearly-white Cadillac glided to the curb in front of the restaurant. The gentleman ahead of him waved to a much younger woman in the bar area, then held the door open wide as a signal to her to cut her flirtation with the bartender short and get a move on. Clearly oblivious to her escort’s impatience, the woman made a point of sauntering to the door, her eyes fixed on Jake.

She slid him a sidelong smile as she passed, then turned her attention to her escort, murmuring, “My, everyone’s in a hurry tonight,” in a husky drawl.

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