Exquisite (25 page)

“Why do you want to date me?”

Without so much as blinking he
answered, “Because you’re
so
much fun.”

She looked at him and saw his
serious face and felt the sarcasm dripping off his words. “Hilarious Langley.”

He arched a brow and leaned into
the bar. “What do you like most about me?”

She deadpanned and replied, “Your
ass.”

He grinned at her, “Be serious.”

“I am. You have a really nice ass.”

“You can’t steal my answers.” he
said pretending to be put out. Back to being relaxed she lifted her glass and
took another sip.

“Ok favorite color?”

“Blue, that light sky blue. But I’m
also growing found of forest green.”

“Ha! Google was right about that
too. Not the green part.”

“They have my favorite color on
there?”

She nodded.

“Hey you weren’t supposed to ask me
something you knew.”

Shrugging at him she grinned, “I
didn’t know it for sure. I wanted to confirm their sources so I knew if
other
important details were correct. You know like how many..”

“Stop.” he warned her, “You’re
doing so well.”

She laughed and motioned to him.
“Your turn.”

“What color panties are you
wearing?”

Lena looked around quickly feeling
a blush creep up to her cheeks.

“Do they match your dress?”

“That’s two questions.”

“Well not technically they could be
considered one.”

Taking one last gulp of her drink
she motioned for a second one and he grinned widely at her. “Answer me Lena.”

“Fine.” she answered in a snotty
tone then gave as good as she got. “A cherry red thong.”

She was happy to see his mouth fall
open.

Mason couldn’t help all the images
that were now flooding his head.
Holy shit, he wanted to see it.
In fact
he was ready to close early just so he could. Taking a gulp he placed a fresh
drink in front of her then nodded not quiet trusting his voice yet. She seemed
to understand because she reached out took a drink then proceeded to blow his
mind.

“How many times tonight have you
imagine my lips on you since I sat down?”

He couldn’t decide how to answer
that. Here she was sitting at the end of his bar dressed to drive him insane,
wrapping her mouth
, no that was the wrong choice of words at this moment.
Throwing around words and questions that had him imagining exactly what she’d
intended. As though her words had a direct line to the actual part of his
anatomy that he wanted those lips around, he felt himself go rock hard.

“At least once,
now
.” he
managed to get out, then coughed to clear his throat. “But I’m sure it’ll be
crossing my mind a few more by the end of the night.”

Her mouth tipped up in a sexy smile
and she licked those red lips wetting them with her tongue and made him groan.

“Are you enjoying this?”

“Is that your question?”

He shook his head and took a deep
breath. “Three years since you’ve had sex. Are you nervous about it?”

Her eyes boldly moved over his body
then came back up to land on his face. She shook her head. “That’s not the
right word.”

“Oh? What’s the right word?”

“That’s two questions.”

He sighed frustrated beyond belief.
“Answer the damn question Lena.”

She blinked slowly, “Anxious.”

Swallowing hard he tried to keep
focus. “Your turn Lena.”

Knowing the drink had relaxed her,
and she was saying things she wouldn’t usually ever say, was making this game
interesting. At every turn she went from innocent and shocked to hot and
downright sexy as she teased him with questions that were blowing his mind and
this one was no different.

“Ultimate fantasy?”

He narrowed his eyes at her,
“Sexual or life goal fantasy?”

“Both.” she replied licking the
drink from her bottom lip.

“But that’s two questions.”

“So? You asked two this is my
payback.”

Laughing he nodded. “Ok life
fantasy. Obviously I want the restaurant to be a success, but I also want a
partner to share it with. I want success in my life with a wife. I want
children and I want to grow old and die happy knowing that I loved someone
completely and they loved me back. I want essentially what my parents had.”

He watched Lena taking in his
answer then she smiled at him, almost wistfully and he wondered if she even
realized he was starting to picture her in the leading role of that fantasy.
Before he embarrassed himself and told her he leaned down and rested his elbows
on the bar. He looked her right in the eye and said softly, “Sexual fantasy.”

He saw her take a deep breath and
watched her chest rise then fall when she let it out again. “There are so many
I can think of, but right now my ultimate fantasy is of a beautiful stranger
and she’s standing just out of my reach but she’s fully captured my attention.
Her presence holds me, almost in a trance. She sees me as well and watches me
from where she’s standing. Then she smiles, the most sexy smile, that seems to
invite me to come play with her. Knowing it’s driving me crazy, knowing I’m
outside looking in watching her but not being able to get to her. Then I watch
as she moves away from view but it’s with the unspoken invitation for me to
join her, so I do.”

He noticed her pupils had dilated
and her breathing was slow as he waited for her to say something.

“Why a stranger? What’s the
fascination with watching her from a distance? I’d think a fantasy would be
touching and rolling around somewhere, not looking at someone unobtainable.
Doesn’t that defeat the sexual aspect?”

He reached out and touched her
cheek. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because she seems untouchable but in the end
she lets
me
touch her. As for the stranger part of it all, I think it’s
more that she isn’t familiar to me. It’s new. Hot and passionate but so foreign
it feels surreal. I can’t explain it.”

Her eyes flicked up to his and she
sat back picked up her glass and drained it dry.

Lena had no idea how to respond.
She wasn’t sure she even liked his answer.
What did he mean, a stranger? Was
he referring to her or some random stranger?
She would like to think he
meant her but if that were the case he must have a bad memory because she sure
remembered letting him touch her, several times. So really it came down to,
he’d just basically told her something he wanted to do with another woman. The perfect
unobtainable woman and that totally pissed her off. He seemed to be waiting for
her to say something but honestly she had nothing to say.

“So I guess that makes it my turn?”
he stated in a voice so low she had to strain to hear him.

“ I guess it is.”

He stood up and placed his hands on
the bar. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” she said shaking her head and
looking behind him to the wall where a clock hung. It’d just turned nine and
she knew it was incredibly early but suddenly it seemed vital she leave. She
couldn’t explain why she was feeling the way she was but she needed out. Right
now. Looking up at him she shifted to the side and hopped down off the seat.

She watched a frown pull down on
his face as he asked. “What’s going on Lena?”

“Nothing. I just need to get going,
it’s been a long week.”

“Sure it has.” he replied drawing
out the,
sure
.

Lena’s eyes snapped up to his and
she bit back the bitchy remark she could feel bubbling just under the surface.

“What’s going on here? Why are you
running away right now?”

She felt her spine stiffen. “I’m
not running away.”

He placed his hands on the bar and
leaned over it so they were almost nose to nose. She took a step back.

“Yes you are.” He narrowed his eyes
and said so softly she almost didn’t hear him. “Okay. Run away. I’ll let you
go, but don’t think I’ll stay gone for long.” and with that parting shot he
pushed back from the bar and walked away from her.

By the time Mason got home he was
tired and pissed off. The night had
not
gone the way he’d expected. Actually
it had somehow gone horribly wrong.
Oh, it’d started off amazing, but then
gone to shit real quick.
They’d been having fun. Flirty, sexy fun and then
it was like a wall had come down and she’d been throwing a whole lot of pissed
off tension his way. God the woman was a pain in his ass and so ready to tell
him to go to hell he had to watch everything that came out of his mouth. He
reached into his kitchen cabinet and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. Pulling it
down he poured a glass and made his way over in the dark to the window. He
downed it in one gulp then turned grabbing the phone. Looking at the clock he
noticed it was just turning 2am. Too bad, he didn’t give a shit. He punched in
her number and let it ring. It rang three times then he heard her.

“Hello?”

“What happened tonight? What’d I
do?” he demanded louder than he’d planned. There was silence on the other end
and then he heard a sigh.

“You didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t jerk me around right now
Lena.” he paused taking a deep breath. “I want to know what I did to piss you
off.”

“It was just something you said
that I over reacted too. That’s all. It was my fault.” she whispered.

He ran a hand up through his hair
and gripped his neck. “Did I scare you or something?”

There was a long drawn out silence and
then. “No. I wanted to be your fantasy not some stranger.”

And before he could answer, the
phone clicked off and she hung up. He stared down at the phone shaking his
head. Crazy, infuriating woman, she didn’t even know she already was.

A
round twenty minutes after Lena had hung up the
phone she was sitting in the middle of her bed with her back against the
headboard. She was an idiot. A huge gigantic idiot and she’d be lucky if Mason
ever talked to her again. She’d thrown on an oversized shirt, grabbed some
water and made her way back to bed. Not being able to go back to sleep she’d
switched on some music and was now currently listening to Coldplay. She was
miserable. Once again she’d found herself getting to close, feeling to good and
so she’d looked for a flimsy excuse to get mad, grabbed it like a life line and
had ended up sitting in bed, miserable and alone. Scooting down a little she
suddenly heard loud knocking coming from her front door. Her eyes flew to the
clock, the read out showed 2.42am. She lay silently willing it to stop but
there was no such luck and she knew exactly who it was going to be. Climbing
off the bed she slipped her feet into her slippers and ran a hand down her
hair. All the while the pounding continued relentlessly. As she came down the
small hall she heard.

“Lena! Open this door! We need to
talk.”

Groaning she swung the door open
and found herself looking right up into the furious face of Mason Langley. “Are
you insane?” she hissed at him.

Not bothering to answer he muscled
his way into her house. She turned and demanded. “Just what the hell do you
think you’re doing? You can’t just go around screaming the neighborhood down at
2.30 in the morning!”

“For god sake shut the door would
you.” he grumbled.

“Oh now you’re concerned?”

“Close the damn door!” he shouted
and Lena narrowed her eyes and slowly turned shutting the door and locking it
with a definitive click.

“Do not yell at me.” she stated
through clenched teeth.

She knew she had to stand her
ground right now but it was slightly hard to do with an angry wall of male
muscle in front of her and here she was in a shirt, panties and some
really
ugly slippers.

“You’re lucky I haven’t strangled
you yet.”

“Look mister, you barged in here
not the other way around.” She took a step back when he took a menacing step
forward. He was livid. In all the encounters she’d had with him this was the
first time she’d seen his easy going demeanor completely slip. His eyes were
cold and they narrowed, as his muscles bulged with every breath he took,
looking like he was that much closer to exploding. If she was trying to find a
plus side,
at least he was still talking to her.
He leaned down until he
was inches from her face and she could smell alcohol on his breath.

“Are you drunk?” she blurted out.

His jaw clenched and he closed his
eyes for a moment, muttering something she couldn’t quite understand, then his
eyes opened and glared at her. “No I’m not drunk. Although you sure could drive
a man to it.” he paused and just as she was about to say something he held a
hand up and placed a long finger against her lips. “Shh. You and I need to lay
down some ground rules Lena O’Donnell.”

She arched a brow looking at his
finger but he just kept it there while continuing to glare her into the door.

“First. You do
not
get to
run away from me anymore. You get to act like the adult you are and actually
confront your issues.” He seemed to notice she wanted to say something but he
just shook his head at her. “You hung up on me, so obviously you didn’t have
anything to say. So right now you can just listen. I don’t know what I said to
piss you off tonight but from the short phone call, your highness granted me, I
gather you thought I was trying to tell you that my fantasy woman was running
around somewhere on the streets of Chicago and that hurt your feelings.”

Lena opened her mouth trying to say
anything in her own defense but he just pushed that finger closer against her
lips, almost flattening them.

“Second new rule. You
don’t
get to hang up on me. It’s rude and extremely annoying. It’s a cowards way out
and I know you’re braver than that.”