The Driven Snowe (8 page)

She was still pressing forward when he stepped away, and she took an awkward little half step. She chuckled. “Whoops.”

He was breathing harder, and he stroked the side of her face. “You, lady, are dangerous.”

She was about to respond to that when, to her surprise, he took another step away from her and grabbed a coat of his own. “Um…”

He smiled at her, then snapped his fingers. “Wait a sec. Almost forgot.” He disappeared into the kitchen for a second.

He was putting on his coat, she thought, bewildered. Where was he taking her? She liked to think she was as adventurous as the next person, maybe more so in her current jumped-up state. But still…

He interrupted her thought by returning to her from the kitchen. “For you,” he said, and presented her with a long-stemmed red rose.

“Oh.” She stared at it for a second, then sniffed at the tip. It smelled…well, like a rose. “Thank you. It's lovely.”

He grinned, with a casual shrug. “I'm glad you like it.”

She held it awkwardly for a moment. What was she supposed to
do
with it? Put it in a vase? Take it with her?

“Come on,” he said. She guessed she'd take it with her. “Are you terribly hungry?”

She thought about her stomach, all but doing somersaults with nervous energy. “Not even a little.”

“Good,” he said cryptically. “Come on. I don't want us to be late.”

“Late for what?”

He ushered her toward the door. “You'll see. I'll drive. It's a surprise.”

She was surprised, all right, she thought as she walked over to his car and climbed in, settling on the cold leather seats. This was not the way she had envisioned this evening going at all. Not that she was complaining—well, not really. Maybe he was just trying to build up the suspense, she justified. He was, after all, the expert at this sort of thing.

She could breathe in the sexy spiciness of his cologne in the car, watched the way his thigh muscles flexed as he stepped on the gas or shifted gears. She started hyperventilating.

Down, girl.

She tried to keep up that pretense as they drove all the way to Sacramento. He pulled into a parking garage, then escorted her out. She walked as carefully as she could on the concrete steps.
What was he up to?
Maybe he was taking her to a hotel…

A crowd of well-dressed people in front of a playhouse stopped them. She immediately moved to sidestep the crush, but suddenly, Josh's hand was on her shoulder. “No, you're good right here,” he said, then grinned. “Surprise!”

She glanced around. No, no hotels. “Surprise?”

He produced tickets from the inner breast pocket of his coat. “I got us tickets to this Broadway revival everybody's been raving about. I thought you might like
it.” He grinned again, like a flash of summer lightning. “Front row, too.”

He was looking at her expectantly. “That's, er, wonderful,” she said, in as close an approximation of a gush as she could manage.
A Broadway revival?
Her body was in a momentary state of shock. She'd been prepared for bearskin rugs, not musicals. She felt like an engine that had been plunged abruptly from fourth gear to first.

He nuzzled her neck, and she felt the rev of her body again, a quick, brutal blast. She pushed herself against him in a fierce hug, but he pulled away.

“Not here,” he murmured, and then proceeded to talk to her. She couldn't really focus on what he was saying…small talk, the weather, how her day had been. She felt like she'd been sucker punched.

So this is a fling,
she thought, laughing at herself as the crowd crushed inside the playhouse like well-dressed lemmings.
Funny. Somehow I'd always pictured it with a bit more sex.

 

T
HE RESTAURANT WAS
just the way Josh remembered it. The muted mauve walls, the crystal chandeliers, the snowy white linen draped over the tables. Waiters in their somber black uniforms, moving quietly. The clink of crystal and the lulling murmur of polite conversation.

This was not going as planned.

Josh was frustrated. He sat at a table at Le Bateau, one of the classiest restaurants in Sacramento, waiting for Angela to return from the rest room. He'd been careful to get the best seats in the house, then he'd taken her on a little walk through a nearby sculpture park. He'd
kept up a stream of nonstop patter all night. Frankly, he was getting sick of his own voice. She wasn't taciturn—in fact, he enjoyed talking to her. She made him laugh, usually unintentionally, with her observations, and she was just generally sweet. But she was…
evasive,
was the only way he could put it. She didn't make coy remarks, didn't flirt or share intimate stories in the hope of encouraging him to do the same. She didn't make any effort to “get to know” him, or for that matter, give him any shred of
anything
to help him get to know her. He knew just as much about her as he did when he first met her—which was just about nothing.

Ordinarily, this probably wouldn't bother him. In fact, as he thought back about some of his dates, a rest from the constant unloading of past and present would be a relief. But he was intrigued more than he could remember being in a long time, and the crumbs she was tossing him when it came to her past only whetted his appetite for more.

To top it off, he couldn't shake the feeling that she was somehow disappointed. He would make comments, and she would stare at him for a second, with a sort of disbelief. He'd been treated to one of those when he'd told her they were going to this restaurant. Then she'd laughed, another thing she seemed to be doing a lot of, as if she were constantly amused by some running private joke. It wasn't like she was laughing at him…it was almost like she were laughing at
herself,
though he couldn't figure out why.

This wasn't going the way he'd planned at all.

Gerard, the owner of Le Bateau, stopped by his table. “Josh, it's wonderful to see you again!” He took a quick
seat. “But strange to see you alone, and after so long. What's been happening to you?”

Josh had known Gerard for a good twenty years, since Le Bateau opened and Josh's parents were some of the first patrons. He was an old family friend. “I've been busy with work,” Josh said, not wanting to explain that he hadn't felt like expending the effort of taking a woman here, to one of his special places, in several years. “And, as it happens, I'm not alone tonight,” he added, as Angela returned to the table. She gave Gerard a shy smile.

Gerard stood up immediately. “I see that,” he said, with an approving nod.

“Hello. I'm Angela,” she murmured, offering her hand.

“Angela,” Gerard gushed, then nudged Josh. “I'll send out one of our special desserts. Bananas Foster, I think.” He leaned down, whispering to Josh loudly enough for Angela to overhear. “It's about time you found one worth keeping.”

He thanked Gerard as the man left, grinning at Angela. “Sorry,” Josh said. “He's an old friend of the family.”

“He seems very nice.”

“Yeah, in that pushy, romantic, meddling sort of way,” Josh said with a sigh, and Angela laughed. “But he has an incredible restaurant.”

“He certainly does,” Angela said, gesturing to the plate in front of her. She smiled gently at Gerard's disappearing form. “The food has been absolutely fantastic. And I haven't had Bananas Foster since I lived in New York—this will be a treat.”

Finally! “So. You used to live in New York?”

She blinked, as if suddenly realizing she'd said something personal. “Oh. Yes.”

“When?”

“Before I lived here.”

Josh waited for her to expand on this, then realized that was it—that was all she was going to say. “Before you lived in Manzanita? Were you going to school there? Working there?”

“Both.” She said, then shrugged. “For a while. You moved away from Manzanita to go to school, too, didn't you? Went to UCLA or something?” She grinned playfully at him. “Hence that whole football reputation you referred to, the night I…”

She paused, then blushed. He couldn't blame her…he wasn't sure how he'd put the first night they were together, either. He felt his chest warm…among other things. He quickly picked up her conversation. “Yeah, I went down to L.A., got my degree. I only played football for two years, though. I could have been a fairly decent quarterback, but I knew I didn't have what it took to be a professional football player—an almost obsessive love of the sport. I love a lot of different sports, and it turns out I liked business a lot, too.”

“So Solar Bars was really a perfect business for you,” she said, taking a sip of her wine.

Josh found himself telling her all about Solar Bars…how he'd met Adam, how the two of them had started making their high-energy protein bars out of a warehouse in Venice, California. How the thing had grown beyond their wildest dreams, and how, when it finally came time to open a larger factory and expand, Josh had convinced Adam to move the whole operation to Manzanita, the town he'd grown up in.

They'd finished the meal with the dazzling spectacle of Flambé Bananas Foster, and Josh realized as he walked her back to the car that she had managed to divert him from her life back to his…so neatly that he'd yet again missed finding out about her.

“Thanks for a wonderful evening,” she said, as he drove her back to his place. “I wasn't expecting all this.”

“Don't thank me yet,” he said, thinking of the seduction scene he'd set in his house. “The evening isn't over.”

She went silent for a second, then said in a low, sexy voice, “It isn't?”

He was getting hard just thinking of it. “Not by a long shot,” he promised. He looked over. She had pinked slightly. She shot him a melting, brown-eyed stare. She obviously liked that answer.
It's about time,
he thought. He paused for a second. “Where's your rose?”

She looked down at her purse, then bit her lip. “I'm sorry. I think I left it on the table at the restaurant.” She was blushing this time, a full-blown rosy red. “I'm sorry. I've never gotten a flower before, and forgot that I had it. I've been a little distracted.”

Distracted was one way to put it, but she seemed genuinely apologetic. He smiled, reaching over and stroking her downy-soft cheek again. “That's okay. Really.”

They got to his house. She was still quiet, almost eerily so, as if she were thinking about something. He wondered again about her “distraction.” Maybe she was nervous? It had been over a week since they'd last had sex—since he'd
taken her virginity.
He had to keep reminding himself that this was all new to her, that he needed to keep control and go slowly.

He led her into the living room. He took his coat off, gesturing to her to do the same. “Can I get you something to drink?”

She took her coat off and quickly kicked off her shoes, putting them neatly in the corner by the door. “I could use a glass of wine, if you've got it.” She sat down on the couch.

Definitely nervous. He smiled. This was more familiar. He went over to the wet bar in the living room and chose a bottle from the wine rack. He poured her a glass of Pinot Grigio, and one for himself, then sat down next to her. “Did you have a good time tonight?”

“Um, yes. I had a great time tonight.”

Boy. Talk about ringing endorsements. He'd done everything but give her a carriage ride through the city. For an inexperienced virgin-type, she was pretty damned tough to impress!

He grimaced. “Well, I wanted tonight to be special for you.” He paused. “I have to ask. You seem really distant tonight. What's going on?”

“Nothing,” she said, then let out a little half laugh. “It's just…this wasn't the way I expected this to go at all.”

“It isn't?” he repeated, mystified. “What were you expecting?”

“I don't know that I was exactly expecting anything specific,” she said instead. “I just know that if I
were
picturing anything, it wasn't this, that's all.”

He read between the lines. “You didn't like it. Any of it.”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “It's not that. It's just—I guess after last weekend, I was expecting a different, er,
focus,
I guess you could say.” She was blushing a deep
red now. “I mean, I'm new at this. I was ready to be more—I mean, I was expecting that we would just…”

“Angela, what is it?”

“I really wanted you!” She finally blurted out. She
wanted
him?
That
was what had been distracting her all night?

He felt like smacking his head with his hand. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“You'd gone to so much trouble, and I didn't know what else to do. It seemed rude to not go along—this was your way of convincing me, after all. I enjoyed the restaurant,” she added, as if to reassure him the date wasn't a
complete
failure. “Besides, I felt like I was acting like a high-school boy who was going to, you know, get some action.”

He laughed. “Having been a high-school boy, I can understand that.” No wonder she kept looking disappointed! He'd been working off of his own sexual history when it came to women, not thinking of how different she was. He thought she'd want to be charmed and romanced, but what she really wanted was just
him.
The thought charged a zing of sexual energy through him. “I'm sorry. I guess I got a little carried away.”

She grinned at him, her pouty full lips quirking seductively. “As you say…the night's not over yet.”

He grinned back, feeling his body stir. He held her hands, kissing her neck gently and feeling gratified by the quick gasp of desire she let out. “What did you have in mind?”