The Naughty Corner (25 page)

He took her hand in his. It was the oddest feeling, holding hands with him, in public, where someone he knew might see them. Like it was a real date. He didn’t scan the sidewalk for familiar faces, in case he needed to duck into a doorway quickly. He didn’t hurry her along. He was just there, with her. A big, handsome man, turning female heads. But with
her
.

“Their salmon is great here.” He pulled her through a doorway. There was a fifteen-minute wait for an outside table, but they could be seated right away inside.

Once they were in the booth, Lola understood why. “God, it’s loud.”

The ceilings were high, and the bar was in the middle of the restaurant, surrounded by people waiting for one of the outdoor tables. The grill and the brick oven were separated from the diners only by a wall along which the chef set out the completed dinners for the waitstaff to swoop by and pick up. The tap of high heels and men’s dress shoes echoed off the terra-cotta tile floor. With so much open space, the mix of voices became a cacophony.

Gray slid around the booth until his thigh rested against hers. “The noise just means we have to sit close.” He leaned an elbow on the table, propping his chin on his hand to look at her. “That top you’re wearing is hot.”

Miss Manners would have shaken her finger at the elbow on the table, but Lola loved his rapt attention, as if she were the only woman in the room. She could melt under that gaze. Yeah, she
was
hooked. “And you’re hot in black.”

He didn’t acknowledge the compliment. “I was watching you for a few minutes out there.” He quirked an eyebrow. “And I thought I might have to bash a few heads in.”

“Why?” She wasn’t quite sure where he was going with it.

He tugged on the top’s neckline, pulling it up slightly, his knuckles brushing the swell of her breast in the push-up bra. A flush of heat raced across her skin.

“Too much drooling,” he said. “There were a couple of guys about to turn around and accost you. I had to step in.”

She didn’t believe him. He was teasing. And she liked it. “But I thought you wanted to do me in front of an audience. So why would you care if some guys were checking me out?”

He clucked his tongue. “There’s a huge difference. One thing is all about
us
”—he waved two fingers back and forth between them—“the other thing is about
other
men.”

“So it’s okay for men to watch me as long as I’m doing naughty things with you.” She liked the idea. It was proprietary, even if it was kinky.

“Now you’re getting it.” He trailed a finger down her nose, which was another intimate gesture. “And I asked you to dinner because I wanted to take you somewhere I couldn’t touch you. Where I could only feast my eyes on you and imagine what I’d do to you later.”

“That’s why you asked me out?” So it
was
about sex.

He trailed a finger down her arm. For someone who couldn’t do any touching, he was doing a lot of it. The tug on her neckline had been very intimate.

“After yesterday, I need to tease myself.”

“What does that mean?” She wasn’t sure it was good. Maybe she was too easy for him.

His eyes darkened. “I like how crazy you make me. Dinner in public, no chance to jump you, it’ll make everything hotter”—he gave an eloquent pause—“later. Tell me what you do.”

“What I do? I—” She did whatever he wanted. When he wanted it.

“For your work.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t even realized they’d never discussed it. Of course, it brought home the fact that they were all about sex and nothing else. Why was that starting to sound bad? “I’m a technical writer. Cell phone transmission equipment.”

“Very interesting.”

“It’s not.”

“You underestimate yourself.”

They talked quietly, intimately close, so they could be heard over the dinner traffic. She could see darker specks of brown around his irises, the shadow of whiskers along his chin. She wanted to touch him.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

Totally engrossed in Gray, she hadn’t seen the waiter approach or heard him slide the breadbasket onto the table.

Gray deferred to her.

“I’d like a glass of Riesling,” she said.

Gray ordered a German beer. When the waiter was gone, Gray went back to the intimate position on the table and asked, “So tell me about all your lovers.”

She choked back a startled laugh. “My lovers?”

“Yes. I told you about my projectionist. Tell me about your most formative experience.” He grinned. “In exquisite detail.”

That was the problem with getting down and dirty with a man on the first date—or whatever you called the first time she’d gone to his house. They could skip all the preliminary stuff about where they were born and how many siblings they had and jump straight to the subject of lovers. “I . . . ah . . .”

Saved by the waiter bringing their drinks. She could have kissed him.

“Are you ready to order?” He withdrew a pad from the pocket of his dark blue apron and held his pencil poised.

Lola hadn’t looked at anything besides Gray. But he’d already decided. “I’ll have the salmon.” He dragged a menu close, opened it, then handed it to Lola.

“I’ll have the salmon, too.” She couldn’t be bothered to look.

They spent another couple of minutes with choices and sides—they both passed on salads—then the man left and Gray tucked his beer mug close as he leaned on the table once more. He slid the glass of wine to her. “Drink. It’ll make it easier to bare your soul.”

Who was this man? He wasn’t the coach on the football field. He wasn’t the man who made her bend over a chair so he could spank her. He wasn’t even the man telling her about his sexual experience in the projectionist’s booth. He was almost . . . playful. And that was a word she would never have applied to him.

But Lola drank as ordered.

Then he issued another order. “Now talk.”

“I . . . um . . . my ex-husband.”

“Your husband was your first lover?” He didn’t seem surprised that she had an ex-husband. Maybe she’d told him, but she couldn’t remember.

“He wasn’t my first”—he was the second—“but you asked about formative. And he was.” Mike had done a lot of forming.

Gray put a hand on her knee beneath the table. “As formative as the projectionist?”

Oh yeah, but in a far different way than he meant. “Probably, but not as good.”

He raised one eyebrow. “An asshole?” Then he snorted. “Of course he was an asshole or you wouldn’t have divorced him.”

“He divorced me.” She felt a twinge in her stomach having to admit it.

“Then he was an asshole
and
an idiot.” The hand on her knee started to move, caressing her, warming her. Or maybe that was just the sentiment in his words. “Did he cheat?”

“No.” She rolled the stem of her wineglass between her fingers. “Do we have to talk about this? I don’t want to be a pathetic whiner.”

Gray laughed. Her heart flipped over. He was absolutely gorgeous.

“You’re the furthest thing from a whiner.” And that hand rose tantalizingly higher on her thigh. Heat spread through her body. “I’ll bet,” he said, “that he was the whiner.”

Well, yeah, Mike could be described that way, but to be diplomatic—and not to come off as the typical divorced woman who couldn’t stop complaining about her ex-husband—she said, “I didn’t measure up to his standards, that’s all.”

“What were his standards?” Something about him had changed, a slight tension in his jaw, an infinitesimal flare of his nostrils.

“He just wanted me to dress better, do my hair differently, change my makeup, do a better job with the housework. And the cooking.” And at her job. And . . . well, the list went on and on. She wasn’t nice enough to his mother. She’d forgotten to send a thank-you note to his aunt. Everything about her had been disappointing.

“Why did he marry you?”

The callousness of the question shocked her until she looked right into his eyes. And saw something soft there, empathy. “I don’t know why he married me.”

“I know exactly why.” The harshness of his tone belied the softening she’d seen in his gaze. “Because it made him feel like a big man to put you down. It made him feel better than you. He was the type that needs to put down someone else in order to feel superior.”

“Charlotte said the same thing.”

“Charlotte?”

“My friend.”

“The one who took the photo of the panties?”

She gave a small laugh. “Yes.”

“Well, she’s right. And I’m right, too. He was an asshole. There’s nothing wrong with you.” He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “You’re perfect.”

She swallowed, didn’t say anything, didn’t admit how much she loved that word on his lips.

“What I’ve learned about marriage is that people often end up despising the things they loved you for in the beginning.”

“And he loved me because he could put me down?”

“Maybe.”

“And he left when it didn’t make him feel like a big man anymore.”

“He probably needed fresh meat to grind.”

He couldn’t know how true that was. Another small laugh hiccuped out of her, then she bit her lip.

She’d known all that, figured it out for herself in the aftermath, but it was the way Gray put it that amazed her. That’s exactly what Mike had done. He ground her down. And when she was just a pile of meat at the bottom of the bowl, he had to find new meat to grind, starting all over again. She’d heard he’d been married and divorced two more times. He was probably looking for a fourth piece of meat to grind right now.

“I’ve never heard it put quite like that, but you’re right.” She tipped her head to examine him. “Is that what happened to you?”

He shook his head and didn’t hesitate answering. “Not the meat grinder. My wife loved me for my ambition. Then she hated me for becoming a workaholic.”

“I thought it was all your women that bothered her.” If she had to bare her soul, Gray did, too.

“Are you referring to what my son said?” There was a distinct tightening of his facial muscles.

She nodded.

“I’m not even sure if that’s what he was implying.”

She pursed her lips and huffed out a breath.

He heard what she was saying. “All right, he was implying it.” He cocked his head. “Do you believe it’s true?”

She saw the waiter arriving with their plates before he did. “Our food,” she said as the waiter flipped open a folding table and slid the tray onto it.

Gray didn’t move, concentrating on her. “Do you think I did?”

“Your salmon, ma’am?” The waiter’s voice rose in question when Gray didn’t move.

Lola ignored him, her gaze on Gray. “No, I know you wouldn’t.”

22

RELIEF COURSED THROUGH HIM. HE DIDN’T CARE WHAT PEOPLE
thought of him. He knew who and what he was. He had flaws. If they needed fixing, he fixed them. Of course, there were the flaws only in other people’s minds, and then there were those he chose to live with. But he couldn’t let her think he was capable of betraying his marriage vows. It was her hesitation that had gotten to him. Even after she answered, he wasn’t sure.

But he hadn’t intended to get so serious, or to remind her about her asshole ex-husband.

Straightening in the booth, he let the waiter place their plates, inquire about additional drinks, et cetera, then stride away to another table.

“This looks like a great choice,” Lola said. She closed her eyes, breathed in. “Smells yummy, too.” She was discreetly changing the subject.

He wasn’t going to let her. Breaking off flaky pieces of salmon with his fork, he kept his other hand on her thigh. “You still haven’t answered me about all the naughty things you’ve done with your lovers.” Which wasn’t exactly how he’d phrased it, but he wanted to discount the ex. The man deserved a thrashing.

She muffled a laugh around the fork in her mouth. After swallowing—and moaning over the taste and texture and deliciousness—she said, “I haven’t done a lot. And I haven’t had a lot of lovers.”

“How many?”

She tipped her head, obviously counting in her mind. “Five.”

“And you were divorced when?” It was hard to believe she hadn’t had throngs of men at her feet.

“Ten years ago.” She swirled her fork in the mashed potatoes. Most places complemented fish with rice, but here, they served the most excellent whipped potatoes with just about every dish unless you specifically asked for something else.

She obviously loved sex, so that wasn’t the issue. And she would have had any number of offers. Perhaps she was gun-shy after her divorce.

She answered in the midst of his contemplations. “Contrary to popular belief, most men, after you’ve been with them any length of time, and this is presuming that there was mutual enjoyment, of course”—she punctuated with a swirl of her utensil—“most men want a relationship.”

“And you don’t?”

She hesitated, poked at the salmon, ate a bite, then finally said, rather quickly, the words rushing out, “No, I didn’t. I just wanted the sex. Women can be like that, you know, just wanting sex. I didn’t want a man around telling me—” She stopped.

He knew exactly what she hadn’t said. She didn’t want a man telling her she wasn’t good enough, wanting to change her, then never being satisfied with the changes she made. Been there, done that. She was definitely gun-shy. Since he knew the answer, he skipped to the other part of the question. “But before they got around to wanting a relationship?”

She pursed her lips and widened her eyes dramatically at him. “I was a very missionary kind of girl until I met you.”

He laughed loud enough to turn a couple of heads despite the noise level. “I don’t believe you.”

“My favorite flavor was vanilla.”

“Was?”

She raised an eyebrow saucily. “I’m starting to think there are other flavors out there which might be much better.”

“Like chocolate and strawberry?”

She flapped a hand at him. “No. Like cake batter. Or blueberry cheesecake.”

“Or a spanking?” He held her gaze.

“Definitely.” She dropped her voice and leaned in, the fruity scent of her shampoo mesmerizing him, and murmured, “Or up against a tree in the middle of the woods. Or blindfolded and handcuffed.”