Jared hadn’t expected her to accept his dinner invitation, but he was pleasantly surprised when she did. The past two nights, he’d come precariously close to tossing aside every gentlemanly courtesy that had been ingrained in him in order to ravish the exasperating and too damned intriguing woman.
Having grown up with six younger sisters, he thought of how he’d feel if some man forced himself upon one of them. Even if Miss McAllister didn’t have a brother to protect her, she didn’t deserve to be treated with less civility, despite her uncommon candor.
“Shall we?” he asked, lightly resting his palm against her waist.
She nodded, but he felt a slight tremor course through her. Mac wasn’t nearly as self-assured as she liked everyone to believe. Her expression when she’d told him about her dream and her parents had given him a glimpse of the woman who lay beneath the brash exterior. That tiny glimpse made her softer, more vulnerable. Even though she’d never admit it, she needed a man to care for her and bring out her femininity. However, the upbringing that had made her so tough would be difficult to overcome.
At the entrance to the dining room, Jared and Mac stopped to wait for the steward.
“Are you sure about this?” Mac whispered hoarsely. “I’m still in my uniform.”
Jared hadn’t even noticed. Cursing himself for his thoughtlessness, he leaned close to her ear. Silky tendrils tickled his nose and he pressed even nearer. Her womanly scent surrounded him, undisguised by the overpowering perfume most ladies seemed to bathe in. He inhaled deeply. He could get drunk on her scent alone. “Would you like to change into another dress?”
She stiffened. “No, that’s all right. Maybe this is a bad idea.”
Mac tried to back out of the room, but Jared planted himself directly behind her. Though she might be right, he didn’t want her to leave. Besides, it gave him an excuse to keep her in sight and safe from the killer.
Guilt twinged Jared. He should be outside scouring the grounds for anyone who didn’t belong, as well as women walking alone. The foreboding that the killer would strike soon was growing. But the other two murders that had occurred around this time of year had been committed after Christmas, not before.
He hoped the killer, if he was going to strike again, wouldn’t change his pattern. Turning his attention back to Mac, he asked in mock disbelief, “Are you scared of me?”
With her back almost touching Jared’s chest, she turned her head to gaze up at him. Her face was inches from his. “Should I be?” Her tone was too somber in response to his teasing.
Instinctively, he realized his answer was important to her, too vital to be laughed off. He didn’t understand why, only that it was.
He feathered a fingertip across her delicate eyebrow as he studied the copper specks in her dark golden eyes. He could fall into her eyes and be lost, wholly and willingly. “No. You never have to be frightened of me,” he said quietly but with an intensity that surprised them both.
Mac tried to swallow, but all the moisture in her mouth had disappeared. Trish McAllister, who’d made cynicism a religion, believed him. Jared Yates was not the Piano Man Killer, nor had he killed his fiancée and the other women. In his compelling eyes, she met true integrity, not the bottled commodity that was bought and sold by politicians and CEOs in her time.
Mac was vaguely aware of the maitre d’ clearing his throat.
“Table for two?” came the man’s too-precise voice.
She quickly turned away from Jared, so he wouldn’t see her confusion.
“Yes, please,” Jared replied.
The maitre d’ led them through the nearly deserted room to a small table laced in shadows in one corner. “Is this acceptable?”
Jared smiled. “Perfect.”
He held Mac’s chair, and she lowered herself into it carefully. He took the seat across from her. The maitre d’ handed them menus, then returned to his post at the front of the dining room. However, Mac didn’t miss the disapproval in his weasel-like face.
As she stared at the menu with unfocused eyes, she was aware of Jared’s baffled gaze. He was probably wondering why she wasn’t running off at the mouth. Silent lulls were rare between them since they had stumbled into each other’s lives.
She had five months and twenty-six days to figure out why she’d ended up here and what she was supposed to do to gain her ticket back. So why wasn’t she concentrating on that instead of the spicy scent of Jared’s aftershave? Were the two—Jared and her predicament—related? Or had her hibernating hormones decided the long winter was over and the spring mating ritual had begun?
C’mon, Mac, tuck it in. Mindless sex has its place, but it’s not here.
Jared watched her closely, wondering what was going on in her too lively mind. She was too quiet. Startled, he realized he wanted her to talk. He’d become accustomed to her ramblings and peculiar words, and actually missed the sound of her voice.
Before he could ask her about her strange mood, she broke the silence.
“I wonder if anyone calls him Rat Man.”
Jared nearly choked. “The headwaiter?”
Mac leaned forward, her eyes dancing. “Did you notice his little mouth and beady eyes? And I swear his nose was twitching.” She shook her head. “He should’ve gone into the extermination business—he’d have an inside track.”
Jared closed his eyes, fighting the urge to laugh. Mac had the diminutive stiff-rumped man pegged right. Definitely a rat man. He gave up the fight and chuckled. “Have you always been so . . . forthright?”
“The word is obnoxious.” She plopped her elbows on the table and clasped her hands. She gazed at him over the candle and the flickering flame was mirrored in her black pupils. “That’s all right. I’m proud of my ability to antagonize everyone I meet within the first five minutes.”
“I didn’t know you were so talented.”
“Aw shucks, Jared, you’re such a flatterer.” A smile twitched her full lips.
She shifted her attention to the menu and Jared did the same, though he was aware of every movement she made, no matter how minute. A slender finger tapped her chin and her nose wrinkled like a child who had just tasted cod liver oil. Her short blond hair, though a bit wild, framed her oval face perfectly. He couldn’t imagine Mac with long hair. She was too unique and the odd hairstyle suited her.
“Would you like me to order for you?” he asked.
She affected a helpless pose. “Oh my, there are just so many choices. Little ol’ me couldn’t possibly decide, so I’ll just have the big strong man do it for me.” She batted her eyelashes for good measure.
Jared laughed and held up a hand. “Point taken.” He grimaced. “And understood.”
“Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” she asked with a smirk.
Jared resisted the urge to wipe the smirk from her face with a well-placed kiss.
A waitress approached them. “Are you ready to order?” She glanced from Jared to Mac and her mouth fell open. “Mac?”
“Hello, Jane,” Mac said calmly, though Jared noticed her grip tightened on the menu.
The plain-faced waitress leaned close to Mac. “What’re you doing with Mr. Yates?”
“What does it look like we’re doing?” Jared broke in irritably. He didn’t like being talked about as if he were a piece of furniture.
Mac tossed him a scowl and turned back to the girl. “Mr. Yates and I are having dinner.”
“But I thought we were going to get him and Miss Sparrow together,” Jane whispered, though Jared heard every word.
“Miss Sparrow?” he exclaimed.
Mac cast him an innocent look that appeared so incongruous on her that he would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so dumbfounded.
“We thought you liked her,” Jane said with wide eyes.
“Miss Sparrow?” Jared reiterated, knowing full well he sounded like a parrot, but unable to say anything more intelligent.
“It was pointed out that you two have been friends for a few years and that you’re also quite compatible,” Mac explained. “Esme Sparrow is the epitome of feminine deportment and compliance, while you’re a pillar of masculine supremacy and chauvinism. Seems to me you two were made for each other.”
He opened his mouth to deny her claims, but the mischievous twinkle in her eyes stopped him. Instead, he turned to Jane. “I’ll have the Chateaubriand. We’ll also have a bottle of cabernet.”
The waitress appeared puzzled, but remained where she was, waiting for him to give Mac’s order as well. Jared smiled to himself. He wasn’t about to incur Mac’s wrath again.
“I’ll have . . . ” Mac began, then glanced at Jared. “You’re picking up the tab, right?”
He didn’t like the sound of that, but he had invited her. He nodded cautiously.
She grinned. “In that case, I’ll have the largest steak in the kitchen, done medium well.”
Jane blinked in confusion, but wrote down the order. She took their menus and scurried away.
“You shocked the poor girl, Mac,” Jared said. She’d also surprised him, but she didn’t need to know that. Mac had shocked him enough in the past four days to last a lifetime.
Had he only known her four days? It felt longer, like a lifetime, maybe two or three. Though he knew little about her past, he had the uncanny feeling that he saw what mattered. With a start, he realized he was seeing what Esme had wanted him to see.
“It’s good for her,” Mac said. “Besides, it’s the first time I’ve seen Jane speechless.” She grinned unrepentantly.
Jared steepled his fingers. “So what’s this about playing matchmaker, with Esme and myself as the match in the making?”
“I tried to talk Jane and her co-conspirators out of it.” Her eyes glittered. “I told them you were too much man for Miss Sparrow.”
Jared almost smiled, then caught the underlying inference. “So who do you think could handle me? You?”
The dare lay between them, sparking as hot as the awareness that suddenly sang through the air. The lust was undeniable, the attraction equally so. Jared had trouble breathing the heavy air. Hell, he had trouble remaining in his chair when all he wanted to do was toss Mac over his shoulder and carry her off to a more private setting.
Mac narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, placing an elbow on the table and her chin in her palm. “Who says you can handle me?”
Jared’s breath caught in his throat as his gaze dropped to follow the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. The motion hypnotized him, thickened his blood. Her body, soft and curvy in all the right places, begged for his attention, though it didn’t have to plead much. He remembered too well the feel of her skin and the taste of her lips. He pictured her as she lay in her bed, her fingers wrapped in his jacket and tugging him closer . . . closer.
His erection throbbed against his trouser buttons and the ache to possess her was fast becoming an itch he couldn’t ignore.
“Here’s your wine.”
The waitress’s voice brought him out of his sensual haze and he shifted, drawing his jacket over the outline of his rigid shaft.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice a shade higher than normal.
Jane poured a small amount into Jared’s goblet and he lifted it to his lips and drank. “Fine.” It could have tasted like sour apples and Jared wouldn’t have noticed.
After both glasses were filled, Jane left them alone.
“Well?” Mac prompted. “Do you think you could handle me?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
She sipped some wine. “For now,” she said, almost purring.
“Yes.”
Mac tipped her head slightly in acknowledgment. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see if you have a chance to put your money where your mouth is.”
His mouth only wanted to be one place right now— on Mac’s body. It didn’t matter where, as long as he could taste her, devour her until she was writhing and moaning beneath him.
He raised his wineglass with a decidedly unsteady hand. “To rhetorical questions.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Mac clinked her glass against his and her eyes twinkled dangerously. “And answered challenges.”
Jared lifted the wineglass to his lips and drank the contents in one gulp.
Three hours and two bottles of wine later, Mac and Jared strolled out of the dining room. She was getting old—she couldn’t even handle a little wine anymore. Pathetic. The only good thing to come out of her nearly drunken state was a reason to lean on Jared. Even if she hadn’t been tipsy, she would’ve found a reason to stay close to him, maybe to demand sympathy for a hangnail.
During the course of the evening, she’d grown more and more certain that her gut instinct was right. Jared was no killer. With that doubt gone, she allowed her other instincts to guide her. The only problem was, those instincts weren’t connected to her gut, and definitely not to her brain.
She wrapped both her arms around his, relishing the hard bicep and his equally hard body. She pressed her nose to his sleeve and inhaled the scents of wool, tobacco and Jared.
How long had it been since the mere scent of a man brought a languorous pulsing between her thighs?
“What’re you thinking?” Jared asked.
She glanced at him and nearly pooled to the floor in a boneless heap at the smoky warmth in his eyes. “I’m thinking that your eyes ought to be outlawed.”
No doubt about it—I’m pathetic.
His lips curved upward in a slow sexy smile that would put Brad Pitt to shame. “Is that good?”
“Definitely good. Maybe too good.”
“Why’s that?”
“Your eyes do things to me that would be illegal in most states,” Mac said.
His arm slipped around her waist, drawing her nearer. “It’s hard to know the difference between your insults and your compliments.”
“I like being mysterious.” She winked, enjoying his momentary discomfiture.
“Enigmatic,” he drawled.
“Baffling.”
“Puzzling.”
“Complicated.”
“Paradoxical.”
He didn’t know the half of it.
Mac glanced up at him, which wasn’t easy considering she was close enough to his side to be considered an appendage. “Oooh. You win. Most certainly a paradox.”
They paused in front of the doorway to the Garden Room. It was dim, illuminated only by the moonlight that shone through the windows, but Mac could make out the chairs, tables and plants that were strategically placed so people could visit without being crowded by their neighbor. The room was empty. It was Christmas Eve; everybody had someplace to be.
Everybody but Mac and Jared.
“Would you like a tour?” Jared asked softly.
In spite of Mac’s somewhat intoxicated condition, she recognized the invitation. The kind of exploration Jared intimated would involve a much more personal tour.
She lifted her gaze to tell him she wasn’t going to fall for his cheap line, but one look at the sexy tilt of his lips and she was caught.
Hook, line and libido.
“I’d like that.” Was that velvety tone hers?
Jared ushered her through the doorway and down the two levels of steps with an arm around her waist that scorched through her multilayered skirts. Mac clasped her hands in front of her, afraid if she touched him, she would rip off his shirt and jacket to run her palms along his sculptured pecs and abdomen. She knew the muscles were there. She had felt them tense, as if he, too, were holding himself back.
“The waters here at the Chesterfield are heated by an underground hot spring,” Jared was saying. “The man who discovered it sold the land to a group of investors. It took five years to build everything you see here at the Chesterfield.”
My God, he was actually giving her a tour, complete with factual tidbits.
Was this his form of a cold shower? If so, it wasn’t working. The rich timbre of his voice curled through her, making her nerves sit up and take notice. Not that they needed much incentive.
Maybe Jared had no intention of making love to her. Could she blame him? She wasn’t exactly a model of Victorian womanhood.
He led her to the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined one side of the room. She looked out into the night draped with broken moonbeams. A smattering of snowflakes fluttered down from the sky, reminding Mac of the cheap snow globe her mother used to drag out every year with the rest of the Christmas decorations. The scene inside the plastic dome was of a sleigh with a woman, a man, and a child inside. It was pulled by two black horses through a forest made of ugly green spikes that were supposed to be trees. She used to turn the globe upside down and shake it until her arm felt as though it would fall off, then she’d set it on the coffee table and watch the white flakes twirl around and around until they settled on the bottom. Mac had spent hours shaking the globe and watching the winter scene, imagining the people in the sleigh were her mother, her father and herself.
Five years ago she’d bought herself a snow globe and shook it until the snowflakes whirled dizzily inside. She had stared at it, trying to find the magic that had been in the one from her childhood, but she could no longer see a loving family within the sleigh, only a cheap plastic ball with a tacky winter scene inside. The globe had ended up in the garbage on Christmas Eve.
Her breath hitched in her throat and she concentrated on the warmth of Jared’s palm on her back. She leaned back against his chest, and his arms came around her waist, his hands clasped beneath her breasts. She rested her palms on his hands, feeling the light dusting of hair across his knuckles and the play of tendons beneath the skin.
“A perfect Christmas night,” Jared said softly.
His breath fanned her neck and sent goose bumps scurrying down her arms.
So maybe the tour is his idea of foreplay.
For a woman who prided herself on her independence, Mac liked the security and comfort of Jared’s strong arms around her and the solid chest she leaned against. She could get addicted to his steadfast presence, but she knew better than to do so. If she looked at this liaison as more than a romp in bed, she’d be opening herself up to heartache.
He bent forward and kissed her nape where her shoulder met her neck. She gasped and closed her eyes to lose herself in the overpowering feel of his lips upon her sensitive skin. The heat spread to her belly and settled lower. She shoved away the melancholy her memories had brought and focused on the erotic sensations he created, allowed them to fill her thoughts and thicken her blood.
Sex was good for a lot of things—burning calories, relieving stress and allowing her to forget what needed to be forgotten.
Sex with Jared Yates would be better than good. She turned her face toward his and moaned, searching for his lips. He made the search easier as he accepted her invitation and met her halfway. Kissing Jared was like a birthday, Hanukkah, and Christmas present all rolled into one. Masculine and gentle, sweet and tangy, hard and soft. He tasted like wine and . . . like Jared.
His fingers wove through hers, holding her a willing captive. She felt his engorged penis resting along her buttocks and she thrust back against its welcome hardness.
Her breasts ached to be stroked and her pebbled nipples strained against her bodice. If he didn’t touch her soon, she would explode. She didn’t give a damn if it was the wine or her lust that made her so forward, but she needed the release with an almost frightening intensity.
She lifted Jared’s hand to one of her swollen breasts. He sucked in his breath between a mating of their mouths and rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“Harder, please,” Mac managed to say between gasps.
He obeyed and her knees nearly buckled. “Yes,” she murmured through a sexual haze.
Jared brought his other hand up to tease and stroke her neglected breast, nearly driving Mac insane. He rocked his hips forward and he found the inviting groove of Mac’s backside.
She groaned with want and need and plain old lust. Except with Jared, the lust was anything but plain and old. It was new and electric and mind-numbing.
And suddenly, she didn’t care about indoor plumbing or microwaveable popcorn or espresso machines or the Internet.
All that mattered was finding a dark corner, preferably with a bed—although that wasn’t a requirement—and hope that Jared let her have her way with him.