by Emme Rollins
“I’ll stand by it, a hundred percent,” I said firmly as the waitress came over to our booth. They were all Asian and barely spoke English but most of them were very sweet and tried very hard. I usually just ended up pointing to the number on the menu, if I went in to eat, but most of the time I just got take-out.
The girl who brought our waters and our menus was one of the best English-speakers and she smiled at us and asked if we needed a minute. Rob told her we did, picking up the one-page menu and looking it over with skeptical eyes. I sipped my water because I already knew exactly what I was going to order, looking around, wondering if any of these customers would stampede us on the way out.
I hoped not.
“So what’s good?” He put the menu on the table, taking a sip of water.
“I get the pad thai,” I said. “And you have to get the hot and sour soup. It’s my all-time favorite food.”
“Even better than stuffed French toast?”
“Yep.”
“That’s saying something.”
“You didn’t even taste the French toast.”
“I was too busy writing autographs.”
“Touché.”
“Are you ready to order?” Our waitress appeared, a tiny young woman, probably not quite five-foot, notepad in hand. They all wore an oriental smock and had their hair pulled back and adorned with chopsticks. I always watched them, amazed how easily they weaved in and out of tables in the small space with trays balanced perfectly.
I ordered my usual—hot and sour soup and a fresh roll to start and pad thai for my entrée.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” Rob said.
“Make it two?” the waitress asked, still writing.
“Yep, make it two.” He gave her a wink and she blushed, smiling back at him. Not that I blamed her. A wink from Rob Burns did something to the female psyche. He got under your skin and he didn’t even have to try.
“Flirt,” I teased when she was gone.
“I’ve only got eyes for you, sweetheart.” His hand brushed mine, twining our fingers together. I noticed, for the first time, that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. There wasn’t even a tan line where it had been.
“Why?” I asked softly, looking at the calluses on his fingers from years of playing guitar.
“Why what?”
“Why me?” I glanced up, meeting his gaze. His eyes were soft and so was his smile. “Why not Katie? Or any of the other girls who wanted you last night? Was it because you felt bad? About this?”
It touched my forehead. It was healing—the goose egg was almost gone—and my hair covered most of it now.
“Are we heading down the lawsuit road again?” Rob rolled his eyes, tossing his baseball hat on the bench seat beside him and running a hand through the mess of his hair. Even with hat-head he was the sexiest man alive.
I blushed, still embarrassed I’d said that. Twice.
“Last night didn’t convince you how much I want you?” His expression was more smirk than smile and the look in his eyes made me remember everything—his hands, his mouth, the steel heat of him as he slipped inside of me…
“Well… yeah…” I felt my cheeks growing even redder, but I had to ask. Something in me insisted on pursuing this line of questioning. “But… why?”
“Why me?” he countered.
I laughed, sputtering, “You—you’re Rob Burns!”
“And you…” He lifted my hand, opening it, kissing each fingertip gently and then trailing his soft, sweet lips down to my palm, planting another kiss there. “Are Sabrina Taylor.”
“I know, but…” I watched his mouth caress the inside of my wrist, feeling it instantly somewhere else, an aching throb between my thighs. “I’m nobody. I’m not famous. You didn’t even know who Sabrina Taylor was before last night.”
“That’s okay.” He wasn’t just kissing my inner wrist now, he was licking it, using just the skilled tip of his tongue, reminding me just how good he was with it. “You didn’t know Rob Burns either.”
“Touché.” I smiled, feeling the sensation all the way down to my pelvis and beyond. The man made my toes curl!
“It’s true.” He gave me one last, long, lingering kiss on my inner wrist before letting me go. The waitress was coming with our fresh rolls and soup. “I don’t usually talk to people like this. Like we have today. When you’re famous, you kind of learn to keep things to yourself. But with you… I don’t know what it is about you. Those gorgeous green eyes. That little lopsided smile. The dimple you’ve got. Right. There.”
It only appeared when I smiled and he reached over and touched his finger to it, briefly.
“Or the way you lit up when you were singing with me last night, or how you got so jealous of that stupid waitress—”
“I wasn’t—” I protested, but he just laughed.
“Or how fucking hot you were when you got me up to dance with you.” He lowered his voice, the waitress drawing near. “I wanted to fuck you right there in front of everyone.”
Oh. Emm. Gee.
If I’d been looking for some sort of reassurance—and of course I had—I’d been thoroughly rewarded. That heat was in his eyes again as he looked at me, a slow burning smolder as he sat back, arms stretched out on either side of him while the waitress put down our food.
“Thanks,” I murmured, hiding my flushed cheeks with a curtain of hair as I took a cooling sip of water. It was suddenly a thousand degrees in the little restaurant.
“There isn’t just something about you.” When the waitress was gone, Rob leaned forward, tilting my chin up so I was forced to meet his hot, dark eyes. “It’s everything about you. I can’t get enough of it. I keep trying not to think about this day ending because I don’t want it ever to end.”
I swallowed and nodded, blinking back silly, girlish tears.
“Is that enough?” he whispered, thumbing away one of my tears in time, but the other dropped into my soup, adding salt. “To convince you?”
“Yes.” I turned my head and pressed his hand to my cheek, kissing his palm this time.
He tucked my hair behind my ear, a simple, sweet gesture that just made me want to cry more but I blinked them back, smiling at him, determined to make this the best, most amazing day ever, like we’d intended.
“Let’s see what you think of my favorite soup.” I picked up a spoon, the scent of sweet spice reaching my nose, making my stomach grumble in protest.
Rob ate his fresh roll first and I watched him, taking slow, decadent sips of soup. The stuff was the nectar of the gods. I had no idea what they put in it—I’d asked for the recipe on several occasions but they were tight-lipped about it—but whatever it was, it went somehow beyond the chicken and tomatoes and onions and mushrooms floating in a clear, spicy broth that tickled my taste buds like nothing else.
“Good?” I asked when he’d finished his fresh roll.
“Mmm.” He agreed, nodding, mouth still full. The fresh rolls were good—fresh and light, and the sauce was sweet. But he hadn’t tried the soup yet. I waited for him to pick up his spoon, wondering if it was just me, or if he would find it as delicious as I did.
“Oh my God!” Rob’s eyes widened and he blinked in surprise after his first bite. “You weren’t kidding!”
“I told you.” I smiled, satisfied, looking down at my bowl and already lamenting it was half-gone. If I could pick an endless bowl of anything, it would be this soup.
“This is…” He put his spoon down with a clatter, sitting back in shock, just staring at the bowl.
“I know.” I hid a smile in a spoon full of delicious.
Rob picked up his spoon and devoured his bowl of soup. They weren’t big—maybe a cup or cup and a half of liquid, but it was gone before I could blink again. He signaled to the waitress, calling her over.
“More of this!” He pointed to the soup. “Two more bowls. And I will pay you a thousand dollars for the recipe.”
“I bring two more.” She pi
cked up his empty bowl “But sorry no recipe.”
Of course I knew that was coming. I’d asked and been turned down before too.
“Two thousand?” Rob wasn’t kidding.
“No.” She smiled, shaking her head. “No recipe.”
“Ten thousand?” He reached for his wallet and I saw that dark look in his eyes.
“No, sorry.” She blinked in surprise. “We don’t give out any recipe.”
“Man, she’s tough!” Rob said as she took his bowl back to the kitchen. I was still savoring mine.
“Wait until you taste the pad thai.”
He groaned in anticipation, watching me eat my soup until his arrived—two more bowls. By then I’d moved on to my fresh roll.
“So you didn’t have practical parents?” I asked, picking up the subject we’d been on at the museum.
“Hardly.” His mouth was full of soup.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?”
He nodded. “Somewhere.”
“You don’t know where?” I questioned, curious.
The waitress arrived with our pad thai, setting the plates in front of us. Rob was already done with his second and third bowls of soup.
He waited for her to go before he said, “They were all sent to different foster homes.”
“Oh.” I knew enough about foster homes from my classroom kids. You didn’t teach in Detroit without becoming very familiar with the foster care system. “So you grew up in foster care?”
“Oh my God, this is…” Rob looked up at me with noodles hanging half out of his mouth, eyes wide. “Oh my God!”
I grinned. “Squeeze the lemon over it and then mix in the bean sprouts. That’s what I do.”
He did, groaning as he put forkfuls of noodles into his mouth. “This is fucking better than sex!”
I raised my eyebrows, smirking at him.
“Well…” He swallowed, grinning. “Not quite… but you know what I mean.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” he replied through a mouthful of pad thai. “I had a foster mom who took in kids for the money. She knew how to work the system.”
I was very familiar. “What about your parents?”
“My mother was a crack head.” He slowed, frowning, taking a long drink of water. “Damnit Sabrina, how do you get me to talk about this stuff? I haven’t told anyone that. Except Tyler.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, that’s not it.” He shook his head, smiling, bemused. “It’s you. I don’t know. Anyway, they took us from her when I was twelve. My brother was ten and my sister was six.”
“Oh God.” I winced, thinking of his brother and sister out there somewhere. Rob was twenty-six. That meant his brother was twenty-four and his sister twenty. They’d grown up without each other. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago,” he replied, shoveling more noodles in, muffling his words. “I’m over it.”
“Was it your mother who told you about your grandfather being Native?”
“Yeah.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, looking thoughtful. “But hell, who knows, maybe it was all a lie. She liked to make up stories.”
“I don’t know. I can kind of see it in you.”
“Yeah?” He cocked his head, making him look so sexy I wanted to jump him right there.
“Yeah, a little,” I replied. “Around the eyes. And your complexion.”
“Maybe.” He scraped the last bit of sauce from his plate with a fork
“So when did you inherit your uncle’s guitar?”
Rob stopped and looked at me with those dark eyes.
“I read about it…” I explained.
“Right. That story.” He laughed. “Yeah it was my ‘uncle’s.’ We called all my mother’s boyfriends ‘uncle.’ He overdosed and no one ever came for his stuff. My mom sold most of it but I kept the guitar.”
What a horribly sad story. No wonder he never told it.
“I’m glad you did,” I said softly.
He smiled. “So am I.”
We were both done and I sat back, groaning, so over-full, but I couldn’t help myself with Thai food. It was just too good to stop at “full.”
“Did you ever notice how much of life revolves around food?” I asked as the waitress cleared our plates, leaving the bill. Rob took cash out of his wallet, leaving her quite a generous tip.
“And sex.” He put his cap and sunglasses back on.
“Sex?” Just the word in such close proximity to him made my body thrum like a livewire.
“Yeah,” he said lowly, standing and holding his hand out to me. “Let’s go back to your place.”
He didn’t have to say it twice.
Chapter Eight
We barely made it into the house even though it was just a few blocks away. We raced back to my Kia and I drove like a madwoman, gunning it to run a yellow out of the lot. Rob’s hand moved up my jeans to the apex of my thighs, rocking his hand up and down, back and forth, teasing the hell out of me as he whispered into my ear all of the things he was going to do to me when we got back to the house.
Two can play that game, I thought, keeping one hand on the wheel and reaching out with the other for the bulge in his jeans. Rob’s dirty talk litany in my ear skipped a beat. He paused to groan and shift his hips toward my groping hand. His tongue slipped into my ear, his teeth raking my earlobe, making my skin pull taut as if it couldn’t contain my emotion any longer, rising all over in goose flesh.
He distracted me so much I nearly clipped the bumper of a huge Ford F-150 turning the corner onto my street. The guy driving the big truck gave me the finger, shouting profanities I couldn’t hear—but I was sure they couldn’t be anything compared to the string of obscene words Rob was whispering in my ear. And I was far more interested in the latter than I was worried about the former.
“You’re gonna get us into an accident!” I gasped, slowing down as I neared the house.
“Hurry, baby,” Rob whispered, his fingers dancing over the seam of my jeans. “I want you so bad I can almost taste you.”
I groaned, my hand closing over the hard proof of his words through his jeans, rubbing the denim, a friction heat that made him suck harder at the nape of my neck.
“Home,” I whispered, pulling into the driveway and cutting the engine.
Rob grabbed me, pulling me to him and kissing me across the console with such force I gasped. Then his tongue was in my mouth, plunging deep and hard. His erection strained against the zipper of his jeans and I ran my fingernail over the alternating teeth, tick-tick-tick-tick, wanting desperately to yank it down and set him free, but I knew better. If we started here, we’d finish here, and that wasn’t a good idea considering it was broad daylight and my next-door neighbor, an elderly recently widowed gentleman, was out checking his mail and eyeing us with a disapproving frown.
“Rob, no,” I protested, pulling away, breaking the kiss. “Let’s go inside.”
I opened my door and Rob clambered after me, over the console, shutting the driver’s side door behind him and grabbing me around the waist. I yelped in protest but he wasn’t listening, already kissing my neck as I tried to make my way up the steps toward the door.
“Wait, wait!” I insisted, pulling open the screen and trying to get the right key into the lock. The metaphor didn’t escape me as Rob pressed me up against it, hand snaking down from my waist to settle between my thighs, his mouth distracting me at the base of my neck, my hair pulled aside so he had full access.
“I can’t wait,” he growled, lifting me from my crotch as I got the door unlocked. I caught a glimpse of old Mr. Fisher as the door was forced open by our weight, his eyes wide, mouth agape, and wondered what he must be thinking. Then I couldn’t think of anything else because Rob kicked the front door shut and pushed me over to the couch. My keys were still dangling in the door but neither of us cared.
I welcomed t
he weight of him as we kissed and groped each other, finding far too much material between us to our liking. That was remedied quickly by Rob, who undressed us both in record time between short, hard, desperate kisses, as if he thought breaking contact for too long might just put out the spark between us. I could have told him, if he’d asked, that wasn’t possible. I burned for him. My body turned into a nuclear reactor when he was around, radiating the kind of heat that could warm nations—or annihilate them.
And Rob seemed to know all the right buttons to push.
I desperately wanted him inside of me but he lingered once we were undressed, his gaze moving over me in the afternoon sunshine coming in through the blinds, leaving shadow slats on my belly, my thighs. He started tracing those lines with his tongue, climbing my breasts and lashing each of my nipples, sending a sweet pulse of pleasure directly to my sex. His hands stayed there, cupping my breasts, but his tongue headed south. I moaned in anticipation, spreading my thighs, remembering the skilled press of his tongue, aching for it.
Rob settled between my legs, rolling my nipples between thumb and forefinger as he began to explore my sex with his tongue, as if tracing a labyrinth, up and down though the soft, pink folds, working his way to the center. I shivered whenever his tongue brushed over that spot but he teased me, ignoring it. He spent all his time and attention around it, kissing my labia, splitting that swollen seam with his tongue and tracing it downward, tasting me fully.
“Oh God, please,” I begged, thrusting my hips up off the sofa. I knew I was probably staining it with my juices as they ran down but I didn’t care. Besides, my father had it Scotch Guarded at Art Van before he bought it for me, ever practical. We could have covered it in secretions and it would have still washed right out. Of course, I’d never tested it. Until today.
“Please what?” His hands moved slowly down my body, outlining my rib cage, the curve of my waist, the swell of my hips, his eyes never leaving mine. “Tell me what you want.”
“You.” I reached for him, my hands covering his on my hips. “Please?”