“Exactly, just business.”
“Then that wasn’t you I saw taking twenty percent off his bill?” Tyler reached for the raita spoon. She reached out and pushed playfully at him, then gasped as she accidentally shoved his hand knuckles-deep into the yogurt sauce. He swore in surprise as she apologized, laughing, “Oops. Sorry about that.”
“Witch. Look at this mess.” He waved his dripping hand threateningly at her. Pointing a finger at her, he shook it, drips of sauce flying and spattering the table. “I ought to—”
She grabbed his hand and popped his finger into her mouth, licking at the cool, creamy sauce. The move was reflexive and shut him up instantly. His finger was hard and calloused in her mouth as she circled it with her tongue, pulling back slowly until her lips just kissed the tip. With a last flick of her tongue, she straightened and looked at him levelly.
His hand hung in the air above the table for a moment longer until he visibly shook himself and retracted it.
“If I’d known that was what it took,” he muttered as he finished up the cleaning job himself, “I’d have rolled around in my dinner ages ago.”
She laughed deep in her throat and took another sip of wine. Tyler watched her, rising desire warring with puzzlement on his face. Grace couldn’t blame him. After so many weeks of tiptoeing around him on a daily basis, careful not to let herself think of him as anything more than her boss, her sensual attack had surprised her, too. But somewhere between the moment he’d sat and when he’d begun to scold her for the mess she’d made, a switch had flipped in her head, her body, her heart.
The heady, feminine power coursing now through her system was a new feeling for Grace, but one grounded in her certainty that he wanted her. And in her equal certainty, admitted fully for the first time, that she wanted him, too, and was through pretending that she wasn’t going to give in to that desire. She’d made the decision yesterday, when she’d invited him to dinner, but hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge the reason.
Now she did, and the thought alone was thrilling. I want Tyler, and tonight I am going to go to bed with him. Everything else in her life was off balance and happening to her without her consent. This was one thing she owned, one area where she made the rules, because Tyler had promised not to push and she trusted him not to.
“Grace?”
“Relax, Tyler.” The feeling of control was a powerful one, making it unnecessary to watch her words. Or to give in too soon to the temptation she fully intended to pursue. “Just pursuing a momentary impulse.”
“Pursue away,” he said, and leaned forward on his elbows to eye her with fascination. “Is there anything else you’d like to lick off me? And if so, please be specific about the body part.”
She laughed and waved him off, gesturing at the still over-burdened table. “Just eat. We have enough food here for a small country.”
“Or for breakfast.” Testing.
When she just raised an eyebrow and then smiled at him, he fell over onto the floor, groaning theatrically.
“Have mercy, Grace. You’re killing me.”
“Better finish your last meal then. Wouldn’t want you to die a hungry man.” She took another bite of her food, felt a morsel catch at the side of her mouth and used the tip of her tongue to remove it. “Are you hungry, Tyler?” The boldness of her sexual teasing was intoxicating.
And intensely frustrating if you were on the receiving end, apparently. She delighted in the sight of Tyler pressing his pillow to his face and pretending not to hear her. After a moment, he sat up again.
“I’m going to pretend you’re still my little, innocent Grace and eat my dinner,” he said almost primly. His eyes moved loftily around the room, refusing to rest on hers. He spread dal on warm bread and chewed it absently, eyes focusing on her after a minute. “This is terrific, by the way. I’m very impressed that you know how to cook all of this from scratch.”
“Mmm, hmm.” Her mouth was conveniently full as she thought guiltily of the cookbook stuffed in her bag. She swallowed. “Sure you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I saw your kitchen, Tyler. I cooked in it for half the afternoon, for crying out loud.” At his look of confusion, she flung up her hands. “You’ve got a million and one gadgets and devices. A spice rack that rivals a gourmet chef’s, and an oven the size of my recent hotel room. You obviously cook like a whiz. I’m sure my managing to put a meal together doesn’t impress you at all.”
His slow smile was a mystery to her. “Aha. You obviously didn’t open the upper right-hand cabinet by the sink.”
“Why? What’s in it?”
“Stacks of cookbooks. I don’t mind cooking, but without a recipe, I’m pretty much limited to boiling water for pasta. But you’re amazing, this meal is incredible.”
The guilt was enough to have her breaking into giggles. When he looked at her curiously, she half leaned and half crawled her way past the end of the table to where her leather bag rested against the couch. Lifting the flap and loosening the drawstring, she tugged it open and flashed the contents at him. Perched smack on top was her one and only cookbook.
“Aha, a fellow connoisseur. You’re still brilliant.” He toasted her with chicken and basmati rice. “What else do you conjure up in your kitchen?”
“This is it,” she said, and shrugged. “I bought this cookbook when I needed to make something for a dinner party, and I got so many compliments that I never bothered to get another one. All I know how to make is Indian food.”
She tensed for a moment as she heard herself casually mention throwing a dinner party, as if that were something the average diner waitress did at the drop of a hat. In truth, she usually had her parties catered by one of the Haley restaurants. She searched frantically at bookstores that morning for the cookbook, an identical copy to the only one she owned. When it seemed that he didn’t find anything wrong with her story, she relaxed again.
“You’re a woman with fascinating talents, Grace. Who else knows what you’ve got hidden in there?” He laid his hand over hers on the table and curled his fingers around hers.
She changed the subject rapidly, feeling he was moving too close to topics that would require out-and-out lies on her part, something she was uncomfortable enough with having done already. Lying to him while sitting across the table and sharing a meal seemed unnecessarily hard and rude.
Tyler went along with the new conversation easily enough, and they spent the next hour comfortably talking about the restaurant, sharing ideas for possible improvements and concerns over where routines were still breaking down. Watching him talk about his business, Grace could see the shine that slid over him, the excitement that lit him up until she could practically see the light streaming from the tips of his fingers and shooting out the ends of his hair. He was filled with it, pure passion and vision and the steel-wrapped determination to make it all happen by sheer force of will if necessary.
Her hands itched to reach out and grab hold of him, to hang on until she managed to absorb some of that certainty and confidence into herself. That absolute conviction that what you were doing was the right thing, the only thing, possible in your life.
Tyler leaned back from the table, resting on his palms. Groaning, he pushed his plate in, away from the table edge, and let his eyes close slowly. “I think I should have stopped eating a half hour ago, but I just couldn’t make myself.”
“That’s my favorite compliment,” she said, and smiled. Half rising to her knees, she started stacking plates, putting his on top of hers.
“Stop.” He didn’t bother to open his eyes, but she halted anyway. “You cooked. You don’t clean. I do.” His head dropped even farther forward until his chin rested on his chest. “Tomorrow.”
“All right.” She settled back onto her pillow. In her wine-glass, guttering candles flickered hypnotically, caught in the fragile curve of glass, dancing. The song rolling quietly from the speakers was instrumental, bass, piano, tapping
cymbals, a wave of background noise like surf crashing on the shore at a beach house. Ever-present, unobtrusive, calm.
She sipped her wine and held it in her mouth, letting the earthy tannins swell and burst on her tongue before swallowing. When she inhaled, she breathed the scent of the wine and intoxicated herself in the quiet.
The clink of the glass’s base hitting the coffee table was loud in the still room. Tyler looked up.
“This isn’t working,” he growled, and stood in one smooth movement. Striding in two steps around the table to where she sat, he dropped abruptly to the floor at her side. Grace tensed. This was what she wanted, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for it. Despite all her bravado, her sexual past was limited to a few fumbling, lukewarm encounters that had left her feeling untouched. Now her insides were trembling with nerves and she wished Tyler had waited for her to make some kind of move. She’d wanted that illusion of control so badly.
Tyler stretched his legs and body out on the floor, rolled onto his side, and put his head in her lap.
“Ah.” Contentment colored the sigh. “Perfect.”
Grace looked down at the man whose head rested gently in her lap, his eyes closed, the lids shadowed a purple the color of bruises, a visible symbol of the hours he gladly worked for his passion. As she watched, his breath slowed and deepened. He moved once, pulling one leg up to rest his knee on the floor at his side, and wedging a hand between his head and her thigh. But then he lay still, quietly sleeping, and she felt a peaceful calm creep over her. After a few minutes she began softly stroking his hair, running her fingers gently through the strands, down the line of his neck and across his shoulders. Comforting him, she supposed, although she didn’t know why she felt that he needed it.
Another candle burned out and the light dimmed further. The music drifted further into the background and time slowed until each moment lasted an eternity. The sensation was so unfamiliar that it tugged at her. Grace realized that for weeks she’d been running, constantly moving or hustling, for a job, a solution, a tip from table three. She hadn’t had time to simply sit still and breathe.
In the quiet room she sat and she breathed. A centering calm unfolded in her like a flower and spread balancing petals wide through her body, grounding her. She looked at Tyler and felt a surging wave of gratitude for the sanctuary he’d provided her, and the space he’d allowed her that had, in turn, let her give him this night of rest. Tenderness bloomed with warmth in her hands and she brushed them softly over his curled arm.
When her back began to ache and her eyelids grew more than a little heavy themselves, she stirred. Cradling Tyler’s head, she managed to snag his pillow and drag it beneath the table to exchange her thigh for it as a headrest. His sleep was deep enough that he simply rolled over to curl up on his other side, facing her. Grace could see her shoes lined up neatly at the door, her leather bag propped up at the end of the couch, and knew she should leave.
The decision to curl up next to Tyler on the thick pile of the Oriental rug was instinctive and undeniable. Without thought, she rested her head on the same pillow and settled comfortably on her side. She’d thought to control this evening, to take charge of a flirtation that would lead with a magnetic pull to something sexual, a release to the tension she carried around in her body like armor. Instead, the tension had seeped out of her so slowly that she hadn’t noticed, until she found herself here, boneless in relaxation on the floor next to this man whose kindness and humor and desire were tugging her inevitably closer to him.
The warmth of another body next to his triggered an instinct in Tyler that had him curling an arm around her and tucking it under her side. He pulled her close, until his knees were tucked behind hers, her butt pressed against his groin. She was enfolded and, held so securely, dropped almost immediately into sleep.
When she woke, it was to darkness and silence. Darkness and silence and a low voice, from a man who’d noticed her sudden alertness, whispering in her ear.
“Please tell me this is Grace I’ve got curled up with me, so nice and warm. Because otherwise, I’ve been fantasizing about waking up the wrong woman.”
Seven
Grace took a deep breath. And realized that the hand previously wrapping her waist was now cupped around her breast, a thumb rubbing almost idly across the hardening peak. She hadn’t been able to wear a bra with the tank top, and the sensation of silk pulling gently across her nipple was exquisitely isolated in the still quiet dark.
A quiet that was broken by the sudden, uncontrollable sound that escaped her as Tyler’s fingers curved and feathered lightly against the side of her breast. His breath moved the hair on her neck. Her voice broke audibly on a sigh.
“Grace?” A question.
“Yes.” The answer to anything he was asking of her. His voice murmured again, questioning further, but she interrupted, “Shh, yes.” A repeated whisper. “Yes.”
Moonlight slid through the window, highlighting the edge of skin, a faint sheen of light on curves and flat planes. Her bare arm. The broken arch of his fingers wrapped around her. He pulled away, pressed against her shoulder to lay her back flat against the carpet. The dark shadow of him leaned above her, blocking out the moonlight, his mouth and eyes darker magnets. In the dark, there was feeling only to tell her that he dipped his head, one arm curved at the top of the pillow, fingers tangling in her hair. The other resting motionless on her hip.
The heat of his mouth held, hovering, just above her breast, radiated against her skin. An eternity, waiting, until she arched her back to press her breast against his mouth. Her shoulders scraped against the carpet, sharp rasping contrasting with the sudden damp heat of his mouth wetting silk and pulling gently at her nipple. She heard her own voice, soft breaking sounds in the stillness.
His hand moved at her waist, fumbling in the dark for the hem of her tank top and then sliding beneath it to skate his fingers across her stomach at the edge of her skirt. She opened her mouth on a gasp and he was there, plunging with sudden intensity into the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers, and she wrapped her arms around him to pull him deeper into her. Behind her closed eyelids, flowers of light burst and faded and were reborn in glowing colors on her inner vision.
By the time he pulled away, they were both breathing hard. His leg was wedged between hers and she could feel herself rocking instinctively against him.
“You—” a hand skated up her bare side “—have entirely too many clothes on.”
In response, she let her arms fall from his shoulders to the floor over her head, crossed at the wrist. She turned her head toward him, hoping he could read the permission she gave in the arc of her body.
He saw, and seeing, bent over her again, repeating her name in barely audible murmurs against her skin.
His hands pushed the fabric of her shirt up, stopping, when it bunched at her shoulders, to suck and tease, flicking his tongue against her breasts by turns, covering her with hard hands that molded her breasts to guiding the peaks to his mouth. He slid the shirt higher, over her head and up her arms until it tangled at her wrists, where he held it in place with one hand and paused to look at her laid out in front of him.
She felt his gaze on her skin and opened her own eyes. Adjusted to the dark, she could still only make out the faintest outline of her body, a slightly brighter shine where the wetness of his mouth had touched her. His body was motionless against hers as he watched her. Lifting a hand, he ran a fingertip down the side of her face, barely touching her as he skimmed past her neck, her collarbone, across the rise of her breast. Over the sensitive tip and across her rib cage, to fall softly off at her side.
“You are so beautiful.” He pressed a reverent kiss to the flat hollow between her breasts. “So perfect.”
“No.” She knew too well what she was, and that he did not know, and closed her eyes against the intrusions of the outside world. She wouldn’t let it come here, between them, but she couldn’t bear to let him say such things, when only s
he knew the truth. She whispered, “Not perfect. But here, now.”
“And perfect,” he said, and silenced her with his mouth, her hands still held above her.
His hand was hot, rising up the slit in her skirt, curling around her thigh to brush gently against her heat, sparking sharp, almost painful need. She barely noticed when he hooked his fingers in the skirt’s elastic waistband and pulled, dragging her underwear down her thighs in the same movement. He bent her knees, pulled her legs toward him and tugged her clothes off over her feet without letting her arms up. Skirt and under-clothes were tossed carelessly to the side.
The sudden exposure, as he trapped one of her knees beneath his while he lay at her side and used his free hand to push the other open wide, startled her into sudden awareness. Tyler was still fully dressed at her side. The hard seams of his jeans pressed into the knee he held against the floor. His T-shirt didn’t conceal the heat radiating off his body where it pressed against the length of hers, hip, rib cage, arm, arching now in a reflexive instinct to cover herself.
“Lie still.” His fingers slid achingly slow, up and down the sensitive skin of her thigh. “Just let me touch you.”
His fingers skated across her stomach, connecting the ridges of her hipbones, before moving down her other thigh. Circling slowly around her lower body, spiraling in gradually, until hard cramps of desire seized her. Then he was skimming against her most sensitive flesh, barest touches that brushed again and again over her, through the wetness of her, tormenting. The building pressure was unbearable. She arched her head back. A weak voice cried, “Please, please,” over and over again in the silence. And still he barely touched her. Unbearable. She thrust her hips up and pushed against his hand forcefully and the first crush of orgasm broke her apart in shards of colored light that shattered in front of her eyes.
She fell back, breathing hard with the sudden release, her body melting into the floor limply, hands freed from their temporary prison. In a moment, though, the world spun as Tyler pulled her to him and rolled over until he was flat on his back on the floor and she braced herself above him, hands pressed flat on his chest. A hand tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck brought her in close for an openmouthed kiss that swept the lethargy out of her veins in a rush.
At Your Service (Silhouette Desire) Page 11