“Don’t act all politely aghast. Or don’t you know what one is?”
He curled his fingers in his pockets, tempted beyond reason to march her back to her apartment and wipe that teasing smirk from her face. How she’d learned to press his buttons, he had no idea. A despairing part of him—Faustus railing against fate—suspected she’d been born knowing how.
“I know what one is.” Giving in, he took her by the elbow and escorted her down to the corner pub she’d pointed out. It helped vent a measure of his mounting energy, anyway, despite the pleased smile flirting on her lips that told him he’d played right into her hands. “More to the point—how do you know? And why in bloody hell would you go to one? Two,” he snapped at the hostess. “A dark booth, as private as possible.”
Amber. Fresh, vibrant and so innocent. Going to a munch where those sodding would-be masters probably drooled all over all the ways to degrade and humiliate her. Did the chit have no concept of what could happen to her at their hands?
She ordered a cosmopolitan, as she had at the bar earlier. And frowned when the waiter carded her, shining a black light on the hologram to be sure it wasn’t faked—also exactly as had happened earlier. Then transferred the frown to him. “You don’t have to look so amused. I notice he didn’t ask for your ID.”
“You have a baby face,” he said, just to spark her annoyance further. Though it reminded him starkly of their age difference. Humbert Humbert buying his Lolita a fancy pink cocktail. “Now tell me about this munch you went to.”
She laced her fingers on the table and gave him a coy look. “Is that an order?”
“Stop it. We’re not playing that game.”
“What game are we playing?”
“I’m perfectly serious.”
“So am I.” Gone was the flirty girl. Steel underlaid her tone.
He sat back and considered her as the waiter set his whiskey in front of him. Amber gave the young man a brilliant smile, tucking a glossy curl behind her ear, and he spilled her drink setting it down. The face of a Victorian doll and the hot-blooded heart of a predator. God save him.
His own heart skidded over a couple of beats when she put her lips to the overfull cocktail and sipped at it, watching him through her long lashes. That would be just irony, were he to have a heart attack here, with his much-too-young date. Colleague. Forbidden fruit, either way. “We are here entirely as friends,” he told her, making sure to keep his gaze on her eyes and not on the pale curves of her cleavage. “Because I’m concerned you might be engaging in dangerous behavior.”
She sat back, slouching a little against the padded bench, and turned the delicate stem of the glass between thumb and forefinger, apparently contemplating the spin of the liquid within. “I wonder what it is,” she said, in a musing tone, “about those starchy proclamations of yours that goes straight through me.” Glancing up suddenly, she caught his gaze, hers hot. “That makes me want even more.”
“You can’t have more. Not from me.” Keep reminding yourself of that.
She lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “So you keep saying. And that, Alec, who wishes to be only and entirely my friend, is why in bloody hell I’d go to a munch.” She rolled out the imitation of his accent, making it far plummier than he actually sounded, he felt sure.
Ignoring her bait, he doggedly pursued the important topic at hand. “Do you have any earthly clue what could happen to you if you encountered an unethical person?”
“Isn’t that the point of those things? Have a nice meal out in public so everyone can look everyone else over? I went there because I was trying to do the safe and sane thing.”
“You have no idea what you’d be getting into.”
“I read.” She pinkened, whether from anger or embarrassment. Utterly charming. She’d be a naked little lamb to those people.
“Truth is far stranger—and can be far more brutal—than fiction.” He attempted to moderate his tone, to make the explanation quietly rational. “Don’t go down that road, Amber. Please.”
“Oh, stop looking like I’ve dammed my immortal soul. You would quote Faust.” She picked up her glass and took a deeper drink. Steadying herself. “I saw that woman there—the blonde from the bar. That’s how I knew who she was. What you’ll likely get up to with her.”
“Ah, Amber...”
“I know it’s none of my business, what you do,” she interrupted. “Who you do, but that’s why I left like that.”
He studied her face. Her obvious chagrin and discomfort. “Embarrassed?”
Her lips twisted ruefully and she went back to turning the glass. “Jealous,” she admitted. Then looked at him with that artless honesty of hers. “Not my thing usually, but it just about killed me to imagine her with you, having what I can’t have. They wouldn’t let me in.”
“What do you mean?” He understood, though, and the relief relaxed his fears.
“I think you know that, too.” She studied him with shrewd intelligence. “I imagine you’re well versed in it. They said I’m too young, too inexperienced, and no one with any sense will lay a finger on me. This woman suggested I go find some nice young man to test the waters with instead.”
Her frankness both took him aback and settled him. They could discuss this rationally, as friends, indeed. “It’s good advice. I heartily concur.”
“Oh—is that what you did?”
The whiskey burned in his throat and he nearly coughed. “I’m not discussing my sex life with you.”
“We’re discussing mine,” she pointed out, ruthlessly persistent.
“At your behest.”
“As friends we should be able to talk openly about these things, and right now you’re the only person I know who has any real experience.”
“You don’t know that.”
She folded her arms, which unfortunately lifted her breasts enticingly, and glared at him in disappointment. “Really? You’re going to take that position? You’re concerned about me doing something dangerous but you won’t give me any help or advice at all.”
Damn it all. Feeling the bite of his collar, he unknotted his tie and coiled it into his pocket, then loosened the top buttons. Leaned his forearms on the table and met that unhappy gaze. “Yes, that’s what I did. It wasn’t on purpose, but I found the right girl and we...experimented together. That’s why I say it’s good advice. It’s good to start out easy with this sort of thing, dip your toe in, play with it. Don’t go hard core straight off the bat.”
“When was this—how long ago?”
“College,” he admitted, bracing himself for her inevitable response.
“Younger than I am now.”
He sighed, scrubbing his hands over his forehead. Coffee would have been better than more whiskey. “I know. But—” he held up a finger to stop her next argument, “—we were both young, the same age, with virtually the same level of experience. It’s not the same thing at all.”
“Even if you weren’t my boss.”
“Even so.” He sipped at the whiskey to wash down the truth of that.
“So.” She signaled the waiter for another drink. “Are you saying you wouldn’t have anything to do with me, even if we didn’t have the work thing going?”
“If you have another, you’ll be well and truly drunk.”
“What does it matter? Friday night. Nothing better to do.” She sounded bitter, her soft mouth set. “Which bothers you—the age difference or the workplace thing?”
“Both. And you’ll not argue me out of this.”
“You want me though.”
“Christ.” He sipped from his glass, but only a drop remained.
“You said so.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“Not in so many words, but near enough,” she insisted. Sipped from her fres
h drink and licked the drops from her full bottom lip, tracking his expression as he helplessly followed the seductive movement. “Besides, I can see it in the way you look at me. I knew it that first time in your office, when I showed you how your email could be sorted. You looked at me like you wanted to throw me over your desk and push up my skirt.”
Chapter Ten
“Is this how friends talk?” He tried to make it icily reproving, but the heat of her words, the image she evoked, so exactly what he’d been thinking at the time, rattled him. She read him so clearly, trapping him in the web of his own denials. “This has nothing to do with the issue at hand.”
She smiled, a slight curve, knowing better than that, too. “I notice you don’t say I’m wrong. That’s when it started.”
“You are wrong.” He tried to leave it there. Couldn’t. “It started for me long before that.”
“Really?” She looked delighted, in a flash going from lethal siren to wide-eyed girl on Christmas morning. “When?”
“I am absolutely not putting that weapon in your hands.” Giving in yet again, he nodded when the waiter offered him another round, promising himself he’d leave after this one. “Suffice to say, I’ve had plenty of time to consider my...”
“Desires?” she filled in, eyes sparkling.
“Options,” he corrected, with a sternness that did nothing to daunt her teasing smile. “I’ve made my position on this abundantly clear. What I want has no bearing on the situation. I will not engage in anything more than a friendly and collegial relationship with you. You may put it down to whatever reason you wish. Place all the fault upon me.” After all, I’m damned already.
“What about what I want?”
“You don’t know what you want.”
Her expression cooled. “Don’t you say that to me. I may be younger than you are, less experienced, your workplace subordinate, but I’m not stupid.”
“No.” The whiskey had lost its burn. A bad sign, indicating Amber would not be alone in being well and truly drunk. “I apologize for that. But going to that munch was a foolish idea.”
She tapped her nails on the slant-slide of the glass. Pink, like her toenails, they shone a shade lighter than the drink. “I don’t agree. It was a safe way to explore, and Kiki went with me. My roommate,” she explained when he lifted a brow. “You met her once. Anyway, nothing bad happened. According to this plan you all seem to be proposing to me, I should troll the bars instead, trusting to serendipity to hand me the perfect man to explore these needs with.”
Safer ground. Or, it should have been. Something warned him to go carefully. “Far better than attempting to access the lifestyle community, yes.”
“By sheer chance.”
“If it’s meant to be, it will happen.”
She widened her eyes and lifted her brows into innocently inquiring arches. “How about online forums? Seems like there are lots of willing masters there.”
“Good Christ—you aren’t seriously considering that!”
She folded her forearms on the table. Leaned in, as if confiding a secret. “As a matter of fact that’s what I was doing when I saw you out my window.”
He pushed the whiskey glass aside and drank down some ice water, willing his brain to stop swirling in his skull in that alarming fashion. God only knew what sorts of predators she’d encounter via such a method. Without thinking, he took her hand. “Amber. Please don’t do that. Promise me you won’t put yourself in that kind of danger. I couldn’t bear it.”
The blue of her eyes, almost a violet in the dimness, softened, and she turned her hand to squeeze his. “You do care about me.”
“This is your conclusion.” He had to laugh. He should let go of her hand. Couldn’t.
“I won’t try the forums again. They were icky.”
Icky. She was priceless. “Good. I’ll have your promise, however.”
“On one condition.”
“Blackmail is an ugly thing.”
“Not blackmail. You say you’re my friend and you care enough about me that you’re sitting here when you’re certain you shouldn’t be. I want to try to explain something.” She returned his gaze with all her earnest sincerity, holding his hand so tightly he couldn’t have pulled away if he’d been able to muster the will. “There’s this thing inside me that’s gnawing away. Like a slow burn, feeding on me. Maybe it’s always been there, but something about you—when I met you—set a match to it, and it’s like I’m on fire now and nothing cools it. I keep thinking it will go out, but it just grows hotter. I’m starting to feel that if I don’t give it fuel, something else to burn, it will consume me. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s the best way I have to describe it. Do you understand at all what I’m telling you?”
He did. All too well. Uncomfortably so. She might have been describing his own sense of damnation. Why this is hell... “Perhaps you should talk to someone about this.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“I mean a professional—a counselor. The company insurance will cover—”
She let go of his hand, finally, and straightened her shoulders, narrowing her eyes. “Are you implying that I’m in some sort of mental or emotional crisis here?”
No, that would be me. “I’m saying I can’t help you and am offering an alternative of someone who can.”
“I think you can help me.” Her gaze burned with the internal fire she’d described. “Be honest with me, as you’ve promised to be—do you understand what I’m saying, the feeling I’m trying to describe?”
He reached for the whiskey but didn’t drink. Stared into it to avoid her avid eyes, that beautiful mouth speaking the words that would drag him deeper into hell. Or into a paradise not meant for him. He was losing track of which it was.
“Do you?” she pressed, voice insistent.
“Yes.” He whispered it, hoping she wouldn’t hear. Or somehow not take it as encouragement. Forcing himself to meet her eyes, he continued, “That, however, does not mean I—”
She interrupted, winding her fingers together around the stem of her empty glass. “I’ll tell you what I think. You say that fate or chance or serendipity or whatever will put the right person in my path. I agree. Further, I think it’s already happened. I’ve met you. You care enough about me to think of my career, my reputation, but you also worry about my safety. Which is more important?”
* * *
Nothing like several cosmos over a few hours to light a fire of bravery in a girl. Nevertheless, her heart thudded as she waited for his reply. Watching the play of emotion over his face as he struggled to form the proper response. With his shirt open and his hair disarrayed from running his hand through it, he looked both more fallibly human and, impossibly, sexier than ever. He was truly wrestling with his conscience over this and, while part of her felt the teeniest bit guilty about putting him in this position, a bigger piece of her admired his integrity so much.
The rest of her exulted that his desire for her outstripped even that. A heady feeling and not only from the alcohol.
Finally he drank a long swallow of whiskey and gave her that wry smile. “You may have missed your calling. You should have been a lawyer.”
Was he agreeing? Possibly unbending. “I’d be safe with you. You’d never hurt me.”
“Well, not in a way you didn’t enjoy.” His eyes glittered and focused on her mouth, which had gone dry at the flirtation. Definitely unbending.
“I want that, too,” she told him, to push a little of that enticement back his direction.
“So you’ve made clear.” He drained his glass and put money on the table to cover the bill and then some.
“I should pay, since it was my idea to—”
He cut her off with a hard glance. “Don’t start with me.” Taking his topcoat from the hook
on the booth pole, he draped it over her shoulders. “I’m walking you home. Then I’m going to think.”
The spring evening hit her with bracing coolness, a sharp breeze cutting through the narrow streets. Him thinking didn’t sound like a good plan. He might come up with more reasons to back out. “Do you want to come up?”
His mouth curved in an unamused smile. “That will not happen.”
“But—”
“Listen. If we do this—and I’ve far from decided on it—then there will be rules.”
She breathed out a long, hot sigh of longing. “I like the sound of that.”
“Immaterial. You’ll follow my rules whether you like them or not. We’ll do this exactly my way.”
“Yes, Sir.” A giggle of pure joy welled up in her, but she squelched it as he’d no doubt think she wasn’t taking him seriously.
“This isn’t a game—don’t treat it as one. You’ve backed me into a corner and we both know it. It was cleverly done, but that’s coming to an end, understand?”
“Not really.” She shrugged, too juiced to care. “I’m listening.”
“I’m going home to think and you’ll do the same. I want you to carefully, thoughtfully review all the ways that this could be a complete and utter disaster. I shall do likewise.”
“And here I never pegged you for a glass-half-empty kind of guy.”
At the corner of her apartment building, he tugged her into the deeper shadows out of the cutting breeze and pushed her up against the wall with a gentle grip on her shoulders. The angled streetlight lit his face from the side, giving it a sharp, almost fearsome slant. Even in her heels, he stood a little taller than she, gazing down with a brooding expression that made her want to kiss him, just to see him relax and smile.
Instead he leaned in and pressed a kiss on her temple, high on the point of her cheekbone, pausing there and inhaling, his hands tightening on her shoulders. “I’m contemplating an action that goes against my better judgment. Enough so that I’m considering whether I may have lost my mind and require professional help. And yet—I can’t seem to help myself.”
Under His Touch Page 9