by Tawny Weber
The air in the café was heavy with tension. So out of her element she wanted to turn heel and run all the way back to San Francisco, Pandora shifted from one foot to the other, forcing herself to stay in place.
“Today’s special is a hot and spicy double meatball sandwich and four-layer Foreplay Chocolate Cake for dessert,” she blurted out in her perkiest waitress voice.
It wasn’t until both men shot her identical looks of shocked amusement that she realized what she’d offered. Oh, hell. She wanted to smack her hand over her mouth in horror. Her lust for Caleb was bad enough, but for it to sneak out in front of his father?
“I mean, um, that’s the menu. Not an offer, you know? I wouldn’t do that. Hit on a customer, I mean. That’d be rude.”
Holy crap, Pandora thought. It was like taking her foot out of her mouth and shoving her ass in instead.
Thankfully, Caleb was sticking with his brooding silence. Wincing, she glanced at Tobias, who still looked amused. With an actual reason this time.
“I’ll let the two of you do lunch, then,” the older man decided. He glanced through the beaded doorway. Pandora followed his gaze and cringed. How’d the crowd get even bigger?
She couldn’t make Tobias go out there. They’d be on him like a pack of rabid dogs. And yes, she eyed the older man, noting the freakishly calm stance and lack of anger emanating off him, he could probably handle himself fine. Better than she could, that was for sure.
Still…
“Tobias, did you want to-”
Before she could finish the sentence, Caleb snapped to attention, straightening from the wall like a stiff board. Nice to know he could get stiff that fast; she almost smirked. Then she saw the intense anger in his eyes and swallowed.
What? Did he think she was going to invite his dad to stay?
“It’s a little crowded with shoppers in the store now,” she finished slowly, choosing her words as if they would guide her through a live minefield. “So, um, would you like to go out the back and cut across the alley to your own shop?”
Tobias rocked back on his heels, mimicking his son’s stance and considered the two of them. He glanced through the beads again and then arched a brow at Caleb.
Clueless, Pandora looked at the younger man, too, trying to figure out what the silent question was that had just been asked. But she couldn’t read a thing on either man’s face.
She wanted to scream. Even if it wasn’t a talent, she’d at least had a decent grasp of reading body language-bs, that was. Before Sean. Now? She might as well be blind.
She eyed the two men and their stoic faces and apparently relaxed stance. They came across as totally mellow strangers. And the hair on the back of her neck was standing up due to all the antagonism flying through the room.
It was frustrating the hell out of her.
“Thanks, Pandora,” Tobias accepted. Then he flashed her a charming smile. “And is there any chance I could get a piece of that cake to go? I was too full after lunch, but it’d be a nice snack later.”
Pandora bit her lip, not sure why she felt as if she needed to stick around and protect Caleb. The man obviously didn’t need little ole her standing in front of him.
But still…
“I’d appreciate it,” Tobias prodded.
Unable to do otherwise, Pandora nodded and hurried into the tiny kitchen at the far end of the sunroom. She cut a fat slab of cake and scooped it into a cardboard box, not bothering to lick the decadent ganache off her knuckle as she pressed the lid down and rushed back out.
Neither man had moved. From what she could tell, neither had said a word, either.
“Here you go,” she said, staying by the kitchen and its door to the alley, instead of taking the cake over to Tobias. “I hope you enjoy it. It’s my favorite recipe.”
Tobias gave his son a nod, then strode toward Pandora. A goodbye? Or acknowledgment that Caleb had won this round? Pandora wasn’t sure which.
Caleb, of course, just stood there. Did nothing rile the guy?
“I do appreciate your hospitality,” Tobias said as he reached her. “For the cake, and for making my son feel welcome. I’m sure one bite of your delicious offerings and he’ll be ready to stay in Black Oak and enjoy himself for a while.”
“Um, you’re welcome?” Pandora murmured. She wanted to point out that as delicious as chocolate was, it wasn’t magic cake. He was asking for an awful lot from a lunch that she wasn’t even sure Caleb would eat.
Without another word to her, or to his son, Tobias gave a jaunty wave and headed out the back door. Pandora plaited her fingers together, staring in the direction Tobias had gone until she heard the door close. She shifted her gaze to the café tables then, noting that half needed tidying.
Her gaze landed everywhere but on Caleb.
Murmurs rose from the store. She turned, grateful that something might demand her attention.
Then she winced. She could almost feel the barbs of fury shooting at her from the disappointed crowd. They’d obviously thought the show would move into the store, where they could get a better view. They’d probably positioned themselves to best greet, and grill, Tobias as he left the café. And she’d ruined it.
But she didn’t hear the chimes over the front door ring at all, which meant they were still circling, waiting for fresh meat. Or in this case, a hunk named Caleb.
They could just keep waiting. And, hopefully, purchasing. After all, she was apparently giving away cake back here.
Speaking of…
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked, finally looking directly at Caleb.
Under his slash of black brows, his eyes were intense as he inspected her. His expression didn’t change as his gaze traveled from her face, then skimmed down her body in a way that made her wish she was wearing one of those loose, New Agey dresses Fifi and Cassiopeia wore.
Or that she was naked.
Either one would be better than this feeling that there wasn’t a chance in hell she could measure up to the sexual challenge Caleb presented.
A sexual challenge she wasn’t even positive he was issuing. For all she knew, the guy gave that same hot but unreadable look to his mail lady when she asked him to sign for delivery.
Her body on fire, her mind a mess of tangled thoughts, she gave in to the desire to run.
“I’ll be right back,” she muttered as she hurried back to the small kitchen again. This time, instead of hacking through the cake and throwing it in a container, she carefully selected a plate, cut a precise slice and centered it on the cobalt glass plate. She retrieved a can of whipped cream and sprayed a sweet little rosette of white on top of the chocolate.
This was crazy. It wasn’t as though the guy was going to ask her on a date. He was here to… What? Shop for Christmas gifts? Score an aphrodisiac-laced lunch?
Pandora groaned. Oh, wouldn’t that be sweet? Insane, impossible and inconceivable-but so sweet to have sex with a man like Caleb Black. A man who, with just one look, could make her body go lax, her legs quiver and her nipples beg in pouty supplication.
But Caleb Black was the kind of guy who went for powerful women. A woman who could hold her own, who would demand he fulfill her every fantasy and in doing so, would show him things he hadn’t even dreamed of yet.
In other words, totally not Pandora.
Except…she wanted him for herself.
She grabbed two forks, setting one neatly on the plate. With the other she stabbed a huge chunk from the cake still on the serving dish. Shoving it in her mouth, she closed her eyes and, with a sigh, let the chocolate work its way through her system. Calming, centering, soothing.
God, she loved chocolate.
More than sex, she insisted to herself. Which was a lie, of course, but with a little work she might start believing it. After all, chocolate’s only threat was to her hips.
Swallowing hard as she imagined what kind of threat Caleb might pose to her body, she scooped up the plate and forced herself to r
eturn to the café.
“You look like that visit barely registered on your stress meter, but mine is off the charts. Nothing pulls me out of the dumps like chocolate, so I figured you might want some,” she said with a sheepish smile as she set the cake on a nearby table. Glancing through the beads at the nosy crowd, she sighed, then sat opposite the plate and waited.
“Why’s it empty in here?” he asked, his voice as surly as his scowl. But hey, words were words. Who was she to quibble over tone?
“The café closes at two. We still have shoppers in the store, but Fifi is helping them. People know we’re closed. They won’t come back here,” she assured him. “It’s not much, but at least it’s a tiny semblance of privacy.”
He gave her a look, those gold eyes dark. She could see the anger in them now, as clearly as she could see it in the set of his chin and his clenched fists. But now she could see hurt, too, in the way he hunched his shoulders, the droop of his lips.
“I guess this isn’t a surprise visit for the holidays,” she said with a tentative smile, wishing he’d smile again.
“Prodigal son, didn’t Tobias say?”
“You call your father by his name?” Why was she so shocked? It wasn’t as if he was the kind of guy to call his old man daddy.
He shrugged, staring at the door to the alley. Finally, he came over and sat across from her. She didn’t know if it was because she’d worn him down with her inane chatter or if he was emotionally exhausted from the confrontation. It definitely wasn’t because he was suddenly in the mood to be friendly. Not the way he was glowering. The frown didn’t detract from his mouth.
A deliciously sensual mouth, she noticed. She licked her own lips, wondering what he tasted like. How he kissed. Whether he was slow and sensual or if he liked it wild and intense.
“You interested in providing a little prodigal entertainment?”
“Hmm?”
She’d bet he was a wild kind of guy. One who’d take her mouth in a hard, mind-blowing kiss and leave her begging for a taste of his promised sexual nirvana.
“Yeah, you’re interested.”
Pandora ripped her gaze off his mouth to meet his eyes in horror. Was she that obvious? Was she so unskilled that she couldn’t even hide her should-be-secret lusty thoughts?
What the hell was she doing? The man was off-limits. He was bad news, with a capital H heartbreak. And while she was intrigued enough to risk her heart, she still had the bruises from risking her reputation and ego.
“No, sorry. I’m not interested, I’m just curious.”
“Curious?” His smile was pure temptation. Wicked and knowing. He didn’t push, though. Instead, he cocked a brow at the slice of cake she’d set on the table between them, then pulled it toward him. He pressed his finger on a crumb and lifted it to his mouth.
Pandora swore her thighs melted. Heat, intense and needy, clawed through her good intentions.
PUZZLED, CALEB STUDIED the woman in front of him.
He’d got what he wanted out of this visit-to see the back room and access to the bike shop. Her interest would be easy to use to get back in, anytime he wanted.
But could he do it?
Seated at the table like a dainty lady about to serve some fancy-ass tea, Pandora looked as calm as a placid lake. Except for those occasional flashes of hunger he saw in her pretty eyes. With her smooth, dark red hair and porcelain complexion, she looked like the special china doll his sister had as a kid. If he remembered correctly, he’d broken that doll at one point or another.
Something to keep in mind.
He noted the lush fullness of her lips and the sweet curve of her breasts beneath the white silky fabric of her conservatively cut blouse. His body stirred in reluctant interest. Good girls weren’t his thing, but his body wasn’t paying much attention to that detail.
“Were you going to try the cake?” Pandora prodded, looking a little put out at his inspection. She sounded as if she wanted to say something-probably something rude-but good girls didn’t do things like that.
He grinned. Yet another reason not to be good.
He had questions, so more to pacify her than because he wanted any, he swiped his finger over the frosted cake and sucked the sweet confection while holding her gaze.
Her eyes narrowed. He imagined she was trying to look stern, but came off as cute instead. Her store location was handy, she probably had an inside track to the town and townspeople, and she looked as if she was one of those crazy trust-until-proved-untrustworthy kind of people.
A much better cover than the loosey-goosey vamp who’d hit on him before. She was going to be easier to, well, manipulate.
“I remember this store now,” he mused as he looked, noting the deep purple walls with garlands of flowers, stars, suns and moons painted along the ceiling. “I broke in here one night on a dare, hoping to see a rumored séance. It wasn’t a restaurant then, though.”
“Broke in? I always heard that you were wild, but I thought those rumors were exaggerated.”
He just shrugged. It wasn’t as though it was a secret that he’d been well on his way to a life of crime in his teen years. Hell, he considered it early training for his undercover assignments.
The frosting was good. Ready for more, he took the fork and scooped up a big bite.
“This room used to be set up for classes and readings,” she explained, still frowning at him in a chiding sort of way. “My mother started using it for storage when the mayor changed the permit requirements to demand a twenty percent kick-back.”
Caleb snorted. He’d grown up the son of an infamous con artist and spent his adult years dealing with criminal dregs. But he was pretty sure politics were the biggest scam around.
“Gotta hand it to her. The mayor’s big on clever ways to line the town coffers.”
She gave him a narrow-eyed look at odds with his sweet, goody-goody image of her. “Isn’t Mayor Parker your aunt?”
Realizing he was starving, he forked up more of the rich cake and grinned. “Yep.”
“So this is like old home week. Will you be staying with your aunt instead of your father?”
“Nope. I’m at the Black Oak Inn. Room seventeen, if you’re out wandering later,” he said with a wink.
Her eyes rounded. She caught her breath as if grabbing back a response that scared her. The move made her cotton top slide temptingly over rounded breasts. He watched as her nipples beaded against the fabric. Suddenly starving, he wanted nothing more than to lean across the table and taste her.
Her reaction was gratifying. His own irritated him, though. She wasn’t his type, and given the situation, she was off-limits. He just had to remember that.
“I’m sure I’ll see her, though. Want me to talk her into dropping those fees for you?” he offered with another wink.
“I don’t do readings.”
That sounded bitter. His chewing slowed; he gave her a searching look.
She gave a tiny shrug and looked away.
Off-limits? A part of him wanted to push. To ask questions and get to know her better. The rest of him, the burned-out, disenchanted, cynical DEA-trained part of him, said that unless it pertained to the case, it didn’t matter.
Since he wasn’t sticking around longer than it took to clear his old man, the cynic got to call the shots.
“So what’s the deal?” Caleb asked instead. “You seem to know Tobias pretty well, right?”
“I wouldn’t say I know your father well,” she mused, her eyes skimming toward the alley. “No more so than anyone else in town. I mean, he’s the patriarch, isn’t he? From what I understand, he’s got more power than the mayor and the sheriff combined. People look up to him, turn to him for advice. I’ve been hearing accolades since the day I arrived.”
“You’re not a native of Black Oak?” Why had he thought she was?
“I am native,” she said, drawing the words out. “I think I was even in a few classes with your sister, Maya. But I left for college and ha
ven’t been back much since.”
“So why’d you get a job here? You’re interested in this New Age stuff?”
She looked toward the dangling beaded doorway with shelves of crystal balls lining either side and rolled her eyes.
“Interested? I don’t know about that. More like indoctrinated.” At his arched brow, she shrugged and admitted, “Cassiopeia is my mother.”
He might only have a vague recollection of the store, but he definitely remembered Cassiopeia. Third-generation woo-woo queen, all the guys in high school had had crushes on her. Bodacious, outrageous and eccentric, the outgoing redhead had a scary handle on that psychic stuff she sold to her customers.
“I remember your mom. She did readings at my senior carnival.”
“Mine, too.” Pandora didn’t sound nearly as intrigued as he’d been. The son of a colorful character, Caleb could sympathize.
Talk about the apple falling so far from the tree it could make orange juice. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see the resemblance in the curve of her cheeks, the rounded eyes more hazel than her mother’s emerald. And, of course, the red hair, again, more muted in Pandora’s case. It was as if she’d stepped into a shadow instead of embracing the full wattage her mother liked to wave around.
Interesting.
Even more interesting was that Caleb was finding muted about the sexiest thing he’d ever encountered. He just couldn’t figure out why since he’d always been a Technicolor kind of guy.
“You know what I heard while we were still in the store, then again while you were in the back getting cake?”
“You mean while you were hiding back here?” she corrected.
Caleb grinned, glad to see she had claws. It was always more fun to tangle with a wildcat than a pussycat.
“I heard people saying you serve up something besides food back here.”
This time the color wasn’t subtle. Nope, she blushed a hot, brilliant red. Her eyes flew to the store, then to the cake before meeting his gaze. A stubborn line furrowed between her brows.