“He had my cell number,” Bianca said emphatically. “That’s it.”
She hoped that was it, but she wasn’t going to say so. The conversation had already gone deeper than she wanted.
“Anyway,” she said lightly, “the worst part was that I had to change my phone number. And I’d barely memorized the first one!”
Alessandra laughed. “Thanks to Siri, nobody has to memorize phone numbers anymore.”
Everyone laughed, including Chay, but years in Special Ops had given his attitude a cynical spin.
A man who tracked down a woman’s private phone number wouldn’t be that easy to get rid of. Not if he really was determined. Besides, the guy knew where she worked. And hadn’t there been something in Bianca’s voice when she talked about him? A hint of—not fear, exactly. Concern.
Maybe yes. Maybe no. After all, what did he know of shrinks?
Nothing. And it was going to stay that way. Professionally—he’d ignored a couple of suggestions by Captain Blake, his CO, that he might benefit from seeing one about this last deployment.
And personally?
Chay reached for his glass of wine and took a sip.
After tonight, anything to do with Bianca Wilde would be history.
• • •
The conversation veered to movies. Then to books. Turned out the Tigress was quite a reader.
Well, he got that. So was he. He was into sea stories. What his English 101 instructor back in his university days had referred to as classics. Moby Dick. Twenty Years Before the Mast. All the Horatio Hornblower novels.
Nobody knew that that he was into that stuff and nobody was going to, but he was.
And she knew wine.
She’d sipped the Malbec and when the taste of it bloomed on her tongue, she’d reacted physically, closing her eyes, smiling a secret little smile, and breathing a soft hum of appreciation.
Damned if he hadn’t reacted physically too.
Not to the wine.
To the sight of her. The closed eyes. The Mona Lisa smile. The little sigh. He could imagine her making all those same moves in bed.
Why not?
She was prim and proper, but she had a great face and a great body.
She even had great hair.
It took him a while to realize she’d left it free. Once he did, he also realized that if she were his woman, he’d make sure she always wore it that way.
Her hair moved with her. That was a revelation in his world.
The women he knew sprayed their hair into submission.
She didn’t.
Her hair swung forward when she leaned over the table, swung to the side when she turned towards him. He wondered if it felt as silky as it looked. If one of those long, loose curls would cling to his finger if he caught hold of it
He wondered, too, what would happen if she undid the top button of her blouse. The top two buttons. A couple more than that.
And, dammit, he was drinking too much.
Except, he wasn’t.
He was always careful, when he had the Harley out. Tonight, he’d had ale at the LZ and half a glass of wine here. It took a lot more than that for wine or beer to get to him.
So what was making her look so good to him? He was tired. The endless flight home from Afghanistan took it out of you, that was for sure. And even last night, safe in his own bed, he hadn’t slept well. He’d kept dreaming about that fucking mountain, that fucking kid, that fucking bomb…
Chay shot to his feet.
Everybody looked at him.
“What?” Tanner asked.
“Nothing. I mean…” He cleared his throat and looked at Bianca. “Let’s dance.”
She looked as surprised by his statement as he felt at having made it.
“Dance?” she said.
“Yeah. Dance.”
“I don’t want to dance.”
“Sure you do.”
“I just said—”
Tanner rose, grabbed Alessandra’s hand and drew her up beside him. “Excellent plan, dude.”
The Akechetas hurried off to the dance floor.
Chay looked down at Bianca. “Come on.”
She gave him That Look. The one that said he’d had his fun for the night when he’d made her ride his Harley.
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
He could have shrugged and sat down, but he was already standing. And he’d be damned if he was going to click his heels and obey words that seemed simple unless you were attuned to the dismissiveness implicit in them.
Chay reached for Bianca’s hand. She tried to tug free, but his grip was like iron.
“We’re in a restaurant,” he said tightly. “There’s a band playing. People are dancing, including your sister and my best friend, who are out to have a good time. No way am I going to let you spoil that for them.”
“That’s ridiculous! They’re not the ones who suggested dancing. Even if they had, what has it do with us?”
She was right. His reasoning was ass-backwards, but he was already committed to getting her on that dance floor.
“It has what I say it has to do with us,” he said, and if she’d laughed in his face for that burst of male chauvinist crap, he wouldn’t have blamed her—but he didn’t give her the chance to laugh. Instead, he pulled her to her feet, wrapped a proprietary arm around her waist, and led her to the dance floor.
Once there, he let go of her hand and faced her. She looked about as happy as somebody waiting for a root canal.
“I don’t dance very well,” she said stiffly.
“You did fine at the wedding.”
“I did what had to be done.”
“Yeah, well, this is what has to be done now.” He sighed, decided to cut her a little slack. “Trust me,” he said. “They’re never going to invite me to be a contestant on Dancing with the Stars.”
She almost smiled, which was probably the best he could hope for.
They began dancing.
And, man, she was right.
He’d been so pissed off over being stuck with her at the wedding that he hadn’t really paid attention to how she danced, but just as she’d said, she wasn’t very good. She was stiff. Almost mechanical.
Other women shimmied. Flung their arms in the air.
She moved like a robot.
Why? Dancing was easy. This kind especially. There were no formal moves, no patterns to follow. You just let your body feel the rhythm.
Was that the problem? Was his always-sure-of-herself-not-actually-a-date date only comfortable when her brain was in charge?
Before he could figure out the answer, the music changed. Went from fast and hot to slow and hot. Something bluesy had sent the couples around them into each other’s arms.
It sent his not-a-date date into a panic.
He saw it in her face. In her body language.
She was going to run.
And though he didn’t know why, he was not going to let that happen.
“Bianca,” he said, and when she looked up at him, her eyes wide and almost panicky, something deep inside him stirred. “Bianca,” he said again, and he took her in his arms.
CHAPTER FIVE
They were dancing.
At least that was the lieutenant called it.
She could think of more basic ways to describe what it was like to have his arms around her, his body tight against hers, to be moving in time to the music in the couple of feet of floor space they’d claimed as their own.
If only she’d moved fast enough to make it back to the booth.
Still, this was probably better than sitting next to him, trying to make small talk.
It had been okay when Alessandra was there.
Her sister knew her so well. She’d realized that making conv
ersation wasn’t one of her strengths. Well, date conversation, not that this was anywhere close to a date. Still, Alessandra had made things easier. She’d asked the right questions. About things that were easy to talk about. School. Books. Her new practice. Stuff that had undoubtedly bored everyone else silly, the lieutenant for sure—but between the wine and Alessandra, she’d managed to hold up her end of things.
Or maybe she’d held it up too well.
Maybe she’d said too much.
Maybe she’d monopolized the conversation.
Maybe she’d made a fool of herself…
“Hey.”
She looked up. He was smiling. The lieutenant. The gorgeous, sexy lieutenant and, yes, absolutely, she’d had too much wine.
Except, she hadn’t.
One glass. That was all she’d had.
Maybe what she’d had too much of was him.
Too much handsome, virile, sexy male sitting for the last hour with his thigh pressed against hers, now with his arms wrapped around her, one big hand splayed over her back, the other down low at the base of her spine.
He felt wonderful. Hard. Warm. He smelled wonderful, too. Night. Man. Even leather, though he’d left his jacket in the booth.
Wonderful, she thought, and stepped on his toes.
“Sorry! I’m so sor—”
“My fault.”
“There’s no need to lie. I told you, I’m not a very good dan—”
“Stop apologizing. And stop watching yourself.”
Stop watching herself? That was precisely what she was doing. What she always did in moments like this, but how did he know that?
“That’s better,” he said. “Come on. Lean into me. Feel the rhythm.”
His voice was a little low. A lot sexy. Lean into him? It made her want to burrow into him, as ridiculous as that was.
“Better,” he murmured. His breath stirred a tendril of her hair. “Much better. Just let the music take over.”
No way. She never let anything take over. Success depended on control.
Still, if they weren’t going to sit down, it was easier to move with him. To let him lead. It was just a dance, after all, and Chay Olivieri was a good dancer. A very good dancer. She remembered that from the wedding.
He was so big, so masculine, but he knew how to move.
He was also easy to look at.
Not only by her standards.
Other women had been eyeing him all night, but why wouldn’t they? That face. That body. That everything, and why was she thinking about his looks again? What did his looks matter? Nothing about him mattered, except getting through the rest of the evening.
And yet—and yet, it felt right, being in his arms. She couldn’t understand it. Well, she could. There were times things physical got in the way of things intellectual. It had never happened to her before, but she knew it was possible.
Okay. It had happened to her before. With him. That kiss at the wedding…
Not that it meant anything. It was like—like having a hot dream about sex with a man you’d met.
Just because you had the dream didn’t mean you wanted the reality.
The lights dimmed. Changed color, anyway. Blue lights to match blue music. A singer trying hard to sound like Adele.
Chay held Bianca closer.
She sighed. Let her head droop against his shoulder…and jerked back. “We should sit down,” she said quickly.
“We should do exactly what we’re doing,” he said softly.
But that was the problem. Exactly what were they doing?
And then she stopped fighting and let him take over.
• • •
Eventually, the music stopped.
The lights came up. The dance floor emptied. And as Chay took her hand and led her across it, Bianca realized that the entire place had emptied.
Or damn near emptied.
Including their booth.
Tanner had left a note scrawled on a paper napkin.
Hey, dude. Got late. Didn’t want to interrupt you guys. Dinner’s on us. Will give you a call tomorrow.
Bianca stared at the note, then at Chay. “Did we miss dinner?”
He nodded. “Yeah. So it seems.”
“But—how long were we on the dance floor?”
“Long enough,” he said, trying to sound casual while he wondered how the time could have passed so quickly.
“What must they think?”
Chay didn’t give a damn what Tanner and his wife thought. The real question was, what had he been thinking? When had dancing as a way of killing time become dancing to keep Bianca in his arms?
He could feel his head buzzing. With anger. With irritation. At himself. At whatever in hell he’d walked into tonight. His little dance partner liked to be in control of her life? Well, dammit, so did he. It was what he was all about. It was the trait that had gotten him off the reservation, into college, into the SEALs and then into STUD.
He knew who he was and what he was, and somehow tonight had turned all that on its head and he didn’t like it, didn’t like the woman who’d done it to him.
He dug bills out of his pocket and left them for the waiter as an additional tip, then grabbed his jacket.
“Let’s go,” he said, his tone brusque.
Bianca’s purse had been lying under his jacket. She barely had time to snatch it before he locked his fingers around her wrist. It was not a gentle gesture; it was a commanding one.
“Hey.”
He kept moving. He walked fast, his strides long, as he headed for the door.
“Hey,” she said again.
He turned and looked at her. “Just keep moving.”
Forget brusque. This was a growl. A snarl. Well, dammit, she felt like snarling, too. How had she been drawn into this mess? An evening in the company of a man with all the charm of a wildebeest. Dancing for what seemed like hours when she didn’t like dancing. And now this. Abandoned by her sister, sniped at by the wildebeest who was stuck with her, or maybe wildebeests didn’t snipe, maybe they were just unpleasant and unattractive, and why was Chay Olivieri the one but not the other? That would make life so much simpler.
They were at the door. He reached for her purse. They scuffled over it and, of course, Lieutenant God won.
“Give me that,” she said, breathing hard, more from anger than from the little battle over the purse. What kind of man all but made love to a woman when they were dancing and treated her like an enemy combatant when they weren’t?
“First put on my jacket.”
He held it out. She shook her head.
“I don’t want it.”
“I’m not asking if you want it. You’ll wear it until I get you to your hotel.”
“I’ll take a cab.”
“No, you will not. I brought you here. I’ll deliver you where you belong.”
“I am not a package,” she said, glaring up at him.
“You might as well be,” he said, “for all the softness that’s in you.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Beg all you like.” He draped the jacket around her again and caught hold of her arm when she tried to push it off. “We’ve played things your way long enough. Now it’s my turn.”
“What are you talking about?” she sputtered.
She was looking at him as if he were crazy. Hell. Maybe he was. The truth was, he didn’t know what he was talking about. He only knew that he was pissed. More than pissed. He was steaming, and he couldn’t wait to be rid of her. And, yeah, while a tiny, still-logical part of his head was saying, Dude, this isn’t her fault, the not-so-logical part insisted that it was.
He slapped open the door, pushed her outside ahead of him. She shivered. The night had turned chill. A salt-laden wind blew in from the sea.
“I want to fly to the moon,” he said. “Neither thing is going to happen.”
He kept walking. And he was too big, too strong for her to stand her ground instead of getting dragged along behind him.
“Is deafness another of your qualities, Lieutenant? I said—”
“I brought you here. I’ll take you home.”
“Such a gentleman.”
“Just pick up the pace, Wilde. The sooner we end this charade, the better.”
What could she say to that when she agreed with it?
They reached the Harley. He handed her a helmet and put his on. Then he swung his leg across the saddle.
“Get on,” he barked.
She gave him a look and climbed on behind him.
“Put your arms around me.”
Not until hell froze over. Bianca looked at the bars on either side of her. She hadn’t noticed them before. Surely a passenger could cling to them.
“I said—”
“I heard what you said, Lieutenant. Just start this horrible machine and take me to my hotel.”
“Which is?”
She named it. He knew it. It was actually a motel, right on the beach and only about ten minutes away.
He turned the key.
“I’m warning you,” he said. “You should put your arms around me.”
“In your dreams,” she said sweetly, and he gritted his teeth, turned on the engine, and they flew out of the parking lot.
He was right.
She knew it instantly. She needed to wrap her arms around him. Sitting up straight, clinging to the bars on either side of her didn’t help take away the awful feeling that she was going to fly off the motorcycle. They were soaring through the night, flying past hills on one side and the Pacific on the other, going faster, much faster, than before.
“Damn you,” she said, and she leaned in, wound her arms around him, felt his heat, his strength penetrate her skin, her muscles, her bones. “Damn you,” she said again, and she did something daring, freed one arm so she could pound her fist against his shoulder because this was impossible, impossible for her thighs to tingle where they cupped his body, her nipples to peak where they pressed into his back, and she loved it, the feeling of speed, of flight, and the feel of him against her.
Privilege: Special Tactical Units Division: Book Two Page 7