“Okay, I can see where a second set of eyes and ears could be helpful, but how am I supposed to let you know there’s something you should be concerned about without tipping her off? You said her English is limited, but she’s bound to notice if I halt the conversation to say, Hey, Gabe, I think she’s trying to jerk you around.”
Humor twinkled in his eyes below arching brows.
She cleared her throat. “What I mean is, how do I let you know if I sense she’s dissembling? Do I kick you under the table or something?”
He chuckled, sitting back once more. “I’d rather you didn’t resort to kicking.” His Texas drawl dropped an octave to a near croon and an utterly male smile slid over his face. “Those boots you’re wearing are damn sexy, but they look lethal.”
She blinked. He noticed my boots and thinks they’re sexy?
Jane swallowed against the resumed batting of delicate wings. Okay, she should probably reevaluate that whole “ingrained habit” thing. The sensual challenge in his eyes was far too purposeful for him to have uttered his comment out of simple habit.
He smiled when she remained silent. “I see your point. Let’s try something a little less…intimate.” He nodded toward the glassware in front of her. “Straighten your water glass if you sense something is off.”
Heat tingled across her cheekbones. God, was she blushing? She clenched her fingers in her lap to keep her hands from flying to her face. Relief clashed with disappointment when his intent gaze suddenly left hers and settled on something beyond her shoulder. Though subtle, his countenance shifted. His smile broadened, even as his eyes cooled, full of polite greeting rather than the amused warmth of a moment ago.
She sighed on an internal shrug. Playtime was over. The businessman had reappeared.
Chapter Two
“Wow.” Jane stared at the taillights of the cab pulling away from the curb. “You may want to consider a personal bodyguard for the duration of the Sexy Six Spring.”
Gabe jammed the Stetson onto his head, spinning to face her. Dark brows arched over narrowed green eyes.
Okay, so maybe she’d stepped over the line by announcing Gabe had to leave to make the charter he’d booked with The Condom King, but after witnessing the predatory glint in the beautiful designer’s eyes for the past hour, Jane’s catty side had finally had enough. She covered her guilty grimace with a cheeky shrug. “I just wanted to give her something to think about on her lonely ride home.”
Big hands propped on his hips, a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. “If you really were my assistant, I’d fire you for insubordination.”
Relief made her cocky. “And I’d demand a hefty severance package.”
He shook his head. “No doubt.”
She grinned, and the moment stretched out in silence. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Well. I’ll report back to Dad, so you needn’t bother coming up with an excuse for why his matchmaking failed.”
“What will you tell him?”
She cocked her head. What the hell. She’d never see him again anyway. “I’ll tell him the truth. Gabe Sutton was a perfect gentleman, and lovely to look at, but we just didn’t click.”
He arched a brow. “Will he be satisfied with that?”
If Michael Austin was anything like her father, he wouldn’t settle for anything less than a ring, a prenuptial agreement and a ceremony.
She jerked her shoulder in a careless shrug. “Of course not, but you’ll be off the hook. He’ll find another stud to dangle in front of me soon enough.” She shifted the strap of her purse over her shoulder and stuck out her gloved hand. “Thanks for tonight. The meal was delicious and the business interesting.” He shook her hand, lingering over the process a bit longer than she expected. She tugged free. “Well, bye.” Turning, she headed down the sidewalk.
“Shae.”
Jane winced, stopped and looked back over one shoulder.
“Where are you going?” He jerked a thumb toward a waiting cab. “Can I give you a lift?”
“I’d like to walk, thanks.”
His gaze followed the night-dimmed sidewalk to the end of the block. “A woman walking alone at night isn’t a good idea.”
She glanced around. The hour was still relatively early by Parisian standards, and though the sidewalks weren’t overly crowded, they weren’t empty, either. Couples still strolled and occasional shoppers carried their purchases on their way home. “People are still out. I’ll be fine.”
He waved off the cab, closing the distance between them. “I’ll walk with you.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Yes, it is. Your father won’t buy your perfect gentleman description if he learns I let you walk the streets of Paris alone.”
“Really, I’ll be perfectly safe, and I won’t tell if you don’t.” One arched brow was his only answer. She shrugged and eyed the black, snakeskin boots on his feet. “Suit yourself, but I hope those are comfortable. You’ll be walking for a while.”
His sardonic gaze bounced down to her three-inch heels and back. “You’re not headed to your hotel?”
She shook her head. “I go home tomorrow. I want to say goodbye to the city.”
His hat, riding low on his forehead, shaded his eyes, but a smile curved his lips. “How does one say goodbye to a city?”
“With a smile and a bit of sadness.” She cut him a sidelong glance. “If you’re saying goodbye to a city you love.”
He nodded. “I feel the same way every time I leave Dallas, but though I’ve been to Paris several times, I’ve never had the time to really experience what others claim to love.”
“Then hold on to your hat, cowboy. You’re about to get the nickel tour.”
He chuckled, briefly slowing his steps to give space to a couple heading in the other direction.
They walked in silence for several moments before jittery nerves had her clearing her throat. “Have you always lived in Dallas?”
“Until I left for college.”
“And then?”
“After graduating, I settled in Manhattan to launch the charter service.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you live on the east coast.” Crap. He lived in Manhattan? Relax, Jane. So do ten million others. Her gaze flicked up. “The hat threw me off.”
He grinned. “Have you always been a New Yorker?”
She racked her brain. Shae had moved next door when they were both eight, but had the Austins lived outside the city before then? She couldn’t remember. Evasion seemed the wisest course. “I’m a city girl.” They rounded a corner and Point Neuf came into view. She grabbed hold of the diversion with both hands. “Oh, look. Isn’t it lovely?”
The oldest of Paris’ bridges, Point Neuf was her favorite. She made a point to visit at least once a trip. Like an old friend, the bridge never failed to please her eye, with twinkling lights outlining the aged architecture by night and by the pale brick arches reflecting against the dark water of the Seine by day.
Her nickel tour quickly turned into a private, detailed excursion. To their left, she directed his attention toward the Arc De Triomphe standing strong in the distance. To their right, Notre Dame shone like a beacon calling to the faithful, its stunning reflection dancing on the Seine.
They turned onto Quai de L’Horloge, passing la Conciergerie, the long-ago palace of French kings. In later days, the grand structure became famous as the site where Marie Antoinette and so many others spent their last days before falling to the guillotine.
Humor flickered in his eyes as she plied him with obscure historical facts she’d picked up on her many visits, but there was genuine interest in them as well. They covered a lot of ground, eventually entering the wide pedestrian way of Rue de Lutèce, where she offered a blushing apology for rambling close to two hours.
“Don’t apologize.” His secret weapon dimples fired with his smile. “You promised me the nickel tour, remember?”
She winced. “I have a tendency to get carried away.”
She frowned at the implied insult, and he threw back his head on a laugh. Still snickering, he dropped an arm across her shoulders and squeezed her to his side.
“I was joking.” He left his arm where it was, urging her forward. “It’s a pleasure to see the city through the eyes of someone so passionate about it.”
Too flustered to object to being held against his side, she went along without argument.
“You visit often, I take it?”
She smiled. “As often as possible. I came the first time as a child and fell in love. I’ve lost myself in the city’s history many times.”
Despite the hour, Rue de Lutèce teamed with people, eating, shopping, and lingering to enjoy a host of street entertainers. Gabe released her to purchase two steaming hot chocolates.
Jane scowled as he stepped away. She had no business mourning the loss of his arm across her shoulders, his side pressed to hers. They were two people enjoying a fall evening in Paris, nothing more.
He returned to hand her one of the cups, and her heart clenched at the little-boy grin brightening his tanned face as he tapped his cup to hers. Distressed, she dipped her head. He didn’t know her real name, and yet here she was, falling a little in love with a virtual stranger she would never see again after tonight.
“Come on.” He slid a hand to the small of her back, leading her across the pedestrian way.
She shook off her darkening mood. Enjoy the moment, Jane. Tomorrow is another day.
Gabe added several bills to the cash others had dropped into a shallow basket as a talented group of tumblers flipped and twirled in time to the soaring classical music pouring from a boombox. Next, a swarthy puppeteer made them laugh at the antics of the miniature Frenchman seducing a pretty maid from the end of his strings.
They wandered aimlessly, window shopping, stopping to enjoy other street performances. When Gabe took her hand in his, she didn’t protest. Tonight was a moment out of time. Reality would intrude soon enough.
They walked for hours, stopping here and there to appreciate the view, but mostly they talked. She spoke of her childhood, carefully editing out any mention of the Whitmore name. She told him of her little girl dream of becoming a veterinarian—until she discovered she’d have to put sick and injured animals down. She replaced Shae’s name with her own, laughing as she relayed some of the more outrageous trouble she and her mischievous friend, Jane, had gotten into as kids.
He talked of spending his childhood on a busy ranch outside of Dallas, of how the hard work and open range were Godsends after his father’s death when he was twelve. He admitted to missing the lifestyle desperately when he first left for college, and though he claimed his sharp longing for that simple life had faded over the years, his eyes dimmed with helpless acceptance when he lamented at how little time he found to spend at the ranch these days. He offered only a single sentence about his mother, who’d apparently left while he was a toddler.
His green eyes lit with satisfied pleasure as he talked of buying his first plane and of the day his company climbed out of the red into the black. Mostly, he spoke of his grandmother, a woman he clearly loved, and how she’d kept him on the straight and narrow when he would have veered off.
It was late when he finally stopped, using the grip on her hand to pull her out of the way of a laughing group of young people passing by. “This is my hotel.”
“Oh.” Loathe to see the evening end, she stared up at the six-story structure. “Oh, well, then.” Like all good things, their moment in time was over.
“Shae—”
“I had a nice time.” After the pleasure of the last few hours, her friend’s name on his lips was a cold slap of reality. She spoke over him, meeting his gaze and wishing she could burn the image into her brain. “Thanks for walking with me.”
He lifted her hand to toy with her fingers. “I know I’m rushing things, but…I don’t want the evening to end.”
Her heart fluttered wildly. “Neither do I.”
He dropped his forehead to rest against hers. “Then come up with me.”
Tempted more than she’d ever been in her life, she chewed on her lip.
He straightened. “If you want to leave, at any time, I won’t stop you.”
She shouldn’t, couldn’t. Could she?
What was she thinking? Her life might be a series of calamities, most of them of her own making, but she didn’t sleep with men within hours of meeting them. That type of thing simply wasn’t smart. Much worse, it wasn’t safe. But God…the undisguised desire in his eyes was enough to make her break out in a sweat—or tears.
“I’m healthy.” He spoke as if reading her mind. “I always practice safe sex, without exception.”
Her slightly hysterical hiccup of laughter sounded like a sob. His shoulders drooped and he sighed. Disappointment clear in his sober gaze, he squeezed her fingers, turning her hand over and brushing a soft kiss to the bare skin of her wrist below the cuff of her light jacket. The damp warmth of his breath sent tingles of heat up her arm.
He released her, stepped back, and opened the lobby door to his hotel. “Promise me you’ll take a cab this time.”
She nodded.
Like a curtain drawing an end to a particularly haunting scene, he disappeared inside.
A crushing sense of loss weighed on her while her mind flashed images like closing credits: The tauntingly sexy cowboy in his bio photograph. The controlling businessman negotiating a deal. The grinning little boy presenting her a steaming chocolate.
She grabbed for the closing door. Tonight was a fantasy. No thinking required. She might be making a colossal mistake, Calamity Jane at her worst, but there was nowhere else she wanted to be at the moment than in Gabe Sutton’s arms.
Chapter Three
Less than five minutes later, Jane found herself sandwiched between Gabe’s big body and the inside of his hotel room door. If this was madness, she gladly joined the ranks of the insane. Outerwear flew willy-nilly. Mouths fused and bodies pressed tightly together; they ravished one another. Arching into him, she giggled internally at the mental description.
She wasn’t sexually ignorant, but the frantic mating described in romance novels had always been fantasy as far as she was concerned. Sex was warm and physically enjoyable, but, ultimately, never came close to so many authors’ wildly fictional imaginings.
Until now.
He released her mouth and, with a dip of his knees, feasted his way down her throat to clamp his lips around a distended nipple through the silk of her blouse.
“Bed.” She quivered beneath his hot mouth.
“Bed.”
His hand dove beneath the hem of her skirt to ride her thigh to her hip, then around to mold one cheek of her behind, left naked by her barely-there thong underwear. On a tortured groan, he shuddered as his widespread fingers squeezed her flesh. A storm raged in his eyes. He recaptured her mouth, pulling her flush against him and lifting her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his waist and held on.
“God, you’re sweet.”
His rumbling murmur bathed her lips while he moved in the direction of the suite’s bedroom.
“I’m hot.” She said the first thing that popped into her head, but it was true. She was burning up!
He stopped. Lowering her to her feet, he chuckled. “Yes, you are.”
Embarrassment and desire combined, flaring through her in waves.
He fingered the squared neckline of her blouse. Eyes darkened by desire twinkled down at her. “And I have no desire to cool you off just yet, but getting you out of this may help.”
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
He chuckled. Without a word, his fingers went to the buttons of her blouse, disbursing three before she found her voice again.
“The truth is, I’ve never done this before, so I’m a little off balance. I say stupid things when I’m off balance.”
&n
bsp; His fingers stilled on button number four. Alarm flashed in his eyes. “What do you mean, you’ve never done this before?”
“Oh, no.” She briefly squeezed her eyes shut. “See, that’s exactly my point. I didn’t mean I’ve never had sex.” His tensed shoulders relaxed as she hurriedly added, “What I meant was, I don’t sleep with guys I’ve just met.”
His chest expanded on a deep breath, his nostrils flared and his chin rose a notch. If he thought she’d changed her mind, he didn’t make it easy for her. Guided by his hands, the blouse slid from her shoulders, down over her arms, until her breasts, encased in lace, were exposed.
“I’m humbled you’ve broken your rule for me.” He pushed the slippery material down over her hips, then put his arms around her and flicked open the button at the back of her skirt. The zipper held no challenge for his talented fingers. Skirt and blouse floated to her feet on a whisper. Taking her hand in his, he propelled her forward so she stepped clear of the puddle of silk. “And I promise to handle your trust like the gift it is. We’ll slow this down, if that’s what you need.” His gaze dropped to caress the flesh above the lacy barrier of her bra. “Just, please, don’t change your mind.” His desire-darkened eyes lifted to meet hers. “If you do, you’ll make me cry.”
The smile teasing the corner of his mouth contradicted his claim. She tugged her hand free. Never one to dismiss a dare, which his smile surely was, she crossed her arms, purposefully plumping up her breasts until her flesh threatened to spill from its lacy covering. She smirked when his eyes followed the action.
Take that, buster!
His Adam’s apple bobbed on an audible swallow, and the last of her nerves scattered like fallen leaves on a brisk breeze. “I’ll make you a deal.”
He matched her stance, arms crossed; his heated gaze slid up to meet hers. “I’m listening.”
“You have me at a disadvantage.” She jerked her chin in his direction and let her gaze climb from his glossy boots to the Stetson covering his dark hair. “Lose the hat and suit, and I promise not to change my mind.”
A Case for Calamity (Twelve Brides of Christmas Book 8) Page 2