Chapter Eleven
The outdoor seating area of the restaurant was empty by the time Jared and Bree called it a night. Somehow, my prey had slipped from my watchful gaze without me noticing.
How the hell had my Adonis left his table without me seeing him? My night destroyed on two fronts: my career and the fantasies of my cock.
Great, fucking great.
I stayed to finish my drink. I noted that the bar was still crowded. Maybe there was something promising in there.
A body working through the tight positioning of the tables bumped into my shoulder and irritably I glanced up, running smack-dab into amber eyes.
“Do you mind if I join you? The bar is too loud to read, we’re the only two out here, and I prefer not to have cocktails alone.”
Oh, things were looking up again. Scratch that—everything was up right now.
I pulled myself from my stupor to gesture at the chair across from me. “No. Of course not. Company would be nice.”
Nice was a fucking understatement. I’d been lusting after him all evening, I was pretty sure by his poorly concealed smirk he knew it, but after that I was halfway in love with him. I had no choice—my heart couldn’t help but go weak for a guy who looked like him making the first move with a pickup line that included any variation of the word cock.
“What are you drinking? I’ll order another round,” he offered.
“This is the last one for me. I’m driving tonight. I better stick with coffee.”
He frowned and smiled simultaneously, making my knees turn to rubber.
“Really? You could always take a cab or an Uber. Aren’t you worried about caffeine this late?”
It was a nice touch he didn’t end that last sentence with keeping you up. Too obvious. He was more sexy than that. “I like to stay sharp.”
My eyes locked with his, and my heart did a flip. I could see his thoughts in those amber pools, but he didn’t pick up my bait, and even that was a fucking aphrodisiac.
He caught the attention of the waitress and ordered our drinks before he lowered down on the seat across from me. He set his book on the empty chair beside him as he arranged his long limbs so that his legs were more in the walkway instead of beneath the table near mine—tease—and then he smiled.
I extended my hand and he leaned toward the table to take it. His touch was everything I’d hope for.
“Graham Carson.”
“Leland.”
He pulled back too quickly.
“Just one name? Full name introductions are usually reciprocated with full names in return.”
He laughed—I had to suck in some air quickly. It was husky and rich; what I imagined warm, melting butter would sound like if it had voice.
“Where did you learn that? Finishing school?” he teased, and the finishing school comment from him didn’t offend.
It was my turn to laugh. “No, officers’ training, US military.”
He looked interested. “What rank? What branch?”
“Army. Special Forces. Captain.”
His eyes sparkled. “That explains it.”
“What?”
He leaned in just a hair toward me again. “Short. Clipped. Measured sentences. A man used to authority and not afraid to have it.”
For the second time I had to tell myself be still my heart because, as if that motherlode of innuendo wasn’t enough to make me his tonight, I got a nice whiff of him when he closed in—and, thank you God, there was nothing better than a guy who smelled fucking great all on his own and didn’t screw it up by using anything other than soap.
Spicy with a little tang.
Distinctly him.
A scent I could track through a forest thanks to survival training.
The unwanted arrival of the waitress caused a temporary cease-fire to the flirting. Once she set the drinks and left, I said, “I’ve got to ask. What have you been reading all night?”
He chuckled in a self-deprecating way that made me want to kiss him. “Oh no. I was afraid you’d ask. Especially after telling me you were in Special Forces and all.”
“Really? Now I’ve got to know.”
He picked up the book from the chair beside him and held it out to me.
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I was smiling and shaking my head as I thumbed through the pages. “I didn’t know they’d written one of these. Handguns for Dummies.”
He grimaced. “They’ve written one for everything. Trust me. I’m sort of a book groupie of this series. I’ve read all of the Dummy books.”
I grinned. Dumb he was not. “Is it any good?”
“You’d be the better judge of that than me. It could be completely useless, for all I know. I’m a thinker not a fighter.”
If he had said lover not a fighter I would have creamed my pants.
I put it on the table between us. “Why the book, since I can tell you are not a fan of guns?”
“Impulse buy. I almost impulse bought a gun this afternoon, but being a thinker, I went for the book first.”
“Probably a good idea.”
We laughed in concert that time, and then settled into a nice, light banter that went on for two hours. The restaurant was closing down and neither of us had made a direct move to seal the deal for tonight.
I was waiting on him since he’d approached first.
Maybe he was waiting on me.
Quid pro quo and all.
It was hard to tell.
“You still haven’t told me your last name,” I remarked before taking a sip of my Jameson. And yep, I’d moved on from the coffee because I needed something to take off the edge of being with him.
“And I’m not going to,” he replied glibly.
Oh fuck, this had been going well and it would be an enormous disappointment to discover at this stage he was withholding vital intel because he was a gay man entrenched in a hetro lie. Those one-nighters never worked out well no matter how promisingly they started.
“Why? Are you the paranoid type?” I asked.
“No,” he said in a long, drawn out, amused tone. “Discreet. I have to be.”
Fuck, he was on the down-low.
I took another look at him.
I didn’t care. All my mental checklists of partner criteria became nonoperational until further notice.
“I can see your point,” I answered, deadpan. “A smart move. You don’t know what you’ll find trolling the scene…in a five-star, bucks-up Newport Beach restaurant.”
“Yes, certainly high risk.” And then his smile faded into something uniquely and extraordinarily him. Or least I thought him because I’d never seen a look like that before. Or rather felt a look the way I was feeling this. “I don’t troll the scene, not ever. And while it may sound arrogant, I don’t have to. In fact, keeping men from my bed is usually harder than getting them in it.”
Oh fuck.
My dick went rigid without notice. But then anatomy was bound to respond to a guy who said men from my bed and hard in a single rejoinder. We’d spent enough time in careful exploration sizing each other up masked as conversation. There was no way I was letting Leland leave the restaurant without me.
I wanted to fuck him.
Now.
“There’s a resort one block down on the beach,” I remarked casually. “I could get us a room.”
“I checked in this afternoon.”
“Then take me there.”