Rick Roman, occasionally known as “Rock,” cursed himself for a fool. Jones—the name suited her, in a weird sort of way—was the kind of woman he had no business tangling with. Even through his fury at the interrupted phone call with Luke, he’d noticed how the Nevada sun picked out strands of bright gold in her toffee-brown hair. Now, close enough to touch, it looked so soft, like spun sugar, as it tumbled past her shoulders down her narrow back. But most of all, those eyes, shimmering somewhere between turquoise and teal . . .
He gave himself a mental kick in the shins. Dinner with the beautiful if obviously incognito “Jones” wasn’t going to lead to the bedroom. He didn’t do that sort of thing. He’d been living the life of a single father slash virtual monk for the past decade, after all. But when she’d started to leave the booth, he’d had the feeling she was about to take all the light with her. He couldn’t bear to see her go.
But now what? He hadn’t spent much time having dinner with gorgeous women lately. “I’m having the steak, medium rare. Two?”
She nodded and smiled at the waitress. That smile had struck him like a blow to the chest when she’d aimed it from her El Camino. It did something similar now. “Make mine bloody.”
Roman grinned at her. “That’s what I like to hear. If you’d said grilled catfish or veggie burrito I would have given you a ticket myself. My worst fear about California is the food.”
“Not the earthquakes? Carjackings? Cult murders?”
“Nope. It’s the guacamole salad.”
She laughed, and the dim little world of their booth seemed to glow. Even when she’d been goading him from her car, he’d been intrigued despite his irritation. The look in her eyes, feisty but a little haunted, made him want to catch her like a firefly and find out all about her.
He leaned forward, creating an intimate space between the two of them. “So what do you do, Jones? Do you live here in Reno?”
Her expression went wary. She lifted her glass as if it were a shield.
“Never mind. I have a better question. What’s wrong with Thanksgiving? You said you blamed Thanksgiving.”
At first he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Molten candlelight pooled between them, contrasting with the dimness outside the booth. Beyond it came the quiet hum of flirtatious voices and clinking silverware. It all created a sort of intimate magic. Maybe she felt it too, because finally she tilted her head, smiled with a sort of crooked defiance, and said, “I’m missing one important element of Thanksgiving. A family.”
“No family at all?” This was hard for him to imagine, having lived within subway distance of his family all his life.
“I had one, of course. But I haven’t spoken to my mother in a while.”
“How long is ‘a while’?”
“Oh . . . not long. Thirteen years.”
He calculated quickly. She appeared to be around thirty. She must have been a teenager then. “Falling out?”
She took a long swallow of her drink and lifted one shoulder. Light bounced off the pink liquid in her glass to glimmer in her eyes.
“Must be rough. Especially on Thanksgiving. If I’d known . . .”
Jones made an impatient gesture. “Doesn’t matter. I’m a big girl. Enough about me and my family. What about you? Is there a Mrs. Rock?”
“There was. Luke’s mother. She died about ten years ago,” Roman answered. After all this time, the answer came easily, so easily Jones didn’t even react. “How about you?”
“Same. I mean, no one.”
Their eyes met, and suddenly the air between them tensed with possibility. He found himself leaning closer to her, trying to pin down the shades of aquamarine and sky blue and even a dash of gold in her eyes that combined to such brilliant effect. Close like this, he breathed in her scent—warm, feminine flesh with a hint of jasmine.
It went straight to his groin. He wondered if he was drunk, but it usually took more than half a Scotch to accomplish that.
“What are you doing?”
He realized he was staring. Blinking, he sat back. “Sorry. Your eyes are . . . uh . . . spectacular.”
“Oh.” She lowered her eyelashes over them, which gave him a moment to get a grip on himself. “Thanks. But I can’t take any credit. It’s all in the genes. Gift from my mother. You know, before she stopped talking to me.”
So she wasn’t vain. Which seemed odd for such a gorgeous woman, with those high, elegant cheekbones and that perfectly oval face. She had a taut energy about her, as if she was poised for action at any given moment. He hoped that action wasn’t to flee. He really, really didn’t want her to leave.
The waitress appeared with their steaks, breaking the mood. They both turned their attention to their slabs of meat. For once, Roman barely noticed that it was overcooked and that they’d tried to disguise an inferior cut of beef with manufactured sauce. He was too aware of Jones’s vibrant, graceful presence across the table. Too aware of the expressions that played across her face. Pleasure at her first mouthful of meat. Thoughtfulness as she chewed. Speculation as she glanced his way.
It was that speculative look that really got to him. Was she thinking the same thing he was? Two unattached adults with high-octane chemistry. One night in Reno. Could they? Should they? Would she?
No. This was nuts. He didn’t do that kind of thing. She probably didn’t either. Though maybe she did. Hard to say, when he’d only set eyes on her a couple of hours ago—and not in the best of circumstances.
But still, two single people, alone on Thanksgiving, far from home, undeniably attracted to each other . . .
Intellectually, Sabina knew her steak was a little overcooked. But most of her brain was taken up with another issue. Inconvenient sexual tension. Not long ago this man had been yelling at her to turn down her music. Now she was fantasizing about him sweeping her into his massive arms and whisking her off to his hotel room.
And she hadn’t told anyone about her mother in . . . well, she never had, not since she’d made her escape. Dinner was almost over now. And the thought of leaving the booth, of no longer being able to feast her eyes on his black-eyed magnificence, didn’t appeal to her one bit. She scrambled for a safe topic.
“So your son likes baseball?”
“Oh yeah. He’s a star pitcher back in Brooklyn, but he wants to play year round. We were hoping to move at the beginning of the school year but we had to wait for my replacement to start.”
“How old is he?”
“He just turned thirteen.”
Silence fell between them. Not a normal silence, but the kind in which naughty thoughts careened like monkeys in a cage. She could mention Carly, who also loved baseball. It would provide a way to continue a nonthreatening line of conversation. They could talk about batting averages and crazy sports parents and the kids’ favorite players and . . .
She cleared her throat. “Are you here for just one night?”
The question came out in an unexpectedly husky tone that sent his gaze flying to meet hers. Her belly tightened with a sudden spike of arousal. He was too damn attractive, this man. No one could blame her if she let down her hair, figuratively speaking, for one night.
“Yes.” He fiddled with his silverware. “You?”
She nodded. Her eyes dropped to the big hand wrapped around his fork. He had workingman’s hands, complete with calluses and a white scar over the middle knuckle. Little black hairs curled at his wrists. How one man could pack so much potent masculinity into one body boggled her mind.
“Jones. Listen.” His voice dropped down to an even deeper register, one she felt in the pit of her stomach. “I never do this sort of thing.”
Her throat tightened in excitement. She could have pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about. But instead she said in a low voice, as hot lust speared through her, “I don’t either.”
“I shouldn’t even be thinking about it. But I am. We’re two single adults alone on Thanksgiving. And I’m very attracted to you. Extremely so. It’s throwing me for a loop, honestly.” He smiled ruefully. Between the groove in his cheek and the desire in his eyes, Sabina felt herself melt.
“I am too,” she said faintly.
“You’re . . . attracted or . . . thinking about it?”
“Both. But I shouldn’t either. I mean, I don’t.” Great, now she was babbling. “Usually.”
“Usually.” His head lifted, eyes flaring. “Does that mean . . . ?”
Impulsively, she reached over the table and ran her finger across the scar on his knuckle. “How’d you get that?”
He went completely still. Time seemed to stop while he looked at her hand on his, then back up slowly, deliberately, his eyes glittering. “Playing with fire.”
Like a match tossed onto lighter fluid, those three little words ignited all that simmering lust into action. Sabina grabbed her purse. Rock threw some bills on the table, not seeming too concerned about which ones or how many. He took Sabina’s hand and guided her through the restaurant while she glanced pityingly at the other patrons who weren’t them, who weren’t heading toward the mind-blowing sex she absolutely knew was coming. She felt thrillingly alive, on fire, half crazed.
She caught a brief glimpse of Brad’s delighted wink on the way past. And then they were racing hand in hand up the stairs to his suite.
Inside, Rock put his hands on her shoulders and looked searchingly into her eyes until she thought she’d melt.
“You sure about this? I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“I’m sure.” To prove it, she boldly put her hands on his chest as she’d been dying to do since she first saw him in the booth—no, in the Jeep, to be completely honest. He felt just as rock solid as she’d imagined—ridges and valleys carved from living stone.
He ran his outsize hands down her sides, shaping the slope of her waist. Tingles shot all the way to her toenails.
“Sure as sugar,” she added.
It sounded so goofy, she put a hand over her mouth to stop the laughter. Rock cocked his head and chuckled along with her. The movement of his strong throat muscles made her dizzy. Everything about him made her head spin. When their laughter had died down, he raised his hands to cradle her head in his warm grip. He had the hands of a million-dollar massage artist, magical, powerfully gentle hands that held her steady while he lowered his mouth to hers. Time seemed to stop during that long journey; at any rate, her breath did. She lost herself in the fierce black eyes coming closer and closer, the firm mouth set on claiming its prize; he was a marauder, an ancient conqueror come to life.
When their lips touched, it was as if firecrackers exploded in a July sky. After the initial shock, she gripped his wrists and leaned into him, giving back stroke for stroke, pressure for pressure. He growled, the sound rumbling deep in his chest, and tilted her head to take even more thorough possession of her mouth. He explored it with a dedicated intensity that wiped her mind clean of any thought except him. Him and more him, and the taste and feel and scent of him.
As she surfaced from the drugged glory of that kiss, she congratulated herself on not having collapsed on the floor. Then she realized there was a good reason for that; her feet were no longer on the floor. Just as she’d fantasized in the restaurant, he’d swooped her up in his arms and cradled her like a baby.
“You’re . . . quite strong,” she pointed out, in a husky voice that seemed to drip with sexual need. It would have embarrassed her, if she hadn’t been beyond embarrassment by now.
“The better to pleasure you, my dear.” He waggled his black eyebrows.
“I’m not exactly a lightweight.” Her friend Vader had picked her up a few times, but he’d always complained and held his back in mock pain afterward.
“You’re perfect.” Further proving his superior strength, he held her with one arm while he used his other hand to run his fingers through her hair. “Down to the last hair on your beautiful head.”
The tenderness in his voice gave her a quick pang. What would it be like to have a man like Rock actually love her? Actually be tender with her, as part of a, well, a relationship?
She shoved the thought to the back of her mind. This wasn’t about a relationship. This was about hot, sweaty sex at its finest. She extracted herself from his grasp so she could reach for his belt buckle. When that was undone she pulled his shirttails from under the belt and snuck her hands into the firm heat that lurked underneath. Muscles carved from iron rippled under her touch. She followed the bulging ridges up his chest to his massive shoulders, luxuriating in the rough curls she encountered along the way.
Rock made a harsh sound and set her on her feet. He ripped his shirt off and stood before her in all his muscular glory. Holy Mother, he was incredible. Like an ancient statue of some discus thrower twice the size of a normal person. His chest rose and fell with his rapid breaths. His eyes practically burned holes through her thin tank top.
“Can I please take your top off before I die?”
Between the two of them, clumsy with lust, they got rid of her top and the plain cotton bra underneath. Naked to the waist, she quivered under his blazing black scrutiny. He made her feel like a goddess come to life, as if she’d been formed solely to bring this powerful man to his knees.
“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said in a heartfelt tone.
She swallowed hard. “So are you.” She couldn’t stop devouring every detail of his physique. Her gaze followed the line of black hair that marched past his half-open belt buckle. Underneath, boxers. Under those . . . Good Lord Almighty. The thick rise of his jeans, the unmistakable arousal underneath, made her body vibrate with anticipation. Her nipples hardened to fierce little peaks.
He put his hands to his zipper. She held her breath. Then he stopped.
“Damn it.” With a wild look, he ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t have protection with me. I never even thought about it.”
Well, damn. “I don’t either.”
Breathing fast, half naked, they stared at each other.
“Brad!” Sabina said suddenly.
“What?”
“The maître d’. He’ll have some. He parties every night after his shift. Be right back.”
Sabina would never forget the smug look on Brad’s face, or his efforts to extract a promise to tell him every detail in exchange for a handful of condoms. “Waste not, want not,” he said with a wink.
She stuffed them in her purse and raced back up the stairs, too anxious to wait for the elevator. What if Rock had changed his mind? What if this wasn’t such a good idea? What would he think of a woman who rushed off to get condoms from a gay maître d’? Was this the craziest way to spend Thanksgiving ever?
As she reached the third floor, her steps slowed. Was she really about to have sex with a man known only as “Rock”? A man who was clearly hiding his real identity and knew her only as “Jones”?
By the time she reached his door, she was in an agony of regret and pure sexual frustration. Of course she couldn’t do this. She didn’t have sex with strangers. Besides . . . a man like that . . . he’d be too hard to forget come morning.
She scrabbled in her purse for a piece of paper but all she found was the ticket from the Reno PD. She tore it in half, making sure she kept the part with her name, found a pen, and scrawled one word.
Sorry.
Not much of an explanation, but it was all the ticket had room for. She pushed it under the door of Rock’s suite and fled.