“Maybe it does. Maybe bowling does too. Maybe arcade games as well.”
“In that case, I’m hiring a bocce ball tutor and a bowling expert so I can beat you every time,” she said, with a wink and a sashay of the hips.
“You can beat me at any game any time, as long as I can kiss you like this.”
“Does that mean you threw the game to get a little piece of me?”
“Never. But I’ll take it,” he said in a low, growly tone, then ran his hand along the back of her thigh, his fingertips darting near the hemline. She wore a simple, sleeveless black dress that fell to just above her knees. The material was soft cotton, and the skirt was flared, so the material allowed for easy access. Yes, Michelle was a planner, and this dress suggested possibilities. She wanted all those possibilities planted in his head.
“Purple?” he whispered in a question.
She shook her head. Every fifteen minutes or so he’d tried to guess the color of her lingerie. He’d been wrong. She loved that he kept guessing. She also loved that he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, especially her legs. She’d worn her strappy black Louboutins. Four inches high, they made her legs look strong and toned. God bless heels and the natural enhancement they brought to a runner’s calves. Even a temporary runner, such as herself.
“Rest assured I won’t stop until I find out what color you have on,” he said.
“I have no doubt.”
“By the way, have I told you how sexy you look in this black dress?” He ran his hand along the small of her back. She arched into him, like a cat being pet. She might start purring any second. She wasn’t used to someone wanting to have his hands on her the whole time. Jack seemed incapable of keeping his hands off her. She didn’t mind that.
Not. One. Bit.
“No. Why don’t you tell me?”
He raked his eyes over her, from her face, to her neck, to her breasts, to her waist. “It’s perfect for you. For that whole sexy-librarian look you have going on.”
She laughed deeply, his comment catching her off guard. “Shouldn’t I have on glasses to complete that look?”
He raised an eyebrow, his lips curving up in a naughty grin. “Do you have some? And can you pin up your hair too?”
She had a hunch he’d like to see her dressed up in something terribly naughty. Engaged in role-play. Yeah, she could picture Jack getting into those kind of sexy games—the boss and the secretary, the teacher and the student, the delivery service.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer the French maid costume I have back at my apartment?” she posited.
He shook his head, and wrapped his arm around her waist. “I’m sure. Because that sexy librarian look of yours brings me to my knees,” he said, his midnight-blue eyes blazing darkly at her.
She shivered against him, her body responding to every sensual, suggestive, and dirty thing he said. She ran her hand through his hair, savoring the soft slide through her fingers as she shifted her body closer. Who cared that they were on a makeshift bocce ball court in the back of an Italian restaurant? She didn’t. “But maybe I want to get on my knees for you,” she said in her best sexy voice.
His reaction was instantaneous. His breath caught in his chest. A low rumble sounded in his throat. Then, there was the press of his erection against her thigh. “I want to see that. You on your knees,” he said.
She gripped his hair harder, moving her lips across the deliciously salty skin of his neck, traveling up to his ear, cataloging every second of his physical response to her. Playing into it. Feeding him the images he craved. “Imagine me with my black glasses, my hair pinned up, my pencil skirt on,” she said into his ear, and he slammed her chest to him, crushing her. “Sucking you,” she said, flicking her tongue against his earlobe, leaving him with that image firmly planted in his head.
She wrenched back, enjoying the look in his eyes. Hazy, wild, unrestrained.
“Later,” she added, nodding to their table several feet away. The waitress had just set down their dishes.
* * *
“You have fans.”
Jack looked up from the chicken parmigiana in front of him to see Michelle casting her eyes in the direction of the bar. He spotted a pair of young women wearing tops that revealed bare shoulders and holding glasses that held copious amounts of red wine. The redhead in the pair whispered to her friend when he looked up, the sort of conspiratorial he’s-seen-us warning.
He shrugged as if to say what can you do. Whether from having been involved with somebody like Aubrey, a world-class athlete with sponsorships and Olympic medals to her credit, or from the job he held, he’d grown accustomed to being recognized from time to time.
“It doesn’t bother me. Does it bother you?”
She laughed, and shook her head. “Not really. Honestly? I’m used to it. My brother’s a well-known theater director and his wife is a Tony award-winning actress so I see it a lot with them.”
“Good,” he said, flashing her a grin that he hoped would melt her. “Then you won’t be bothered by the stares as I take you out around town and romance you.”
“You’re presumptuous, aren’t you?”
“You’re the one who mentioned a bocce ball tutor.”
“Maybe I’ve simply been hoping to improve my game.”
He didn’t give her a chance to answer. Instead, he cupped the back of her head and dropped his mouth to her lips, kissing away that first sexy gasp of surprise. Her lips were divine, soft and full and thoroughly delicious. He swept the tip of his tongue across the curve of her top lip, then nibbled on her bottom one. Her mouth was sweet and tasted of the white wine she’d been drinking. The scent of her jasmine shampoo filled his nostrils, and it was heady, and perfect for her, as all these scents collided in a kiss. He hardly wanted to break the kiss at all, but he was so tempted to explore more of her, to kiss her neck, her ear, to bite the soft flesh of her collarbone like he’d done last night. To hear all her sexy responses to every touch. Even the way she responded now, to a simple kiss, was intoxicating. She was a woman who relished kissing, who seemed to let go of herself in the moment from the way he touched her. He wanted more of her physical abandon.