Natalie sipped her tea and thought about that. “I suppose you’re right.” She was attracted to good looks—who wouldn’t be?—but she’d dated her fair share of average-looking men. Attitude did have a lot to do with attraction.
“Wheels are turning up there.”
She laughed and put her mug down. “You make me think about things in ways I generally don’t.” See, they could talk and it didn’t have to be about sex.
“If I recall, we both discovered some new things about ourselves the last time we saw each other.”
Okay. So it was about sex. She was saved from responding by the arrival of their food.
“My God, Jake, how much did you order?”
The server, a young man this time, was steadily setting out bowls of various things. There was brown sugar, confectioner’s sugar, raisins, dates, various nuts, fresh strawberries, shredded coconut, granola, blueberries, chocolate chips and…she lost track at that point. Their waitress followed with two flat bowls full of steaming, thick, creamy porridge.
“Enjoy,” she said.
Natalie had to admit, it looked wonderful. “Thank you, I’m sure we will.” Of course, the waitress wasn’t looking at Natalie, but she nodded and sent an absent smile her way as she took one last longing look at Jake.
When they were alone, Natalie looked at the bounty before her and said, “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“I know. Amazing, isn’t it.”
“You know, if our family cook had known such a presentation could be made out of oatmeal, we might have served it, after all.” She quickly clamped her mouth shut, but Jake merely smiled at her and began sorting through dishes with the spoon provided in each one.
That made her pause. He didn’t push her about her private life. Maybe he had no interest in it. Maybe he was only interested in her for one thing. She should be insulted. But she wasn’t. She was relieved. Hadn’t he said that if they were to continue doing…what they’d done before, that there would be no outside world intrusions? When they were together it would just be about them exploring each other, and themselves…and nothing else?
She was finding herself entranced with the very idea that she actually could do that. Actually take time away from everything and do this just for herself. No denying it was exciting, enticing even. But could they really sustain it?
She watched him pop a plump blueberry in his mouth and sigh as he ate it. Yeah, she thought, I might be able to watch him eat for, oh, another ten or twenty years at least.
Of course, he’d said nothing about his proposition. Maybe he’d changed his mind.
“Here—”
Her attention was jerked away from the bowl she’d been mindlessly stirring, her thoughts stirring right along with it. When she looked up, she found him offering her a strawberry.
She went to take it with her fingers, but he shook his head. “Wait.” He rubbed it on his own lips, then dipped it in the confectioner’s sugar. “Now taste it.”
He held it closer, intending her to take it from his fingers right into her mouth. In the middle of a restaurant. Anyone watching this little interaction would assume they were not having a business breakfast.
The look in his eye was more a dare than a question. And she knew that if she took the strawberry, she was tacitly agreeing to his previous offer.
“Do you always debate taking something you know you want?”
She smiled at that. “How do you know I like strawberries?” She knew that wasn’t what he meant, but he was fun to tease. And he returned it so well.
“Who could resist this one?”
A better woman than her, apparently.
Even as she leaned a fraction of an inch closer to take the fruit, he was already lightly rubbing it over her lips, coating them in white sugar and berry juice.
She quickly took the fruit, almost swallowing it whole and trying like hell to resist looking around her to see if anyone else was watching. She ducked her head and licked her lips, dabbing at them with her napkin.
“It bothers you, then?”
She looked back at him. “What?”
“That people might see me feeding you?”
Her face colored, and there was no way to stop it. “You offered me a piece of fruit and I took it. No big deal. People taste each other’s meals all the time.”
He merely smiled. “It bothers you.”
“Okay, so I’m uncomfortable with being…I don’t know—open about what we’re doing.”
Now he leaned forward, his gaze so intent she could feel herself respond by tightening up almost to the point of cramping. “What are we doing, Natalie?”
“Having breakfast?” she said weakly.
He slowly shook his head. Then he picked up a small chunk of chocolate and wedged it in another strawberry before dipping the whole thing in granulated sugar. He held it out. “This isn’t about breakfast.”
She started to look around the room.
“Don’t.”
She stilled, then wondered why she listened to him. She’d look around if she damn well wanted to.
“Do you know any of these people?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Do you care what they think of how we choose to eat our meal?”
“I suppose not.”
“And if they realize there is more going on at this table than merely breakfast between two business associates…do you care?”
She paused before answering that one. “I shouldn’t.”
“But you do?” He rolled the plump fruit between his thick fingers.
She shrugged lightly. “Habit, I suppose.”
“Always have to be decorous, do you? Always put on the polished front?”
“Something like that.”
“So what if you didn’t? What do you think is going to happen?”
She thought about that. “Nothing, I guess.”
“Then, take the fruit, Natalie. Take it like you want it. Enjoy it like you know you will. Don’t hold back because someone else might be watching.”
She took the fruit. The sweet of the chocolate exploded through the tart of the strawberry as it slid down her throat. Looking at him while she did it made her want to moan. Breakfast would never be the same again.
“People are looking at you,” he said softly.
“I’m trying not to care.”
A little grin quirked the corner of his mouth as he offered her a blueberry this time. She took it.
“Wonder what they’re thinking?”
“No. I really don’t want to know.”
“What if this is turning them on?”
“What if it is?” she asked, working hard to stay in the moment and not let herself care that they were in a crowded restaurant.
“What if watching you eat fruit from my hand is the most erotic thing they’ve seen in years? What if it makes them leave here and go find their significant other and feed them some fruit?” He grinned now as he fed her another strawberry in powdered sugar. “Who knows, we could be personally responsible for an entire city ending up in bed today.”
She’d just taken the fruit as he said that, and now laughed as she chewed and swallowed. “Yeah, that’s me. A one-woman pied piper of sex.”
Jake laughed, too. “There are worse things to be.”
Natalie nodded, then stifled a sigh as Jake went back to his own oatmeal.
He was stirring some brown sugar into his bowl, not looking at her, when he said, “So, do I get to taste some of your food?”
She dropped the spoon she’d been balancing several blueberries on, but gamely recovered. “What, you think you can be a better pied piper than me?”
His eyes were twinkling, but only for her when he looked at her. “No. I just want to taste a strawberry that’s been rubbed along those lips.”
“Oh.” She managed a shaky smile.
“Feed me, Natalie.”
She didn’t look around the room this time. She deliberately selected the fattest strawberry in the dish and ran it slowly over her bottom lip. She was going to dip it into the sugar, but Jake took hold of her wrist and guided the fruit to his mouth.
“Nothing can top the taste of you,” he said quietly, holding her gaze as he took the strawberry between his white teeth, then sunk them slowly into it.
That did it. She clenched so hard she was pretty sure it counted as a minor orgasm. And minor just wasn’t going to cut it. “Do we—” She cleared her throat. “Do you want any more of this?”
“Oh, I want a lot more of this.”
“Here?”
Mercifully he shook his head and stood. But not before pocketing the rest of the fruit in one of the restaurant napkins. “Come on.” He held out his hand. “Let’s finish this meal in private.”
Natalie paused only for a split second, then took his hand. “Yes. Let’s.”
7
JAKE RAN the sliced strawberry around Natalie’s nipple, growing harder—if that were possible—at the way it peaked for him. She moaned under her breath, and he felt himself climb closer to the edge. The edge that had begun the moment he’d read her note.
He honestly hadn’t expected to end up in his hotel with her today. But the moment he’d felt her standing behind him in the restaurant, he knew he wasn’t going to let her run away again without a good reason. What they’d shared back in New York had been a memory that clung to him as resolutely as the scent of her had clung to his skin.