His Private Pleasure(11)

He looked down at himself. “Sorry, I forgot about the uniform fantasy.”

“Somehow I doubt you forget much of anything.”

He simply grinned. “Mesquite smoked steak okay with you?” he asked, his back to her as he set about opening the top to his grill.

“Sounds good.” Nothing fancy there, she noted approvingly, just a regular, well-used grill. No tools and gadgets bought to impress, nothing that screamed bachelor-on-the-make. In fact, despite the stunning setting and interesting structure, the house looked to be more home than showcase. She hadn’t gone inside, but she had looked through the windows. Heavy pine furniture stuffed with thick cushions in deep russets and golds were comfortably arranged on a rolled, handmade rug, fronting a cozy and also well-used wood burning stove. No macho fireplace and fur rug type thing happening here. It actually looked like a place a man lived in, not a place designed for seduction.

What an interesting concept.

Liza sipped her wine and hid a private smile. God, she was so jaded. She took in a breath of the rapidly cooling evening air, so clean and crisp it almost crackled inside her lungs. So the jaded one was trying something new, she told herself. Maybe this was part of her journey, after all, and not a detour. As long as she didn’t confuse this for something more than a pit stop, she’d be fine.

He came back out of the house with two steaks and a pair of foil wrapped potatoes.

“You were prepared, I see,” she said, wondering if she’d read the setup wrong. After all, maybe men out here in the mountains didn’t bother with all the seductive frills and finery meant to dazzle and impress. Meat and potatoes on the grill, meat and potatoes in bed.

It was effective, however, as she was developing a powerful hunger for meat and potatoes.

“Not really,” he said. “I just happen to think nothing tastes better on a summer night than a grilled steak and a cold beer. So I always stock some of both. You got lucky with the potatoes, though.”

“Ah, lucky me. But here I’m forcing wine on you. Feel free to pop a cold one if you’d prefer.”

He’d turned back to the grill and didn’t glance back at her as he spoke. “I’m a big boy. If I want beer, I’ll have one, but thanks for the permission.”

She grinned and sipped her wine. “It’s been my experience that most men trying to get me into bed succeed more easily with flattery rather than censure.”

“So now I’m ‘most men,’” he said lightly. “I thought we’d covered that with you earlier.”

“So we did.” She noticed he didn’t refute the “get me into bed” part. “And why I ever thought to compare you to most men is beyond me. You’re one of a kind, Sheriff.”

He shot her grin over his shoulder. “Why, thank you.”

The punch of desire surprised her, the strength and potency of it. She’d certainly danced this dance before. And yet she didn’t feel as surefooted as she usually did. She couldn’t predict how he’d react to any given stimulus. Maybe that was the reason for her reaction to something as basic as a sexy grin. Uncertainty was a new emotion for her. She wasn’t quite sure she liked it. But she didn’t mind the way it heightened the tension between them.

Her gaze drifted to his denim clad backside as he turned back to the grill. She had the strongest urge to walk over and stand just behind him, feel the heat of him and the fire mingle together, seep into her. So wired into that scenario was she that when he pulled several citronella candles off the railing and struck a match to light them, she actually felt like he’d scraped against something inside her. Her thighs actually flinched.

She watched as he wiped his hands on his own thighs, and found herself running her tongue over her lips. Dear God. She jerked the chair out from the little table and made herself comfortable. Relatively speaking. She still felt a bit twitchy between the legs.

She really had gone solo for too long, she told herself, if she got this tightly wound over a mildly flirtatious bit of wordplay while watching a guy fire up a grill. He mercifully went back inside to get God knew what, allowing her to return her attention to the other view. She forced herself to keep it there when he returned.

“This is a spectacular site for a house,” she said, needing to get herself back on the solid ground of innocuous first-date conversation. Sexual tension was one thing, but she really didn’t like the way her body leaped about at the slightest look from him. She wanted this, wanted him, but on her terms. After all, that was one avenue of self-discovery she didn’t need to traverse twice.

“Land belonged to my grandfather, but he never did anything with it,” Dylan said. “I’ve always loved it up here and knew this was where I’d build when I came back. It took awhile and a bit of blasting, but I made it all fit.”

And fit it did. Rustic wood jutting out of stone, with enough shiny glass to give it a veneer of polish. Just a little. Sort of like its owner. Why that was so damn sexy to her, a woman whose men usually matched her polish for polish, she had no idea. “Builder and sheriff, all in one package. Pretty handy guy.”

He flipped the steaks and scooted the foil wrapped potatoes around on the grill. “I make do okay.”

She just bet he did. She’d really never met anyone like him before. Secure, not working her for what else she might be able to do for him besides an evening or two of great sex. Another good reason to leave the superficiality of Hollywood. She supposed it was that very lack of calculation, the inherent honesty in everything he said, that undid her a little. He wasn’t after anything beyond what she was after. And he didn’t seem to care much if that worked out or not, either.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Relieved to know that dinner and conversation could be just that, no harm, no foul? Or a bit put out, wanting to push him into caring that they didn’t let this opportunity pass them by?

Maybe a little of both, she decided, and took another sip as she contemplated just how to play this evening out.

He wanted her, and yet he wasn’t knocking himself out to do anything to insure he got her, other than just being himself. An original concept where she was from.

She was still pretty damn sure she could get what she’d come here for. He wasn’t the type to play coy, and he knew what was what. She wasn’t going to have to be subtle. Except, in this case, she found herself wishing she didn’t have to be the pursuer.

She paused midsip. Now where had that come from? She was always the pursuer. Even if the man was led to believe otherwise. Liza controlled what she got. That way she stayed safe and everyone had a good time. The one time she’d stupidly forgotten that rule, look where she’d landed. In the penthouse suite of the heartbreak hotel.

So, despite her mild flirtation with that domination scenario, letting Sheriff Dylan Jackson call the shots was definitely not an option here. Not that he was trying to, she thought, with the tiniest of pouts. He could be a bit more aggressive about things. That tingle of awareness raced through her again, along with a few stray images of just how she’d like him to be aggressive. Say, a pair of handcuffs. Maybe some persuasive…interrogation—

She hastily put her wineglass on the table. The alcohol, along with the crisp evening air, was obviously going to her head.

It was those damn dark edges that caught at her, she supposed. Dark edges she had no desire to smooth. In fact, she’d like to rub up against one or two of them, just for the thrill of discovering how they felt. “Danger, danger, Liza,” she murmured, unable to stop picturing what it would be like between them.

“Medium rare okay with you?”

She blinked, startled from her hot little scenario by his voice. “I’m sorry, mind was wandering. What did you say?” Dammit, her voice was a bit hoarse. Maybe he’d attribute it to the wine. She knew he hadn’t when he straightened and turned to face her, a long grill fork in one hand, a bemused look on his face.

There was the slightest twitch to his lips. “How do you like your meat?”

She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “However you’re having yours is fine.”

His gaze remained on hers a moment longer. “It gets pretty cold up here when the sun goes down. You have a sweater or something?”

She could tell him her nipples were peaked for reasons that had nothing to do with temperature, but decided to forgo the direct approach for once. Besides which, she was pretty sure he understood her reaction was to him. A certain look in those melted-candy eyes of his told her that well enough. That he’d brought it to the attention of both of them only made her nipples pucker harder. “I’ve got something in the car,” she said. “I guess I should go get it.”

She wandered down to her car, privately smiling at the idea that for an evening that would likely end up with them both naked, it was oddly erotic to be covering herself up. “All the more for him to slide off of you later, Liza.” She shivered and rubbed her arms in anticipation, all sorts of scenarios springing to feverish life inside her obviously sex-starved brain. Would he strip her? Or ask her to strip for him? Not that it would be the first time she’d done that for a man, but again, she was usually the one in control. In fact, handcuffs wouldn’t be a new experience for her, either…unless they were put on her wrists.