She didn’t remember it feeling this right. Or this natural.
Or this wonderful.
They’d finished dinner, and Jake had suggested they take a walk, which Grace had pointed out as his first misstep of the evening. If he knew women even half as well as he thought he did, he’d understand that women in high heels didn’t do walks. They could walk. From point A to point B. Sometimes. But ambling with no destination? Not so much.
“What if I give you a destination?” he asked.
“Now, now, is that just a clever way of suggesting sex?”
He grinned. “Do you want it to be?”
Yes. “I don’t believe you’ve uttered the magic words.”
“Please?”
“Cheese plate.”
Jake tilted his head back and laughed, and it was then that he’d reached out and gently linked his fingers with hers.
She tried to be cool about it. Tried not to let herself look down at the way their hands joined, her smaller fingers twined with his larger ones. Tried not to think about how warm he was, or how good he felt.
“Seriously, where is our destination?” she asked once she realized that she was indeed being led in a specific direction.
“Tell me you’ve heard of La Maison du Chocolat.”
Grace groaned. “Only the most expensive, most sinful, most amazing chocolate in the city. In the world. Aren’t they from France?”
“Indeed. The damned French are always doing it right. The fries. The cheese. The chocolate … the kissing.”
He tugged at her hand, pulling her to a stop under the awning of a boutique long closed for the night. Then he kissed her. Right there for anyone and everyone to see.
One hand continued to hold her hand as the other found her cheek, his lips gently moving over hers. It was the first time in a long time she’d been kissed in public. Greg hadn’t been one for PDAs, and Grace hadn’t thought she was either.
But here with Jake, kissing on a quiet side street in downtown Manhattan felt right.
Sweet.
She was just a little bit breathless when he pulled back, and he took one last nip of a kiss before he stood upright and resumed walking as though it had never happened.
“You’re good at that,” Grace said.
He glanced down at her. “Kissing?”
“That. And making me want you to do more than kiss me.”
Grace hadn’t meant to say it, and for the life of her she didn’t know what had spurred her to be so uncharacteristically bold. But she didn’t take it back. Because she did want him. All of him.
His eyes darkened and his fingers tightened. “That kind of talk isn’t going to get you chocolate, Ms. Brighton.”
“No?” she asked. “What’s it going to get me?”
This time when he kissed her, it wasn’t gentle and it wasn’t slow. The kiss was savage and hot, and involved more than a little tongue and even a whistle from a passerby.
“Any other stupid questions?” he asked when they broke apart, both breathing hard. Grace mutely shook her head.
“Okay then.”
Inside the chocolate shop, it was as though the kiss had never happened. Jake let her roam around, ogling everything in sight, and although she protested that she really didn’t need anything, Grace hardly kicked up a fuss when they left the store with a small assortment of macaroons and a box of chocolates that had been flown in from Paris just days before.
“So?” he asked, feeding her a bite of hazelnut macaroon.
Grace closed her eyes as the decadent sugary goodness rolled over her tongue. “I lied before. I don’t need sex. Just hand over the macaroons and the chocolates and slip out the back door.”
Jake snatched the last bite of macaroon out of her hand and held the bag of remaining treats well out of reach. “Okay, then. I think we’ve had just about enough of that.”
Grace laughed, and made a grab for the last nibble of her cookie, but it disappeared into Jake’s mouth.
“Usually decadent desserts get them into my bed,” he grumbled. “They doesn’t replace me in their bed.”
“Oh, so you’ve done this before, huh?” she asked, linking her arm through his and weaving to the left to avoid a heel-snagging grate in the middle of the sidewalk. “This is a common ploy of yours? The French-chocolate-and-French-kiss routine?”
Jake slid one arm around her waist and pulled her to a halt against him as his other hand went up to hail a cab. “This is a first for me, actually.”
He didn’t look at her when he said it, and that made his unexpected comment all the more sweet.
There was no cocky wink or smug smile. Just a quiet confession.
A first …
She liked the thought of being a first for Jake.