But Nick had known that for a long time.
She'd always thought of herself as brave. She worked in a bio-safety level 4 lab encased in body protection as strong as a space suit, but one tiny tear, one leak and she would die a horrible death. That was bravery.
Nick was braver.
She'd been so afraid these past weeks. Her heart constantly thrummed a drumbeat of terror. She'd end her day exhausted, sticky with the sweat of anxiety. Which was exactly how she woke up in the morning, too. Heartsick and terrified.
Nick wasn't afraid of anything. She knew that about him. He'd done astoundingly heroic things. She didn't know this from him. He never talked about it, ever. She knew it from her grandfather and from stories her friend Felicity passed on from her lover, Metal, and his guys. The guys in Nick's new company, who'd been his teammates in the SEALs. The consensus was that Nick was a really good guy, one of the rare ones. Hard-headed, yes, stubborn as they come, but brave as a lion.
Nick the Lionheart! a teammate had yelled when Nick had run across an open field of fire with a wounded soldier in a fireman's carry, bullets pounding the sand at his feet. Nick had thrown the wounded teammate over the threshold of the sandbag bunker and then tumbled over head first, bullets following him. Nick stood immediately, took up a station at a break in the wall of bags and started calmly picking off enemy targets, totally unmindful of the fact that a bullet had passed through the meaty part of his thigh.
Nothing ever rattled Nick.
What would it feel like to be like that? To be so fearless? To feel up to any possible physical challenge? She'd never know. But … maybe she could get close enough to him to borrow some of his courage. Touch that strong, tough body all over, feel him inside her …
Another bloom of fiery heat.
His eyebrows drew together in a V shape. She'd turned beet red again. He must be wondering whether she suffered from some kind of mental or hormonal disorder.
Maybe she was. Nick Lust Disorder.
"So," he said casually, leaning back. "Is that a yes? Want me to beat someone up? Whack someone for you?" His tone was light but his face was deadpan. Tough and utterly inscrutable.
She sighed. "I wish." If only this was the kind of problem you could shoot your way out of. Pity bullets couldn't kill viruses.
They'd eaten their way through dinner, though she'd left most of hers on her plate. His had disappeared and she'd yet to take a bite of hers. He took her spoon out of her hand, dipped it into the creamy panna cotta and held it in front of her lips. When she opened her mouth, he slipped the spoon inside and she nearly fainted from the sugar rush.
"Again," he insisted, heaped spoon at her lips. He watched as the spoon entered her mouth, pulling it out slowly, empty. His face was dark and hard. "Jesus." He looked like he was in pain.
It nearly made her smile. "It's just dessert, Nick."
He wasn't smiling at all. "Not the way you're eating it, sweetheart. You're making this pure sex."
Kay blew out a breath. This was so unfair. She wasn't trying to be sexy, though … well, with Nick Mancino across the table from her, staring at her with dark, narrowed eyes, it was hard to think of anything but sex.
"Sex," she whispered without even realizing it. The word was in her head, in the cloud of pheromones swirling around her, even in the panna cotta. It was in the molecules of the air.
Nick wasn't a fidgety man, but he froze into immobility. "What did you say?"
What? What was he talking about?
His face was a mask of tension. "What did you say?" he repeated.
What had she said? Kay ran the tape in her head back a minute and there it was. What she'd said.
Sex.
What was she thinking of?
"Sex," Nick said. His dark eyes glittered. "You said sex. I heard that. Distinctly."
Kay swallowed and nodded.
"So … " He scooted his chair closer. "Does that mean that sex is on your mind? The idea rolling around your head as a possibility? Say, in a completely theoretical and abstract way?"
"Not theoretical," she whispered through a scratchy throat. "Not abstract."
Nick's face tightened and he looked at her intensely, like looking through a screen door at something from a long distance away, uncertain of what he was seeing.
"Not theoretical," he repeated. He took the large, snowy-white linen napkin off his lap and threw it on the table. "That means practical. You're thinking sex in a totally non-abstract and non-theoretical way. With me."
She nodded.
His eyes were like lasers piercing into hers. The cords in his neck stood out, his jaw clenched.