“Oh my gosh. I almost forgot. I should probably go. I have to memorize the menu, and I only have a few days to learn it.”
“I’ll help you.” The offer surprised him as much as it surprised Rebecca. Pierce had never held a waiter job, and truth be known, he had no idea how difficult it might be. In fact, he had no idea that the waitstaff had to memorize the menu. He left those details up to the restaurant managers to handle. But he wasn’t ready for this date to end, and if that meant helping her study, he’d damn well do it.
“You don’t want to spend Friday night learning a menu when you can be out carousing.”
“Carousing? Didn’t you hear anything I said to you?”
“Sure, but what did that have to do with not carousing?”
He slid his hand up her thigh to her hip and scooted closer. Up close, he noticed the quickening of the pulse at the base of her neck. “I like you. I want to get to know you, Rebecca. I guess I haven’t said it enough. I’ve been saying it in my head, though.”
Her soft, full lips parted, and he leaned forward and kissed her.
“Sorry. I’ve been dying to do that all night.”
Her cheeks heated. “Me too.”
“Now maybe I can think a little clearer.” He kissed her again, longer, more sensually, basking in the taste of her and the feel of her sweet mouth against his.
He drew back, hoping the distance would ease the desire pulsing through his body. He wanted to touch and taste every inch of her, to claim her as his own, marking her with his mouth, his hands….At the same time, a different torrent of desire coursed through him—he wanted to protect and care for her. He knew it was fast, and yet he could no sooner stop the feelings from swelling inside him than he could stop making business deals for a living.
She touched her kiss-swollen lips, as if she wanted the feel of him to linger. Pierce was compelled to explain his feelings in a way he never had before.
“I’m thirty-six, Rebecca. I’ve done a lot of carousing, and I know it’s a little crazy, but I’ve never met anyone like you. I don’t have an interest in going out tonight. I want more time with you, not less.”
“But studying a menu? Talk about boring.” She pulled her knees closer to her chest, and the skirt of her dress bunched around her upper thighs.
“Well, if you do that, it won’t be boring—but we also won’t get much studying done.” He forced himself to stand and untucked his shirt to hide how that flash of skin had aroused him. “I’ll get your purse.”
When he returned, she was sitting on the edge of the couch, nervously wringing her hands. “Are you sure, Pierce? Because I feel kind of guilty. I mean, you must have better things to do than hang out with me while I study for a waitress job.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.” He handed her the purse.
She shrugged and withdrew the menu from her purse. “Okay, well, I’ll try to learn fast.” She scanned the menu as she drank her wine. She glanced at him. “Do you want to go watch television or read or something?”
He realized he was standing beside the couch staring at her. It was hard not to when she looked hot, sexy, and smart all at once.
“Actually, I have a file I need to review for an acquisition. I’ll be back in a second.” He went down the hall to his home office and printed the file he needed, and when he returned, Rebecca was sitting across the couch with her knees pulled up and a pencil tucked behind her ear.
“You look so sexy, Bec. Maybe I should just spend my time studying you.”
She laughed and slid him a coy look. “Bec? I love that. You’ll get sick of looking at me after a few minutes, so go for it.”
He sat on the couch by her feet, and she buried her toes under his thigh. Damn, he liked that as much as he liked the way Bec felt coming from his lips. She studied the menu, making notes along the margins, while he tried like hell to concentrate on the file in his lap and not to notice the way her dress had gathered at the base of her ass or how cute she looked when she crinkled her nose and closed her eyes as she studied. She didn’t say a word, but just having her there with him felt good. Every so often, she’d wiggle her toes beneath his thigh, and without any thoughts, he massaged her calf. Working beside Rebecca was nice, and something he’d never done with a woman he was interested in. A comfortable silence settled in around them, and eventually he fell into focusing on his papers.
“Okay, ready to test me?” She leaned forward and touched his shoulder.
“Already?” He glanced at the clock and was surprised that more than an hour had passed.
She handed him the menu and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Go ahead. Ask me anything.”
“Okay. Let’s see.” He scanned the menu, which wasn’t the menu that was given to customers. It was a menu that included a brief description of major ingredients for each dish, along with information about how they were prepared. There was no way she’d memorized it that quickly. There must have been fifty or more items on the menu.
“Come on,” she urged. “Just pick one. I don’t think I’ll remember them all, but I’m close.”
“Okay, the first one. Chicken cordon bleu.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s so easy.” She rattled off the meal description and preparation perfectly.
“Nice.”
She threw her arms up into the air. “Score! Ha-ha! Told you!”
Her excitement was infectious. “Pasta primavera.”
She rolled her eyes and once again aced it. She knew every step of every dish he named.
“Are you a closet cook?” Pierce asked.
“No. I just organized it in my head. You know, poultry, red meat, fish; then I knock down to spices, sauces, creams. It’s just like organizing a pantry, but it’s in my brain.”
He slid his finger down the column of her neck and along the ridge of her shoulder, touching the places that begged to be kissed. “I like that beautiful brain of yours.”
Their eyes caught, and he gently moved her legs across his lap, buried his hand beneath her hair, and brought his lips to hers. He kissed her slowly, deeply, savoring every second, every delicious stroke of her tongue. She touched his cheek, and he swallowed a groan at the simple touch.
“Wow.” It came out like a breeze. “All I needed was a smart brain and it earned me a kiss like that? You should see what I can do with spreadsheets.”
“Oh, baby, talk dirty to me.”
He took her in another kiss, disappearing into the scent of her, her sweet, delicious tenderness. She ran her fingers through his hair, kissing him hard and ravenous, then soft and subtle, notching up the heat stroke by mind-numbing stroke. When she slid onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, all those confusing signals she’d been sending him for the past twenty-four hours became clearer. He let her control the kiss so as not to misconstrue her intentions. She ran her tongue along his lower lip, then lingered on the curve of his upper lip, drawing his eyes open. Her eyes were dark, seductive, teasing, and controlling all at once, as she trapped his lower lip between her teeth and drew back, then ran her finger over the slickness she’d left behind.
Holy. Hell.
“Rebecca.” Sweet Jesus, she was as controlling as him. He arched his hips against her bottom. “Feel what you’re doing to me?”
She lowered her cheek to his and whispered, “Oh, yes, I feel it.”
He gripped her impossibly small waist as she licked his earlobe, then took it between her teeth. He groaned, despite himself, and forced himself to make sure she wasn’t just playing with him. This didn’t feel like playing.
He cupped her face and looked deeply into her eyes. “Talk to me, Bec.” He’d already claimed the nickname as his own. “I want nothing more than to flip you onto your back and make love to you until everything you’ve memorized is forgotten, replaced with thoughts of us and memories of earth-shaking orgasms that leave you craving me every second of the day.”
Every breath pulsed with anticipation as contemplation skirted across her face.
“Oh God, yes,” she said quickly.
He wrapped one powerful arm around her, and in the next breath she was beneath him, the soft cushions of her breasts pressing against his chest, her hips writhing against his, as he claimed his control with another deep kiss. Soulful sounds of surrender seeped from her lungs into his.
Pierce’s teeth grazed her lips. “I could kiss you all night long.”
Rebecca pulled his mouth back to hers, and Pierce felt the two of them spiraling together as they groped and pawed for more. He kissed her graceful neck, her shoulders, and ran his hands up her ribs. One gentle tug of her strapless dress freed her breasts. Two perfect mounds that he had to have.
“Sweet Jesus, Bec. You’re too magnificent for words. Beautiful is too small a word; lovely is too soft. You’re…” He raked his tongue over her nipple, feeling her body shudder beneath him. “Sinfully exquisite.”
He filled his palm with one breast, brushing his thumb over her nipple again and again as he licked and sucked and took his fill of the other. Rebecca’s breaths came fast and hitched as she fumbled with his shirt buttons. Pierce made quick work of divesting himself of his shirt, then drew her dress over her head and tossed it aside. She lay beneath him in a lacy white thong he wanted to tear off with his teeth, her body was more glorious than he could have imagined. She traced the dragon tattoo that snaked over his shoulder and around the top of his biceps and reached for him. He took hold of her rounded hip.