She gathered her things and brushed the bulge in his pants as she walked past him through the door. He sucked in a shuddery breath but didn’t say anything. The butterfly had clearly produced results, but not the one she’d envisioned.
She needed to up her game even more. But how?
Casa di Luigi was the height of fine dining, with white-on-black tablecloths, more silverware at each place than she set for a family of four and endless numbers of servers who waited on them. Kris ordered red wine, and when it came, he watched her over the wineglass rim with a shadowy, hooded expression as he drank.
Muted clinks and murmurs of conversation floated around them, but they weren’t talking. Instead, a nonverbal swirl of innuendo crackled between them.
He set his glass on the table without breaking eye contact and picked up her hand. “Are you having a good time?”
“The best. This is a great restaurant.”
“Tell me more about your book,” he said out of nowhere. “What was it called?”
“Which one? Embrace the Rogue?”
“The one with Lord Raven. What’s it about?”
“Lord Ravenwood.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know what it’s about?”
“I want to talk about something that interests you.”
She shrugged. “It’s about a duke who rescues a lady from a runaway carriage and it’s love at first sight. Except he’s...what?”
“That’s what it’s about?”
“What did you think it was? A more explicit, unillustrated version of the Kama Sutra?”
Kris choked on a sip of wine and took his time recovering. “What do you know about the Kama Sutra?”
“It’s a book, isn’t it?” She stared at him with a ghost of a smile. He’d started tracing her knuckles restlessly, but his eyes were fixed on her face. “Why, have you read it?”
“I have.”
The expectation sizzling through the air heightened. He brought her hand to his lips and lightly grazed the tips of her fingers. The shock traveled up her arm like a deluge swelling over the banks of the Rio Grande.
Then he said, “I can’t figure you out.”
“At last, my dastardly plan to be a woman of mystery has been fulfilled.” She could hardly keep her attention on the conversation as he nibbled her index finger. “Why does it seem like my fingers are always in your mouth?”
“Because I like the taste of you, and we’re in public. This is the best I can do.”
She closed her eyes against the rush of need spiraling through her abdomen. If he kept that up, she wouldn’t be doing a whole lot of withholding much longer.
Time to go on the offensive. He needed to make a move and do it soon or she would be forced to end this evening in a chaste kiss good-night at nine o’clock.
“So, about the Kama Sutra,” she said and leaned forward. The edge of the table shoved her bra down a centimeter. What little it had covered originally had already been pornographic. “Which one is your favorite?”
“Position?” His hand trembled and he pointedly kept his eyes on her face.
She gave him a look. “Yes, Sherlock. Position.”
A strangled sound launched from his throat. “Seriously? It’s not enough that I can’t erase the vivid picture in my head of what’s underneath that dress?”
“You started it with the tasting me in public,” she whispered in deference to the elderly couple at the next table.
Kris waved the beleaguered waiter away and tightened his grip on her hand. “Fine. You go first. What’s yours?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried them all yet.” She lifted a brow. “I’m in the market for a guinea pig actually.”
His breath hissed out and he let go of her hand. “This is not working.”
Then he made a show of examining his flatware. She folded her hands into her lap. Obviously she shouldn’t assume she could handle Kristian Demetrious.
“VJ,” he said, eyes still on the tines of the fork flipping between his first two fingers. “Help me out. This is your birthday present. A nice dinner. Dancing later. I’m following the stages. And I’m asking you nicely to stop talking about sex so we can have the romantic evening I’ve planned. Would you like to order dinner now?”
Following the stages? Her heart squeezed. So that’s why he’d asked about Embrace the Rogue. “No. I really don’t want dinner.”
“What would you like to do, then? I’m taking you dancing at a place that plays country music. We can go there now if you want and eat later.”
Warmth spread through her chest. He remembered what kind of music she liked and was willing to endure it for a few hours. For her. Kris had been trying to show her she’d infiltrated his disbelief in romance. It was a huge move, and she’d almost missed it because it hadn’t taken the form she’d expected.