Rox grinned. Oh, yeah. New Mexican food, especially made with chiles from Hatch, was delicious, but these European guys had better be able to tolerate heat.
She told them. "I'll drive home. I'm a nice Southern girl, so I'm used to eating spicy food with nothing more than sweet tea. But you guys will want beer or margaritas to wash it down with, and maybe ice cream after supper."
Afterward, they stumbled out of the restaurant, laughing. Maxence and Arthur were wiping the sweat off their faces, cracking up, while Rox tossed the car keys in the air and caught them, the early evening sunlight sparkling on the metal. Cash pressed his hand to the small of her back, just touching her.
She looked up into his eyes, and he smiled down at her, happy crinkles appearing around his bright green eyes.
He leaned against the side of the SUV, and his shoulders drooped.
Arthur asked, "Where are we off to now? Theater? Nightclub? Some sordid entertainment that I dare not mention in front of a lady?"
Rox watched Cash, and his exhausted glance at her told her all that she needed to know. She said, "It's Sunday night. What the heck is going to be open on a Sunday night?"
"Oh, there's always entertainment, if you know whom to ask," Arthur said.
Cash glanced at her, his hands in his pockets, the picture of unwilling exhaustion. He looked like that time in Rome when they'd been double-teaming two clients on one trip and had meetings and social events for forty-two hours straight. After they had left one group's hotel room at five in the morning, still stumbling from grappa shots, they had showered and met the other team at six for a breakfast negotiation. On the plane home, they had both crashed in their respective first-class pods, two days of drunk finally catching up with them.
"Guys, I'm really tired," she said. "Cash and I have a big day tomorrow and an important meeting that we need to prepare for. I think I need to call it a night."
Arthur groaned, but he was watching Cash from the corners of his eyes, too. The yellow streetlights in the parking lot reflected in his eyes, making them colorless and oddly glass-like. "Are you going to see Rox back to the house, then, so that you can prepare for your client meeting tomorrow?"
Cash said, "I'm sure she would be perfectly safe, but I feel like I should."
Arthur pressed the screen of his phone and held it to his ear. While he waited, he said, "We'll find our own way home, then. See you two tomorrow morning."
BACK TO THE HACIENDA
Once Rox and Cash were belted into the SUV, she drove them back to the foothills and Cash's house. He reclined the seat a little, resting.
"This has been too much for you, hasn't it?" she asked.
"I'm fine," he said, "or I will be fine. Those lacerations on my liver must have reduced my tolerance for alcohol."
He had been chugging bottles of wine every night and never shown more than an occasional giggle and a little sleepiness. "Are you still taking any of the painkillers?"
"I tapered off of them while I was still in hospital."
"Just tired?"
He nodded. "Not too tired, mind you."
"For what?"
A trace of a smiled curved his lips. "I thought they would never get out of my damn house."
"They just got here yesterday morning."
"Yet it seems like forever."
Rox let him sleep through the drive home.
When she turned the corner to coast down the driveway to his house, a flash on one of the mountains distracted her. She glanced up at the sun-drenched hills as the SUV rolled around the curving driveway.
A person stood in the glare, their hands cupped near their face.
A silver glare flashed through the air again, a lens flare reflected from the sun setting into the ocean on the opposite side of the house.
Someone was glassing them, watching them pull into the garage.
Wasn't the development's security perimeter supposed to prevent things just like this?
She should ask Cash about that.
When they got inside the garage and the door was secured behind them, she poked him gently on the shoulder. "Work-husband, it's time to get up. We're home."
He chuckled as he opened his eyes. "Good."
"Hey, have you ever had a problem with-"
Cash grabbed her hand, the one she had been poking him with, and pulled her over the console in the middle. When Rox saw what was happening, she pushed off the steering wheel and scrambled over the seat, landing in his lap. She spun, straddled his thighs, and kissed him hard, pressing him back against the seat.
He stroked her lips with his, sucking gently, but he slid his fingers around the back of her neck. His other arm squeezed her waist. The bandage on his cheek was rough against her skin.
They necked in the car for a few minutes, but then Cash pushed her back. His lips had turned pink from her kissing him, but not from lipstick. She had eaten all her lipstick with the chips and salsa.
He whispered, his voice low and husky, "Not here. Our first time was hot and dirty because I wanted you right there, that moment. I couldn't keep my hands off you one moment longer, not after all these years, and I wanted to make sure you came hard. This time, I want to take my time. I want you to feel me. Let's go inside."
His words made Rox's head spin.
Their first time had been hot and dirty.
Cash had wanted to make sure that she came hard.
This time, he wanted to take his time.
Feel me.
Her breath was rough in her chest.
She kissed him again, holding his face in her hands, desperate to taste him.
Cash moved his mouth on hers again, but he slowed her, made her pause, and then set her back. "Inside."
She nodded, her hair flipping around her face, but her hands didn't move off his broad shoulders.
"Come on." He opened the SUV's door beside her, and cool air rushed in, brushing her arms. "Inside."
Rox swung her leg back like she was dismounting a horse and stumbled off of his lap, catching herself on the side of her own car parked beside his in the garage.
Cash stepped out and slapped the door behind himself to close it. He looked down at her half-sprawled on the hood of her car, and his lips curved in a sultry half-smile. "Someday, lieveke. Just like that. But not tonight."
"Wha-at?" She wasn't thinking straight.
He stepped toward her and turned her hips, pressing her face-down onto the cool metal of the hood of her car. He grabbed her wrists, pulling them behind her back, and pressed his hips against her ass.
Near her ear, he whispered, "Someday, I will take you bent over your car like this, but not tonight."
His words were almost sinister, but not quite. Instead, they trailed seductively over her skin with his breath on the back of her neck, a promise.
"Ah, lieveke." He moved her hair aside and pressed his lips to the top of her spine. "Every time I look at you, all I can think of is all the ways I want to have you."
He stepped back and let her push herself up. Her car's hood was cold under her palms. "What does that mean?"
"You know very well what that means."
"No, that other word. Lee-veh-kuh."
"Lieveke. It means ‘little sweet one.' English words feel wrong to me for that."
Crazy lust was still fogging her brain. On the hood of her car. She was never going to look at her car the same way again. "For what?"
Cash stepped toward her again and wrapped his arms around her. He tilted his head to the side. "Love."
"But, we haven't even had a real date, and we've only screwed hot and dirty-" hot and dirty, and her breath was still too fast. She swallowed hard in order to finish her sentence. "-One time."
"But we've been friends for years," Cash said. "I still can't decide whether to be angry with you for lying to me about being married, but you bought the rings before you had even properly met me."
He had probably screwed other women over the hoods of their cars, probably a lot of them, and then called them lieveke. "Your reputation preceded you. A lot."
"Is it that bad?"
She nodded. "It pushed some buttons."
"Let's talk about it later." He smoothed one hand down over her ass, slid his arm under her knees, and lifted her in his arms.
"Cash! You shouldn't! Your stitches or something!"
"I'm healed. I've been bench-pressing more than you weigh for a week."
"How do you know how much I weigh!" A little too much sharpness crept in there, but damn.
He curled her closer to his chest. "Estimating."
"Well, all right, then."