“You’re not looking for. ”
“No trouble,” Iestyn repeated. “We just came in for something to eat.”
The man jerked his chin in Lara’s direction. “What about her?”
“She’s with me,” Iestyn said firmly, flatly. “Why don’t you move on so this nice lady can take our order.”
The man in the red bandanna loomed over their table, exuding menace and testosterone. Lara tensed. Beneath the bacon and onions, something simmered. Not a smel. An absence of scent and warmth, of light and life. It pressed her chest like a lack of air, muffled her senses like a hood.
For a moment she could not breathe.
The family in the next booth col ected themselves and left, the ten-year-old dragging his feet, the mother clutching the toddler in her arms.
Iestyn sat perfectly stil, doing nothing, everything about him open and relaxed, his face, his voice, his posture. Mr. No Problem. Except she knew him wel enough now to see the muscle ticking beside his mouth, to feel the coiled tension in his long, lean body.
Maybe the man in the red bandanna felt it, too. Because after three. four. five agonizing heartbeats, he turned away.
“Have some water,” Iestyn said.
She blinked at him.
He pushed a sweating glass across the table. “Drink some damn water. You look ready to pass out.”
His blunt command was easier to bear than sympathy would have been.
She drank and felt the muscles of her throat relax.
“You’re taking care of me again.”
A corner of his mouth quirked up. “As much as you’l let me.
What do you want?”
“Whatever you want,” he’d said to her last night.
“What can I do for you this morning?”
Her face burned. She dropped her gaze to the straw lying on the table. Absently, she picked it up, rol ing it between her fingers. “I just ask, and you’l give it to me?”
“If it’s on the menu.”
The waitress swept in to take her tip and their order.
When she had left, Lara said, “No, I meant. That’s what you said last night. ‘Whatever feels good to you.’ ”
Iestyn sipped his coffee, watching her over the rim. “So?”
“So.” Her throat felt dry. “I just wondered how far you’re prepared to go to make me feel better. Or do I already know the answer?”
He set down his mug with a clunk. “You think last night was.
what, a pity fuck? You think I got it up because you were there and I felt sorry for you?”
She shredded the straw’s paper wrapper, unable to meet his eyes. “It occurred to me I didn’t give you much choice.”
“Christ. I was trying to be nice.”
She twisted the shreds of paper into little pel ets, dropping them into the butter dish. “Exactly.”
“No. Not exactly. Not at al.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Look, last night you needed somebody. Last night, I wanted you. One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”
Lara sat stiffly as the waitress returned with their food, pancakes, eggs, and bacon for him, English muffin and orange juice for her.
Her heart beat a little faster. “Last night, I wanted you. ”
Was it possible he was sincere?
“I didn’t mean to insult you,” she said when the woman had gone.
“You can’t insult me,” Iestyn said. “Hel, I’ve slept with women for less reason before. But give yourself a little credit.”
“Credit for what? Throwing myself at you?”
“For putting yourself out there. For doing the right thing. For being smart and determined and loyal and brave.
And hot,” he added. “You are incredibly hot. And you let me have sex with you, which makes you perfect.”
Her laughter gurgled out before she could stop it.
He grinned. Their eyes locked. A warm jolt of energy shot clear down to her toes and settled around her heart.
“Even when sex isn’t on the menu, you’re damn near perfect,” he said softly.
She reached blindly for her English muffin, yearning and confused because he was stil giving her what she wanted, tel ing her what she wanted to hear, and even though he was smiling, teasing with her, his eyes were deep and earnest, like he almost believed what he was saying, and for a moment— oh, God—he made her want to believe it, too.
He sat across from her, eating pancakes as calmly as if he hadn’t just electrified her emotions and shorted her brain.
She was dimly aware of stools scraping and people moving behind her. The bel over the door jangled.
She watched his hands on his knife and fork, a sailor’s hands, lean and brown and strong, and remembered him touching her breasts with exquisite gentleness, gripping her hips to help her find her rhythm as they moved together.
Her head swam. Her heart pounded in her chest as if she’d run a mile. She was stunned by her reaction, unnerved by her vulnerability.
If she was not careful, he could break her heart.
“You have butter.”
Disconcerted, she stared at the ruins of the butter plate, decorated with paper confetti. “Sorry. Did you want some?”
His smile was warm and slow. “You have butter. ” He angled his head, studying her face. “Here.”
He reached a hand across the table. His thumb traced the corner of her mouth, lingering on her bottom lip. The pad of his thumb was rough and tasted pleasingly of salt.
She sucked it into her mouth.
He inhaled sharply. His gaze darkened and dropped to the front of her T-shirt, where her nipples peaked against the soft cotton. “And there.”
She glanced down, and yes, okay, there was a tiny crumb glistening with butter on the front of her shirt.
She looked up to meet his eyes, black as midnight, brilliant as suns. The heat in them sucked al the oxygen from the room and left her light-headed.
“Want me to take care of that for you?” he offered, his voice husky.
Yes.
She was dry-mouthed, dizzy with excitement. “No.”
Touch me.
He smiled again crookedly. “You keep looking at me like that, babe, we won’t need to have sex to cal in trouble.”
Her hands tightened on her napkin. Skies. He was right.
She tamped down the excitement rising in her blood, the arousal humming like static along her skin. She needed to think.
“I’m going out to the Jeep,” she said. “To get a clean shirt.”
“I’l go with you.”
She shook her head decisively. She needed perspective.
Distance. She couldn’t think when he was near. “I’l be fine.
I’l only be a minute.”
He scanned the diner and then her face. Nodded slowly.
“If that’s what you want. I’l settle up.”
She slid out of the booth, striding past the now-empty counter, her heart pounding as if she were running away.
Which, of course, she was.
She shoved open the door, disturbing the birds that had now settled onto the parking lot. She rounded the side of the building, passed the truck. A crow flapped from the Jeep’s rol bar to the ground, cocking its head to watch her.
Creepy thing.
But she had more on her mind than a bunch of stupid birds.
The bags were in back, behind the driver’s seat. She sidled between the Jeep and the big eighteen-wheeler, shivering in the truck’s shadow. An odd, stale quiet stole over her. Like walking into a dead zone, like being shut into a closet. Leaning into the open door of the Jeep, she snatched the plastic Walmart bag from the back. Turned.