Liam shrugged, softened his gaze. “It wasn’t a secret,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Then you’ll introduce me at the Habitat for Humanity ceremony?” Delancy prodded.
Liam kept his eyes on Katie. It was the only way he could hold his contempt for the man in check. “All right.”
What was it about Katie Winfield that twisted his insides into knots? Just the act of tracking the snowy skin between her pear-studded earlobes and slender collarbone made Liam forget everything except pressing his lips to that vulnerable spot.
“It’s settled, then.” Delancy dusted his palms together. “The ribbon-cutting ceremony is on the twentieth at noon. Make sure to mark your calendar.”
“I won’t forget.” Liam looked back at Delancy, silently acknowledging that he’d just agreed to do a favor for the creep. Tension locked his neck muscles. But then it occurred to him that the ceremony-complete with media coverage-was the prime opportunity and the perfect venue to exact his revenge upon Delancy.
The maid reappeared to clear the soup bowls and to ask if anyone needed fresh drinks.
“Could I have another whiskey, please?” Liam asked. It was the only way he was going to make it through this damnable dinner.
Katie, Liam noted, missed nothing. He could see it in her eyes and the way she held herself with a calm stillness. She might be young, but in some ways she was much more worldly than him.
She put a smile on her face and lavishly praised the Caesar salad that was served as their second course.
By the end of the meal, Katie had managed to defuse any tension running through the room, although there was still plenty of tension coursing inside Liam that even two tumblers of the finest whiskey in the world could not stop.
“It was so interesting to meet you,” Sutton said as she ushered her guests toward the front door. She took Liam’s hand in hers and squeezed it. “I’m so looking forward to the Habitat for Humanity ceremony.”
After a round of goodbyes with everyone who was still there, Katie took Liam firmly by the elbow and escorted him out the front door. The valet brought his car around and handed Liam the keys.
But as he reached for the door, Katie closed her hand around his.
“Give me your keys,” she demanded, and held out her palm. “You’ve had too much to drink and I’m driving you home.”
“You could take me back to your place and have your way with me.” He winked.
She wrinkled her nose. “Given the circumstances, I’ll pass. Keys, please.”
“Have you ever driven a Lamborghini?”
“No, but it can’t be that hard.”
He didn’t want to give up control, but the determined set to her chin told him she was right. He shouldn’t be driving. Not so much from the whiskey, but more from the distracted edginess lingering inside him. The last thing the streets of Boston needed was one more case of road rage.
“This point is nonnegotiable.” She looked him in the face, a combination of concern, disappointment and resolve written in the depths of her blue eyes. “Give me your keys, Liam, or I’m calling the cops.”
He laughed at her. She looked so fierce.
“I’m not kidding.”
“When you put it like that, what choice do I have?”
“Precisely.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “But let this serve as a warning. You wreck my car and you’ll live to regret it, Winfield,” he said before handing over his car keys and opening the driver-side door for her.
10
KATIE’S FOREARM burned from the brush of Liam’s knuckles as he closed the car door. Her breath hung as she watched him hurry around to the passenger side and then climb in beside her. It took him a couple of seconds of fumbling before he had his seat belt locked securely in place.
She stuck the key in the ignition and the Lamborghini’s powerful engine rumbled to life. The leather seats wrapped around her. She reached over and snapped on the radio. Classical music poured from the stereo speakers. Mozart, she recognized. One of his more gallopy tunes.
“It’s a manual,” Liam said. “Six-speed. You know how to handle a stick?”
She lowered her lashes, slanted him a surreptitious look. “I know my way around a gearshift.”
A whiskey-laced smile languidly curled his lips. “What about a five-hundred-horsepower, ten-cylinder big block engine? Know how to handle one of those?”
“You tell me after the ride.”
“You know these babies go from zero to sixty in four seconds.”
Katie licked her lips. “That’s a lot of thrust.”
“It is.”
“Impressive,” she said. “But there is something to be said for a more leisurely ascent.”
“Top speed is a hundred-and-ninety-two miles an hour.” She could hear the smile in his tone.
“You’ve been holding out on me, James.”
“How’s that?”
“Pretending that you’re staid Mister Workaholic without an adventuresome bone in his body, but then you’re driving a work of art like this.” She patted the leather dashboard. “There’s danger lurking in your soul. You’ve been covering it up.”
“You think so?”
“I know so, and I intend on rocking your world.”
“You already have,” he said. “So don’t rock my car.”
She laughed and put the Lamborghini in Drive. Her nipples tightened, part excitement, part fear. She was glad he could only see her profile, glad the night was dark. But even as she told herself this, she couldn’t help turning her head for a better look at him.
His shoulders were angled toward her, his gaze beaded on her. The glow from the dashboard light threw shadows over his angular jaw. His scent heightened her awareness. Expensive whiskey, combined with woodsy cologne and the rich smell of leather. Her father used to have a similar fragrance-manly, grounded, trustworthy.
Liam was looking at her with a kind of wonder.
In the dimness, his face appeared craggier, more rugged than in light. His thick dark hair stood up slightly in the back, an errant lock refusing to stay down. The look in his eyes changed. And along with it the intensity of the tugging sensation in her belly increased. There was a flicker of something golden in his eyes, something wild and unexpected.
The form of his lips changed, his posture, the slant of his eyebrows. He was someone else entirely. Bachelor of the year no more, this man was darker. He’d seen things, dark things. She thought of his childhood brush with street gangs and her heart tweaked.
Katie was thankful for the console that kept their thighs from touching. Otherwise, she doubted she could have kept all four tires on the road.
Her fingers gripped the smooth ball of the gearshift head and slipped it into the next gear as they left the driveway and merged onto the street.
LIAM SAT beside Katie, his pulse pumping faster than the Lamborghini’s heated pistons. He didn’t like being in the passenger seat at the mercy of her driving skills, out of control of his own vehicle. He wished he could edge her aside and slip behind the wheel, but she was right. He’d had too much to drink and his reaction time wasn’t what it should be.
Neither were his cognitive skills, because he found himself thinking thoughts that were better left suppressed. Enticing, dangerous thoughts about what it would feel like to ride in the car beside her every day for the rest of his life.
“You wanna see how I handle big boys’ toys?” She challenged and, without waiting for his reply, hit the freeway doing seventy.
She tossed her head like a high-spirited filly. Her hair fell forward, the tips of the light blond strands grazing the top of her cleavage. She reached up to slide a lock of hair behind one pearl-studded ear.
Liam felt the rhythm of her movements rush straight through his stomach and into his groin. Something about the way she handled the quivering thrust of his V10 engine inflamed him. She was like a luxury sports car herself, with fine rounded curves and bosoms protruding like headlights.