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When the waitress came, he convinced her to bring them a tray of small samples for the beers. “With labels,” he said, slipping a folded hundred into her hand. “I know it’s a hassle, but we’d really be grateful.”
“How did you know I wanted to do that?” Rebecca asked.
“Just a guess,” he said, pleased again. “Chefs like to taste things, don’t they?”
“They do,” she said, pleased with him as well.
By the sixth tasting sample, Rebecca’s neck unkinked.
“So . . .” Zane said on a teasing note. “What’s the story about that dress?”
“Oh God.”
“I told you I didn’t mind but, seriously, only one? What do you wear on dates? And don’t tell me you never go, because you’re too pretty.”
“I guess I don’t go on date-y dates.”
Zane put his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand. He was silently—and grinningly—inviting her to go on.
“Oh fine. I feel most comfortable in work clothes. My closet is full of black trousers and button-up white shirts.”
She turned the shot glass she was currently sampling from in a circle. Zane reached lazily out and covered her hand with his. His touch stilled more than her fingers. She could actually feel her pulse slow. “Why do you feel most comfortable in work clothes?”
“You don’t really want to know that.”
“Yes I do.” His thumb rubbed the side of hers, stirring hot sensations his knowing eyes seemed completely aware of. Rebecca tensed her thighs. “Does it have to do with raising your brothers?”
She sat back but left her hand where it was, under his. “Work didn’t just save us,” she admitted. “It saved me. I’d lost my mom. My dad had walked out.” She grimaced, but let the memory go. “I needed something to keep me from constantly worrying. I could cook, and restaurants aren’t always fussy about who they hire. I made money to cover bills, and I found a calling. Putting on my chef’s whites is my idea of dress up.”
He took that in, his blue eyes steady and quiet.
“Tell me about you,” she said.
The waitress returned with their loaded burgers. They were delicious, charred and juicy and rare on the inside. Good though they were, Rebecca wasn’t going to let a little thing like eating get him off the hook.
“Tell me about you,” she insisted.
“That’s a long and unsavory tale.”
“So?” she said around a bite of red meat.
He thought for a moment. He was such a charmer, he must have a standard answer, one that would relay amusing and evasive truths. Rebecca hoped that wasn’t the answer she’d get. He set down his burger and faced her.
“My father used to beat me.”
That she wasn’t expecting. “Like . . . as a regular thing?”
“Once a week, I’d say. Depending on how much he was drinking and if I ‘made’ him lose his temper. Starting when I was ten or so.”
“And your Mom?”
“She wasn’t in the picture. She ran off with the Mattress King, ironically enough.”
“The Mattress King?”
“He owned a warehouse store in Trenton. Wore a bad toupee and ran loud commercials on late night TV. We lived in a small town. My father didn’t much like having been thrown over for a bad joke.”
“Wow,” Rebecca said, picking up her food again.
Zane did as well, though she doubted he tasted it before he swallowed. “I don’t talk to him anymore. When Trey and I left for college, I never looked back again.”
“That was probably smart,” she said, though she knew people did look back—whether they wanted to or not.
He nodded and looked down. He didn’t seem like a mogul. He just seemed like a person. Rebecca wondered if she should touch him the way he had her. Giving in to the impulse, she rubbed his strong-boned wrist. He didn’t pull away.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I had Trey to get me through. We had each other.”
Something in his voice said this hadn’t been an ordinary friendship.
“You two are close.”
“Yes,” he said and lifted his gaze to hers.
She couldn’t read what was behind it but sensed she was seeing a side of him he didn’t show most people. How did souls connect? People talked about it in books: The eyes were the window to and all that. Pete and Charlie were part of her, but other folks were a mystery. Was Zane’s soul talking to hers as he stared at her? Did hers understand the secrets that weren’t coming out his mouth?
Okay, she told herself. You’ve had too much beer.
Maybe he thought so too. He broke the tension with a gentle but charming smile. “This is too serious. I should be asking you your favorite movie or where you wish you could go on vacation.”
“To work,” she not-quite-joked. “Obviously.”
“You could cook your way around Europe,” he suggested in the same vein.
“Mm,” she said. “That would be fabulous.”
~
Rebecca lived in a single family two-story Victorian. The residence wouldn’t have been fancy even when it was new, but Zane supposed it had character. When he picked her up, she’d explained her brothers’ basement apartment plan. Zane had assured her the strategy wasn’t stupid, and that she’d have no trouble learning how to be a landlord.
“You’re a boss already,” he’d said. “You’re used to keeping on top of things.”
The dumpster hulking in her front yard was less obvious in the dark. As he parked his old silver convertible in her driveway, Zane reminded himself she had a lot of pressures on her: new job, changing home, boys becoming more independent and expecting her to let them. For a person as tightly wound as Rebecca, this wouldn’t be easy. She might not be in the mood to hop into bed with him.
This, needless to say, wasn’t a thought he was used to having about women.
Overall, tonight had left him off kilter. He wondered why he’d told her about his father hitting him. Because she was different than his usual arm candy? Because her brothers had opened a window onto her equally non picket-fence childhood?
Unable to answer, he shut off the engine. By this point, he was half-hard, though he knew better than to look too eager to be invited in. He didn’t want to push Rebecca past her comfort zone. Hell, maybe he didn’t want to push himself. He was seriously attracted to her, more than he’d been to any woman recently.
Ignoring the whiff of danger, he turned in his seat and looked at her. She was sitting forward with her knees together, her thumbnail stuck between her teeth again. The nervous gesture shouldn’t have struck him as so endearing. The compulsion to put her at her ease was strong. One thing he knew for sure: he didn’t want the night to be over yet.
“You know,” he said, his wrist draped over the steering wheel. “I think when Trey and I were students, we lived less than half a mile from here.”
She twisted to face him. The Mercedes’ top was down and the nearest streetlamp lit her fine features. “Really? We could have met and not known it?”
This seemed to intrigue her. Smiling and oddly happy, he reached to brush a pixie wisp from her smooth cheekbone. “I’m just glad we’ve met now.”
“Oh you’re full of it,” she said good-naturedly. “A guy like you could date a different woman every night of the week if you wanted to.”
“A guy like me.”
“You know: gorgeous, successful, in command of himself.”
He liked her description. Enjoying the feel of her downy cheek, he continued stroking his finger over it. “Why can’t I want to date you?”
“Because I’m weird.”
“Maybe I like weird.”
She smiled, her shoulders visibly relaxing. How did she get through every day so tensed up?
“You like cute-weird,” she corrected, teasing him.
“I’m glad your self esteem is sufficient to admit you qualify.”
She laid her adorable blonde head on the seat back, the change in position causing his hand to cup her ear. She might as well have groped his cock. His half hard-on lengthened inside his trousers, swiftly stiffening all the way.
“I had a nice time tonight,” she said. “I liked talking to you.”
“Me too.” He was surprised how much he meant it, and how strongly the need to get inside her surged up in him.
“Will you kiss me good night?” she asked. Her manner wasn’t quite shy, but it wasn’t bold either—as if she wasn’t certain he’d want to.
Zane wanted to kiss her, and a hell of a lot more besides. Chest rumbling with a growl he didn’t mean to utter, he slid as far over as the small car required. She moved toward him simultaneously, her own cry as their lips met completely flattering.
