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It took a lot to make Rowan lose her cool, but she was getting there. She sipped at her water and set it carefully on the bar-top while she tried to stem the angry tirade of words that wanted to spew forth.
‘If you want to stop working for Section, then stop.’ She kept her voice level and her gaze steady. Good job, Rowan. ‘Believe me when I say that whoring myself out to you—or anyone else—in order to gain power is not on my list of things to do. If I want more power I’ll damn well go after it on my own, thank you.’
Okay, now she was getting snappy.
‘You have vastly underestimated my self-respect.’
‘You’re sexy when you’re riled.’ Jared smiled again, his big body relaxing infinitesimally.
She speared him with her meanest glare. ‘No. You don’t get a free pass on this. You believed them. You thought I was in on it.’
‘I never said that.’ His mouth hardened. ‘I told you what they said and then I told you what I was thinking. There’s a difference.’
‘And now you know what I think.’
‘Exactly.’ He lifted his glass and drained it. When his voice came again it was raspy. ‘I still want to know you, Ro. It feels good to explore your boundaries.’
A knock sounded on the door, accompanied by a softly spoken ‘Room Service …’
He crossed to the door and let in a man and a woman in black and white service uniform. Rowan watched in muddled silence as the two attendants set silver-domed serving trays on the table before crossing to the sideboard and opening it to reveal everything a well-dressed dinner table would ever need. Thirty seconds, tops, and the table had been expertly set for two and a candelabra lit.
‘Your main meals will be with you in fifteen minutes,’ the older man informed them with a smile, and then left.
‘You can leave any time,’ Jared offered quietly, but Rowan took a steadying breath, crossed to the table and took a seat instead.
‘I’m hungry. I need to eat and relax and I like your company. Will you join me?’
‘And make small talk?’
‘You could always try telling me about yourself,’ she murmured as he took the seat opposite, candlelight and shadows making him even more beautiful.
‘When I was eight I wanted to be a submariner,’ he said as he reached for the bread. ‘When I die I want to be fed to the fishes.’
‘Do you think about dying a lot?’
‘I think about surviving more.’ He broke his bread, put it in his mouth and chewed.
‘When I was eight I wanted to be a foreign correspondent news reporter,’ she offered.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. I grew up an only child in a very serious household where news ran twenty-four-seven. Foreign correspondents were my rock stars. I guess you had to be there.’
‘Chances are I wouldn’t have stayed there. I like being outdoors—anything to do with water and swimming in the rain.’
‘Is this a song?’
‘Feel free to add your own verse,’ he offered generously.
‘I like scalding hot showers, with multiple shower heads.’
‘Hedonist.’
Their conversation continued, sporadic and easy, as they ate their way through plates of truly excellent appetisers.
The fact that Jared wanted to be open and honest with Rowan didn’t mean that it came effortlessly to him. It had been years since he’d last shared pieces of himself with anyone, even if she did make it easy for him.
And then their main meals arrived, and he tried not to let the silence ratchet up his tension again. Every scrape of cutlery on a plate fed his senses. Every taste and touch—every glance—branded straight through his skin to enflame the beast beneath.
When she pushed her plate aside at the end of the meal and leaned back in her chair to study him he was hard-pressed not to start trembling, his need to reach out and take was so big.
‘Ro …’
He wished his voice worked better, but all he could manage was a gravel-scrape across the vowel. He needed to lose himself in sensation, sink so deeply into it that there was no thought for anything but pleasure, no thought of anything but sex. No room for memories, no way to screw up.
‘How do you like your sex?’
And she looked at him with those all-seeing eyes and just knew where he was going with this.
‘Soft and sweet not really going to cut it for you?’ she asked.
‘No. And I don’t want to break anything. You, especially.’
‘I’m hungry,’ she murmured. ‘It’s been a while for me. If we do this, I don’t mind getting a little reckless.’
She was saying all the right words, and her delivery was malt-whisky-smooth. Then again, she’d read his psych report.
