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She spread her arms in graceful offering. ‘Feel free to do so now; I won’t hold it against you.’
‘Not even if I beg?’ As a laugh gurgled in her throat his eyes flicked across to the elevated dining area, where Pierre was placing a bottle of Krug champagne into a silver ice-bucket on the table, next to a covered chafing dish. He drained his glass and set it down. ‘It looks as if Pierre has served up. Shall we?’
Two elegant place-settings were angled next to each other at the head of the oval table; the overhead down-lights were dimmed, and the dancing flame of a slender candle was dully reflected in the burnished surface of the wood. A sheaf of the palest pink roses in a fan-shaped hand-blown vase complemented the oval white place-mats gleaming with silver and crystal.
Adam politely said something about washing his hands, and followed Pierre briefly into the kitchen. When he returned Regan was still standing behind the chair at the head of the oval table, her hands balled by her sides, her face mantled with a light flush that made him eye her thoughtfully. As he approached she drew back the chair and invited him to be seated with a tilt of her head.
‘Usurping my gentlemanly duties?’ he murmured, accepting the courtesy with a lazy smile, and Regan picked up the white damask napkin from beside his plate and snapped out the starched folds to drape it across his lap. ‘When I told Pierre that we wouldn’t need him for the rest of the evening, I envisaged that I would be waiting on you,’ he added.
‘I thought you might feel in the mood to be pampered,’ said Regan, unfolding her fist and casually laying another item on top of his napkin.
He glanced down, and she was elated to see the ripple of shock glaze his features. His eyelids drooped and the hard jaw slackened and it was several exhilarating heartbeats before he regained sufficient mastery of his expression to hike up a mocking eyebrow.
‘Misplaced something, Eve?’ He lifted the wisp of black lace above the level of the table, dangling it from his crooked finger.
‘Not at all,’ she drawled. His eyes were irresistibly drawn to the outline of her hips and she made the most of it, sliding her bottom onto the padded chair with provocative slowness and squirming to make herself comfortable.
‘Tease!’ His soft accusation was redolent with masculine appreciation as he watched the performance.
Her dress slid against her bare skin and the slight coolness between her legs made her feel dangerously vulnerable, especially when her knee brushed his under the table. She pressed her quivering thighs together, excited by her daring. It felt so good to be so thoroughly bad that she wondered why she hadn’t tried it years ago.
He danced the swatch of lace on his crooked finger. ‘Then what’s this? Some form of nouvelle cuisine appetiser designed to stimulate my jaded palate?’
It was her turn to look glazed as he dropped the skimpy black panties onto his gold-rimmed white plate and picked up his fork to lightly stir the frothy lace.
‘I must admit, they do look good enough to eat.’ He twirled the fork into the silky fabric, winding it up as if it was an exotic form of pasta.
‘Adam—no!’ she squeaked, clapping her hands to her mouth to contain her appalled laughter. She hadn’t expected such an obvious sophisticate to possess such a mischievous sense of humour.
He paused, looking wickedly crestfallen. ‘You don’t wear edible panties?’ he asked.
She had seen them in novelty gift shops and thought them embarrassingly tacky. ‘Certainly not!’
Her scandalised denial made his mouth twitch. ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to settle for whatever Pierre has rustled up,’ he said, calmly plucking the panties off his fork and tucking them casually into his breast pocket. He lifted the domed lid of the chafing dish to reveal a fragrant pile of steaming stir-fried vegetables burnished with a sesame-flecked sauce. ‘Will you have some?’
Regan tore her eyes away from the lace frothing out of his pocket. ‘No, I don’t think so…’ She watched him heap a generous serving of the vegetables onto his plate. ‘Are you a vegetarian?’
He shook his head as he poured Krug into two long-stemmed glasses of Edinburgh lead-crystal. ‘I asked Pierre to prepare something that would digest easily. I know a meal is considered the conventional prelude to seduction, but I don’t think one should make love on an overly full stomach. Do you?’
The glass of champagne he handed her nearly slipped through her fingers. ‘I—I never really thought about it…’
‘You mean you usually just act on your natural instincts—I like that in a woman.’ His approving look was transferred to his food as he savoured it with all his senses. ‘Mmm…. this is good. Here. Try a taste.’ He held out a piece of glazed carrot on his fork and Regan automatically leaned forward to take it in her mouth.
‘Good?’ he asked, tempting her with another offering, this time of succulently crisp green pepper.
The sticky sauce was sweet, yet tart, and hotly spicy on the tongue. ‘Scrumptious,’ she admitted, her eyes half closing with bliss as he trailed the tines of his fork from her moisture-glossed lower lip. The gentle scraping against the soft pad of flesh sent a little shiver down her spine.
‘Are you sure you won’t have some?’
‘Well…maybe a little.’ She yielded to his culinary seduction, deciding that tonight no temptation was worth resisting.
As they ate Adam kept the conversation to light, entertaining subjects that rarely threatened to get too personal, but the look in his eyes was extremely personal and with every bite Regan was made more aware of the fact that he was a man and she was a woman—and that he had her panties in his pocket. Her daring tease had had the desired effect, and Adam was making no secret of his gently simmering arousal. He watched her mouth as she ate and her eyes as she sipped at her champagne; he watched the way her small hands balanced the solid silver cutlery and how her throat rippled when she swallowed; he seemed to find special fascination in the delicate skin that stretched across her collarbone and th
e movement of her breasts against her dress as she gestured and spoke.
Unused to being the focus of such concentrated masculine attention, Regan found herself increasingly responsive to the charged atmosphere created by his cool wit and hot, knowing looks. Just looking at him was like plugging directly into an electrical circuit—her whole body hummed with a pleasurable buzz of nervous anticipation. She noticed the easy flexibility in his strong wrists as his scarred hands tipped the heavy champagne bottle, the sexy lines that amusement carved in his taut cheeks and the muscle that jumped in his jaw when he mentally withdrew to brood on some private thought.
She was so caught up in her heightened self-awareness that when Adam finally pressed his napkin against his mouth all she could think of was how it would feel if he pressed her to those firm lips…
