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She stabbed her fork into a pasta tube, and ricotta spewed out one end of it.
“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don’t know much about women?”
“Honey, I’ve never left a woman unsatisfied.”
“How do you know they haven’t been faking it?”
Luke repressed a smile. “A real man can always tell the difference.”
She eyed him doubtfully. “Can you say that about her physical and emotional fulfillment?”
“Definitely. Would you like references?”
Okay, so he’d probably have to leave some of his early relationships off the reference list, but the women he’d dated seriously couldn’t have had much bad to say about him. He simply hadn’t found Miss Right yet, and most of his more recent breakups had been mutually agreed upon.
“I’ll pass for now,” she muttered to her pasta as she prepared to take a bite.
Luke had a thing about the way women ate. He couldn’t enjoy dinner himself if his date was picking at a salad and sipping water. Jane ate like a real human being, and he couldn’t quite explain why he found it so charming that she hadn’t hesitated to order one of the most fattening dishes on the menu at his recommendation.
He decided to let her off the hook and avoid any more controversial topics for the rest of dinner. They managed to carry on a pleasant conversation about nothing in particular, and by the time dinner was finished, Luke couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself so much on a date.
It wasn’t just that Jane was attractive and intelligent—she was both—it was something more. Being with her made him feel like a gap had been filled in, as though something that had been missing from his life was suddenly present. Too bad she was also the woman who’d written what was possibly one of the dumbest self-help books ever published.
They drove back to her place in companionable silence, and Luke didn’t admit to himself until he’d pulled into her driveway how badly he wanted to take her inside and make love to her all night on that brand-new leather sofa of hers.
He wanted her physically for reasons he couldn’t articulate, reasons that had little to do with proving her wrong. He normally wouldn’t have been ready to hop into bed with a woman he’d only just met, but something about Jane made him think of tribal drum beats, sultry nights in the jungle, finding creative uses for vines. He wanted to get in touch with his Tarzan side and claim Jane as his woman.
Yeah, he was thinking crazy, but he knew what he wanted, and it was the woman sitting in his passenger seat.
Without asking, he got out and walked her to the door, a little surprised that she didn’t protest. When she’d found her keys inside her purse, she looked up at him and seemed to be searching for something to say.
She finally asked, “Do you want some coffee?”
Luke crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “Do you really mean coffee, or is that female code for an invitation to bed?”
Not that it mattered—he’d come in either way—but he couldn’t help baiting her.
“You’re lucky I don’t have any real pepper spray on my key chain.”
“Believe me, I know.”
She smiled and unlocked the door. “Just come in and stop grilling me, okay?”
“Okay, cease-fire.”
The front door reminded him of his official duties as Jane’s bodyguard. Luke was ashamed to admit to himself that he’d let her security slip his mind all evening. For the first time, he realized his attraction to her could possibly be a detriment to Jane’s safety, but he vowed not to let his guard slip again.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said once they’d entered the kitchen, “are you free tomorrow for me to install a decent security system in the house?”
She turned to him from the refrigerator, where she’d just removed a package of coffee beans, and gave him a strange look. “Tomorrow is Sunday. Don’t you take days off?”
“Criminals don’t take Sundays off.”
“Um, I just planned to hang around the house and finish unpacking, hang photos, stuff like that. I guess it’s a good time for you to come by.”
He watched as she measured out the beans and ground them up with a little hand grinder, then poured the grounds into a high-tech coffeemaker. She wasn’t kidding when she’d confessed her passion for caffeine.
“So, why did you invite me in?” he asked, and her eyes flashed anger.
“What happened to the cease-fire?”
“Oh, right. I forgot.” He closed the distance between them, his body temperature rising with each step he took, then pinned her against the kitchen counter with his hips. “If you want to know the truth, I lied about the cease-fire.”
