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“Perfect.” He wiped his face with a napkin, and Colleen leaned her elbows on the bar and just enjoyed the sight of him, sweating, red-faced, maybe a little closer to death than he had been a few minutes ago.
“I made it special just for you.” She smiled sweetly.
“I guessed that.”
Then he stood up, slid his hand around her neck and pulled her in for a kiss.
She didn’t see that coming.
Didn’t pull away, either.
It was a hard, authoritative kiss that seared through her. Good God, the Spaniard couldkiss. His five-o’clock shadow scraped her just the right amount, and his mouth, oh, yes, that mouth of his, that fallen-angel mouth...and then it was over, and he stood in front of her, dark and sure and steady when she was lucky to be standing, her legs suddenly warm and wonderfully weak, her special places bursting into song. Also, her lips were burning, thanks to the fire sauce, but hey. Worth it.
Then Lucas smiled that pirate’s grin full of secrets and fun and cockiness, and her heart was rolling and shaking like a hyperactive puppy.
Oh, man. She was in trouble.
The bar was completely still.
“We should get that dinner sometime,” he said calmly, his voice normal now.
“I thought this would count.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Oh. Okay, then,” she said, then cleared her throat.
“Thank you for the wonderful meal.”
“You’re very welcome,” she said. “My pleasure.”
Then the kitchen door banged open, and Connor tapped Lucas on the shoulder, and punched him in the face.
* * *
“I’MNOTSEEINGhim,” Colleen said three hours later. “Rufus, tell your uncle Connor he’s got his head up his butt.” Unfortunately, Rufus was engrossed in a documentary about Yellowstone National Park and couldn’t drag his doggy eyes off the family of wolverines on screen. It was ten past midnight, and Connor had demanded an audience to discuss her love life. Which was a joke because there was no love life, of course.
Not yet.
Lucas had taken Connor’s anger like a boss; a Southie from Chicago wouldn’t be bothered by one punch, no matter how enraged the brother who’d thrown it. Levi, being a cop and all, jumped to his feet, and Tom did, too, but Lucas just said, “It’s fine. I earned that.” He slid a twenty under his plate, nodded at Colleen and left calmly. Connor glared at his retreating back, then at her, then at Levi, then at the bar in general, then stomped back into the kitchen, where he banged around for the rest of the night before coming for Big Brother Lecture. He’d always taken those three minutes very seriously.
“Colleen, I saw how you were looking at him.”
“Yeah, okay, he kissed me. Look. He’s back in town because Joe Campbell is dying. Of course I’m going to see him from time to time.”
“You know what you are? You’re one mattress fire away from becoming our mother.”
“I’m not like Mom,” she said calmly. “How dare you and all that. Want some ice cream?”
Connor folded his arms and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling (and pray for patience, Colleen knew). “If you’re not dating him, why were you flirting with him?”
“I wasn’t.” Rufus put his head on her foot, then licked her ankle with his giant tongue.
“Yeah? What was that game with the fire sauce, then?”
“Oh, just a little...signal. A shot across the bar.”
“It was flirting. And then you let him kiss you.”
