His smile unfurled slowly. He reached with his hand, the back of his fingers brushing across her warm cheeks. “I like them. They make your eyes even brighter.”
“I look like I had a heyday with my blush.”
“No.” His fingers moved on her cheek. “No one could ever replicate that color with makeup. That’s the real thing.”
“That’s a really hot shower,” she breathed, enthralled by his expression as he touched her.
“That’s excellent sex,” he corrected before he leaned down and brushed his mouth against hers. Her heart gave a jump in her rib cage.
“If anyone could replicate the way you look right now, they’d own the world.”
She opened her mouth, stunned by his compliment, and then he was kissing her, slow and deep and toe-curling.
“We’re going to be late,” he said quietly a moment later.
“Then stop kissing me.”
“Stop making me,” he replied dryly, grabbing her hand.
twenty-three
She was sure they’d be late, both for dinner and the opera, but Jacob’s driver worked some kind of miracle in weekend traffic, getting them to Jardinière in record time. It was a favorite restaurant of Harper’s, but even so, she’d never gotten so much attention—either from the staff or curious patrons—than she did while accompanying Jacob that night. She had the distinct impression most people didn’t know specifically who he was. It was his air of absolute, quiet confidence and epic good looks that had them tittering. Perhaps aware of the intrusive stares, the maître d’ seated them at a secluded table to enjoy their pre-opera meal.
“You enjoy the opera, then?” Jacob asked her after they’d been served their wine and salads.
“In San Francisco I do,” she said wryly, pulling her gaze off the vision of his strong hands cutting an heirloom tomato with a silver knife and fork. It made her think of him holding that gold Waterpik. . . what he’d done to her in that shower. Her already flushed cheeks heated.
“Why only in San Francisco?” he asked, puzzled.
“They put up the English translation above the stage,”
she said, smiling. “I never learned Italian. I went to the opera when I was in Paris once, and had no idea what was going on. I was bored out of my mind.”
He grinned and took a swift bite. Something about his silence pricked her interest.
“You do, don’t you?” she asked slowly. His brows went up in a query. “Speak Italian?”
“Only a little,” he said with what struck her as modesty. “It doesn’t take me much to pick up languages. I’ve seen a few Italian women over the years, and it somehow sunk in a little.”
She laughed and his eyebrows arched in a query. “There you have it, then. I forgot you were good at math. I suck at it. They say people who are gifted in math often are also good at picking up languages. Plus . . . I’ve never had a ‘few’ Italian lovers,” she added playfully. She blinked when she saw his rigid expression. Had he been offended by her comment about his previous lovers?
He blinked and set down his fork. “What do you mean, you forgot I was good at math?”
She leaned back at his intensity, bewildered. “I just meant . . . you’re a computer programmer, right? Apparently, a particularly talented one, a savant by most accounts—” She broke off when his stare continued to bore into her. “Aren’t you good at math?” she asked weakly.
He took a draw on his wine.
“Yes,” he said, picked up his fork again. “Where have you learned things like that? About me, I mean,” he asked, his tone milder now. Still, she sensed his ruffled mood beneath his calm demeanor.
“Isn’t what I just said public knowledge? I know you like to keep a low profile, but it’s inevitable that some details about your history are going to be known.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question though, does it?”
For a few seconds, they just stared at each other from across the table. Finally, she shrugged and gave a bark of laughter, cast at sea by the turn of his mood. “I didn’t know that much about you before I was invited to the cocktail party, although I have heard of Lattice, of course, and I’ve heard your name in passing. Ruth Dannen, our society and entertainment editor, filled me in on some of the details about you.”
“Like what?” he asked quietly, pushing back his unfinished salad.
“Like that you were a gifted programmer and that military intelligence recruited you after college to work on anti-hacker software, and you used that knowledge after you left the army to create Lattice.”