A few other couples were dotted around, tucked into the private alcoves of couches and low tables.
There was a view of the city on one side up against the stunning expanse of the darkened bay on the other.
I hugged Ian’s arm. “No wonder this is your favorite restaurant.”
“Wait until you taste the food.”
His nose kept dipping to my neck, inhaling deeply, and I shivered with the thought that what the man really wanted to get a taste of was me.
I understood the impulse. The compulsion that shimmered and shook through the twilight. This feeling that came to life every time the man stood at my side.
We were seated in one of the private nooks with a horseshoe-shaped couch. Ian and I sat opposite of one another. Flames licked out from the small fire at the center of our table, jumping and tossing and playing in the air.
Adding to the heat.
I pressed my thighs together.
Not having the first clue what I was going to do with this man.
The hostess handed us each a menu. “Enjoy your dinner.”
She walked away, and Ian slung himself back against the cushions, one arm draped over the back. The man was so casual and powerful sitting there staring at me with the flames casting shadows across his face.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen a more deliciously seductive man.
He watched me with those intriguing eyes, those cinnamon hues a dance of disorder in the jumping light.
“You are stunning. Do you have any idea?” His voice was so low it was close to a growl.
I felt my heart nearly leap across the space where I was sure it would land right at his feet.
My tongue darted out to wet my lips, my voice low and filled with all the things he’d brought to the surface. “The first time I looked over at you standing at the bar, I thought I had to be hallucinating. I thought you had to be nothing but a figment of my imagination, and my mind was sending me a gift to get me through a horrible night.”
He cocked one of those grins. The one that touched me from across the distance and made that fluttery feeling flap and rise.
His long fingers picked at the back cushion on the plush couch, as if they were itching to jump in and play a part. “You shouldn’t say things like that to me, Grace.”
“No?” I was kind of surprised I was actually flirting. It was as if Ian reached in and plucked something from the depths of me. Something that had been lying in wait, desperate for release.
I ran my hands over my arms, covered in chills of need, realizing right then how much I wanted to find that with him.
In him.
But he was right . . . I was terrified I was never going to be the same if I let him have his way with me.
I knew it’d be a little wicked.
A little wild.
I knew it’d require completely letting go.
“Not unless you want me to haul you onto my lap.”
He leaned forward, voice a billow across the space. “I’ve had to temper myself since the second I saw you. I’ve always been a man who goes after what I want, and I don’t think you have the first clue how much I want you. Right now. This second. I warned you I was an in-the-moment kind of guy.”
I should be scared.
I knew it.
I saw it in the way he was watching me. As if he were half deranged. Hovering on a heartbeat before he went in for the kill.
Sitting back, I tried to see through all the attraction that blazed between us, to the man who I knew was right there, waiting underneath.
“Are you, though? It seems to me that there is a lot more to you than you’re letting on.”
He chuckled out a raw sound full of uncertainty and self-deprecation.
“Believe me . . . all the things I’m not letting on, you don’t want to see.”
“And what’s so bad about them?” I asked, inclining forward. Needing to get closer. This man who was so rough and raw and somehow intrinsically sweet. There was something good stitched into all that hardness.
I could see it.
Feel it.
He mimicked my movement, edging closer, filling the space as the darkness continued to fall around us.
I got the sense that neither of us could help it.
Stop it.
Resist whatever it was that drew us across the flames.
He edged my way, his hand on the couch as he scooted a bit to the inside of the horseshoe, angling in my direction.
A tremor of need slipped through me.
That seemed to be the only invitation he needed to slide the rest of the way over. Then he was right there, leaning in, his mouth a brush at the edge of mine as he issued the word, “Everything.”