Shameless (9 page)

She cocked her head back and forth a couple of times, her earrings swaying and catching the candlelight, and she smacked her lips. “Well, it’s not Asti Spumante, but it’ll do.” Her giggle was throaty and sexy.
God
.

She crossed to the window and peered into the darkness. He joined her and looked out at the bobbing boats nestled in their slips, the rain falling increasingly harder as they watched. Dizzying patterns of lights from the marina reflected in the choppy water. “You hungry?” he asked, dropping his eyes to the shadow between her breasts. His body tightened to a level of almost discomfort. He was
starving
. Being with her was like being on a deserted island with a ship in sight and no way to signal it.

“Mmm, yes.” She lifted her face and sniffed. “That smells delicious.”

John reached for a little silver bell next to the ice bucket and tinkled it. Within seconds, a man in a tuxedo came through a door beside the bar pushing a cart topped with two clear plates of salad greens and baby shrimp.

John led Sam to the table and pulled out her chair. After she was seated, he sat across from her. The waiter placed their salads in front of them then promptly disappeared. “Okay, I’m impressed,” she said.

John smiled. After they’d finished their salads, another tuxedoed man whisked their plates away and the first waiter returned with the cart. He pulled off the silver domes and placed the steaming meals in front of them. Grilled chicken, rice pilaf, and steamed asparagus.

Sam looked at her plate. “Mmm. You expect me to eat all this? If you think my dress is tight now…” She smirked.

“Just eat, beautiful, and enjoy. If your dress gets too tight—” he raised his brows, “we’ll just have to figure out a way to burn off some calories.”

“I thought you said I was safe with you.”

“Dancing. We could burn off calories by dancing.”

“Uh huh,” she muttered.

They were in the middle of a luscious cherry cheesecake when talk somehow turned to relationships again. “My last marriage ended seven years ago,” John told her. “Believe me, I’m better at being a bachelor.”

“So, you were married two times by the time you were thirty. How does that happen?” She dipped her fork into a cherry and popped it into her mouth, her red lips closing over it. He almost groaned.

Judgmental or curious, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t like talking about this aspect of his life, but that old, insecure part of him still wanted her to think well of him. “I got married the first time when I was eighteen. Her name was Kelly. It was a mistake from the get-go. She was my first real girlfriend—”

“You didn’t date until you were eighteen?” she asked.

“It wasn’t for lack of trying, believe me. I was  a scrawny, insecure troublemaker. Who would have wanted me?”

“I can see the troublemaker bit, but scrawny and insecure?”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” He forced a laugh. “Anyway, when I was seventeen, I grew seven inches and put on some weight. Kelly was the first girl to really pay attention to me. We didn’t last a year. She’s married to a doctor now. Sends me Christmas cards. Last I heard, she and her husband were working on their fourth kid.”

“And the second?”

He frowned and shifted in his chair. The demise of his last marriage gave him the most regret. “Kate wanted kids and thought she could change my mind.”

Sam nodded, then suddenly narrowed her eyes. “Wait a second. Kate and Kelly? Do I see a trend here?”

He grinned. “Goes to prove you have nothing to worry about with me. Your name begins with the wrong letter.”

Sam raised her champagne glass as if to say
touché
.

“Okay, Miss Rossi. Fair’s fair. You know all about my sordid past. Tell me why don’t you want to get married, since we’re on the subject.”

She shrugged. “Been there done that, as the saying goes.”

“You were married?” Of course, he already knew that from the P.I.’s report.

She nodded. “Before I was old enough to know better.”

“To know better?”

“Divorce runs in my family,” she explained. “Happy marriages don’t. Besides, my ex-husband was a snake.”

Something in her eyes told him she wasn’t telling him the whole story, but he didn’t push it. The reasons didn’t concern or interest him. Or at least they
shouldn’t
concern or interest him.

After the waiters cleared away their plates, she said, “I need to burn off some calories.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re suggesting we
dance
, I assume?”

“And that’s
all
I’m suggesting, Everest.” He was acting completely unlike she’d expected. She’d been prepared to fight him off with a hairbrush.

John circled the table and pulled out her chair. Reaching for her hand, he drew her into his arms. He was solid muscle. One squeeze of his arms would surely squeeze the breath from her. She couldn’t help shivering at the thought. His potentially dangerous strength was rather exciting.

God
. She was thinking like a romance novel heroine.
Yikes
. To steer her mind toward saner territory, she decided to do what she did best. Glean information. “So tell me how you went from being scrawny and insecure to
this
.” She pressed her hand against his hard chest and prayed he wouldn’t tell her he’d been a sickly child.

He chuckled and she felt the rumble against her palm. “When you spend a lot of time being dragged behind the bleachers and getting the shit beat out of you, you’ll do just about anything to get bigger, so I started lifting weights when I was about fourteen.”

She peered up at him. “You got beat up? I can’t even imagine.”

He puffed out his chest and gave her an arrogant grin. “Yeah, I know. I’m such a tough guy now, eh? All that praying finally paid off.” At her questioning glance he explained, “My dad was a strict religious man who made me and my brother pray for an hour every night.”

“An hour? I consider myself saintly if I remember to God Bless someone when they sneeze.”

“We were
supposed
to recite psalms, but all I ever muttered in my head was, ‘Please, Lord, make me taller than my big brother so I can kick his ass.’”

Sam grinned as she pictured a young John Everest kneeling stoically beside his bed, his face set and serious, the picture of piety. “So did you kick his ass?”

“Nah. With my height came maturity, and it was enough for me to know I
could
kick his ass if I wanted.”

“Real mature.”

Sam’s curiosity was piqued by this startling peek into his past. When she’d first met him, she thought he had the depth of a piece of paper. Maybe she’d misjudged him. A little. Her hand rested on his shoulder and she raked her fingers slowly across the muscle. Definitely good genes. She tilted her head back and studied his face. His eyes were closed as they swayed to the music. He had good skin, hardly a laugh line even though he was 34 — another sign of good genes. And she loved his eyes. A blond-haired, blue-eyed baby would be cute. Or blond-haired and brown-eyed…

John opened his eyes and found her staring at him. She immediately dropped her gaze, but not before he felt that familiar flex in his groin.
Damn
. He put a smidgen more space between their bodies.

Why did she have to be Sammy Jo? She felt good in his arms, like her body was fit to his. The perfect match. Neither was looking for a serious relationship, no commitments. And from the way she dressed, she wasn’t afraid to flaunt her femininity and have a good time. Just the type of woman he liked to date.
Why
did she have to be Sammy Jo?

He swung her slowly around the polished hardwood floor, swaying with the piano music, holding his breath every time her breasts touched his chest or their hips grazed. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. Especially knowing she wanted him, too. It was there in the way she’d looked him over tonight when she thought he wasn’t looking, and the way she’d studied him just now. It was in the way she’d had question after question about him during dinner, and how she’d hung on his every word. It was in the way her breath came out in a little gasp the first time their bodies touched when they danced, and the way her nipples hardened beneath her dress when his chest rubbed against hers, and the way she’d grazed her fingers along his shoulders. It was everything.

This whole scenario took him back twenty odd years, when being around attractive girls was like being in a store full of breakables. “Look but don’t touch,” had been his mother’s rule.

He’d never been good at following rules.

Sam felt dizzy. She must have had too much champagne, but she’d only had one glass. Or was it two? She was counting them out in her mind, when she stumbled in her heels and fell against John. His arms tightened around her, giving her balance, and she felt the tell-tale sign of his desire pressed against her lower belly. His breath was warm on her neck, which meant his mouth was just millimeters away from her skin. She couldn’t help shivering. She leaned back and peered at his face.

All her thoughts stilled as his mouth descended on hers. Had she ever bothered to contemplate his kiss before, she’d have predicted it to be as hard and unyielding as his body. But his lips were warm and enticing. Unexpected sensation raced through her. Only a moment ago, she’d fully intended to push him away, but now without warning, her insides turned to molten lava. She didn’t even like this man, yet the simple kiss made her head spin faster than the presses at the
Statesman
.

His tongue slid along the seam of her lips. She wouldn’t open her mouth. She didn’t like him enough to kiss him like that. She wouldn’t open her mouth… well, maybe just for a second. She was dying to know if the rest of his kiss was as good as the first part. She was certain it wouldn’t be. The only reason she felt all hot and heavy was because she hadn’t been kissed in a while. It had nothing to do with him. His tongue swept inside her mouth and his hand slid down to the small of her back to urge their bodies closer.
Is this what weak in the knees feels like
?

Because of her predisposition against men like John, she hadn’t expected his touch to make her feel anything other than revulsion. She certainly hadn’t expected to enjoy it and be turned on by it. She was furious with him for being so presumptuous and furious with herself for letting things progress to this point. She should push him away right now and give him a piece of her mind. And she would do exactly that, just as soon as she kissed him a moment longer. Just a few more moments and then she’d stop. Because the last thing she needed was to get involved with the donor father—

That jolted her back to reality.
Double dammit
, what was she thinking? Her eyes flew open and she shoved him away. Hard.

John’s eyes came open slowly. “What’s wrong?”

She moved several steps away from him. A safe distance. “Let’s not go there.”

“Let’s not—?” He composed himself, shoving fingers through his hair and giving it a sexy, tousled look. “If I moved too fast,” he finally said, his voice husky, “I apologize. I guess with the champagne, the dancing, that dress—” His eyebrows rose as his gaze raked over her.

She bristled. “What? You mean because I’m wearing a sexy dress, I must be easy? Is that it?”

“Oh, come off it, Samantha. You can’t wear a dress like that and not expect a guy to get ideas.”

Sam forced herself to take some calming breaths because she couldn’t quite shake the toe-curling sensation of that doggone kiss. Feeling out of control in any way always sparked her anger. It never failed to take her back twenty years, to the most terrifying night of her life.

She cleared her throat. “I was simply trying to make the point the way a woman dresses has nothing to do with her moral character.”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest and studied her from narrowed eyes. “Okay. So, why did you break the kiss?”

She crossed her arms, too. “Because I don’t like you in that way.”

He was silent a moment, then he laughed. “You don’t like me in that way? Is that why you’ve been flirting with me all evening and practically threw yourself at me on the dance floor?”

“I haven’t been flirting with me, I mean
you
, all evening,” she huffed, trying to look indignant and hating he was able to fluster her. “And I don’t ‘throw’ myself at anyone.”

“Uh huh. And that dress…” he waved his hand at her, taking in the shimmery body hugger in a long glance, “you wouldn’t call that flirtatious?”

She lifted her hands in the air. “See, there you go again. Figuring the way a woman dresses—”

“You’re a tease,” he said, cutting her off.

“I am not.” Okay, so she could be a tease on occasion, but only when she wanted something from a man. She certainly couldn’t tell John what she wanted from him. Not yet, anyway.

She made a sound of disgust through her teeth. She wasn’t used to verbally sparring with a man who could give it right back to her. She didn’t like it.

She yanked her coat from the coat rack, shoved in her arms and buttoned it. She looked up to find John trying to hide his amusement, his blue eyes twinkling. “I’m glad you think this is so funny, Everest. But I’d like you to take me back to my car now.” When he made no move to obey, she said, “Fine, I’ll call a cab.” She dug into her purse for her phone.

His chuckle brought her gaze back to him. “No, no. I’ll take you.”

They were silent on the drive into downtown Seattle. Reaching his club, she directed him to her car in the middle of a nearby lot. He put his car into park, letting the engine idle. “Look, I obviously misread—”

“Ya
think
? Good night, John.”

Chapter 5