“I know where the bathrooms are, Alex.” I squinted at him, my feet stumbled, and I inadvertently did a jazz square as I tried to remain upright. “I do take all my first dates here, you know. Granted, they usually leave before the entrée. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

I half bowed for no reason in particular and walked to the ladies’ room. I felt satisfied in my admonishment of the pretentious upstart. How dare he? How dare he accuse me of making my dates cry on purpose? How dare he be so masculine, and strong, and sexily somber? How dare he stare at my lips and warm my internal organs to inferno levels of hotness. How dare his magma voice melt ice, steel, and my femme innards. How dare he…?

Wait.

I blinked, halted, backed up two steps, and peered into the kitchen. It was dark. I thought about that for a minute, and came to the conclusion that the kitchen was closed and the cook and the manager and the dishwasher had gone home. I shrugged for no one’s benefit then continued on my way to the bathroom.

I flipped on the light, closed and locked the door, and did my business, all while trying and failing to reignite my indignation. Instead, I settled on the words masculine, strong, and sexily somber. Then I recalled the word kiss.

Mmm…kiss.

I washed my hands absentmindedly and scanned my appearance. My awesome strapless red dress still looked fantastic, and even my bleary eyes could tell that it hugged my body in all the right places girls are told men like to look.

I winked at myself in the mirror, as I was prone to do. “Hey, sexy lady, I’m not drunk, I’m just intoxicated by you.”

My mirror theater provoked a half laugh, half moan, and I covered my face with my hands.

The dress, paired with a padded push up bra, should have guaranteed me a night filled with torrid passion. It was why I’d purchased it. Alas, and to my inner orgasm enthusiast’s infinite sexual frustration, the hottest thing that happened so far was a hand squeeze from Chuck the chuckling—then sobbing—honeydew.

Glancing up, I noted that my teeth were now slightly green due to the consumption of red wine. For no discernible reason, I took a paper towel and scrubbed at my teeth until they appeared whiter. I often did this, especially when intoxicated.

Satisfied, I nodded once at my reflection, and stumbled out of the single stall bathroom into the small square space at the back of the restaurant. I managed three steps before I realized that the path leading to the front of the restaurant was blocked by Alex.

And I discovered this fact by bodily colliding into Alex’s chest.

CHAPTER 2

His hands gripped my waist—not my arms, which my pickled brain thought was noteworthy—and dually steadied and unsettled me with his nearness. His proximity and touch caused a zing—yes, a zing—from the back of my neck to my fingertips and to my heretofore neglected womanly pelvic region. The heat of his hands bled through the thin material of my dress, settled just above my hips, and this sensation, paired with the zing, sobered me slightly.

I hadn’t experienced a zing with a man—young or old—in a very, very long time.

“Well, h-hello,” I stuttered, lifting my eyes until they found his, which were once again singularly focused on my mouth. A new zing sailed southward past my female equipment to my tiptoes.

Ah, how I missed the zing!

We stood silent, inches from each other, sharing the same breath.

“Three years is a long time.” His voice was achingly seductive.

I frowned because I was confused, but I managed to whisper, “Yes. And fettuccini noodles are too thick.”

He frowned, but his attention didn’t waver from my lips. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know. You said three years is a long time. I thought we were sharing random opinions.”

Alex laughed—it sounded a bit nervous, but I couldn’t be sure—and then he shook his head. “Sandra, what do you say? I think it’s well past time you had a kiss.” His eyes flickered to mine. I noted they were still guarded, impossible mature, but they were also heated, and every shade of licentious lapis imaginable.

In a word, delightful.

I licked my lips, gathered a deep breath through my nose, and considered his offer.

He was maybe twenty-three; more likely, he was twenty-two. That was six years younger than my twenty-eight. The six years between twenty-two and twenty-eight was a vast minefield of life experience and a thick forest of emotional maturity.

We were on different emotion planets.

I was looking for the guy. I was looking for my life partner. I wasn’t looking for a dangerous but delicious young waiter with a chip on his shoulder.

Then again…

Alex was manlicious in a way that I rarely encountered. And he wanted to kiss me. And he wasn’t crying. Triple bonus.

Okay, I thought, psyching myself up, yes, let’s do this. Let’s go wild, just this once. Kiss the boy. Kiss the boy and round the bases. Look for your life partner tomorrow.

Before I lost my nerve, I kissed him.

Zing.

It was brief, sudden, a drive-by kiss, and I savored his stunned soft mouth. Then I leaned just my head away and glanced at him. He had such a great mouth, and he’d parted it slightly in surprise.

I nodded. “Okay, just one more.” I kissed him again, fast but with more pressure this time.

Zing!

Then, reluctantly, I leaned away again and said, “Just one more kiss after this….”

He stopped my rambling by mouthlesting me; meaning, he affixed his lips on mine and kissed me good and thoroughly.

ZING!

And when I say he kissed me, I mean a thick, urgent tongue invasion—biting, sucking, and stroking. As he assaulted me in the best way possible, I was vaguely aware that he’d backed me into and against the corner of the small alcove, just under the stairs. His feet braced apart and his body towered over mine, filling every inch of available space; his fingers dug into my side and back in a way that felt aggressive.

I approved.

Then, abruptly, he pulled just a centimeter away. Breathing hard he said, “Is that what you meant by one more kiss?”

I hazily blinked my eyes and opened my lips to respond, but before I could, he pressed me against the wall with his imposing frame, rocked against me—center to center—and growled, “Or, this kiss?”

ZING! ZING! ZING!

His everyday voice was a thing of beauty, but his growly voice made me want to lick his face.

The mouthlesting moved from misdemeanor to a felony crime against all women other than me. He employed tongue, teeth, and lips in a way that drove all rational thought from my mind. We existed, just the two of us, in our kiss cocoon. In that moment, strangers though we were, I allowed him to take me in a way I hadn’t known I was capable of giving.

I’d lit the fuse and, God bless him, he’d provided the fireworks. Life was good.

Cognition didn’t return all at once. Even as he finished the kiss—his kiss—with fanfare, he sucked my bottom lip between his; he licked it, made me shiver, shudder.

Alex hummed in the back of this throat, much like one does when sipping a good wine or tasting an epic dessert.

The first thing I felt post-kiss was his fingers in my hair, pulling it away from my face, threading through the short, straight locks. His thumb skimmed the underside of my jaw and traveled down my throat until the backs of his fingers teasingly caressed the skin directly above the top of my strapless dress where my deceptive cle**age was pushed up and on display.

“Are you a real redhead?”

I nodded, but answered truthfully. “No.” My knees were disloyally weak. The wall behind me, his weight against me, and my arms flung over his shoulders all mercifully kept me from collapsing weak-kneed onto the floor.

He smirked. “Brown?”

I shook my head, but answered truthfully. “Yes.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Lie with your body, but tell the truth with your mouth? Don’t people usually do it the other way around?”

“Maybe.” I exhaled thoughtfully, tilted my head to the side so I could appreciate his rugged face from a different angle. “Actually, yes. You are correct. That’s typically the way it’s done. But I’ve perfected the art of lying with both.”

“Why?”

“Because….” I shrugged, nipped at his lips, shifted restlessly against him, hoped he’d take the hint and kiss me again. When he continued to glare at me, challengingly, patiently, with his fathomless eyes protected behind glasses, I leaned just my face away, bracing my head against the wall.

On a whim, I decided to be completely honest. “Okay. It’s because of my job. I listen to people talk about themselves all day. If I’m going to help them, I can’t allow my face or body to betray what I’m actually thinking, or how I feel about their words.”

His eyes bored into me, searching. An austere frown settled over his features. He was looking for something—in me, from me—and when he didn’t find it, his frown deepened, and he unwrapped my arms from his shoulders.

“It’s late.”

“It’s not that late.” I hoped I sounded tempting.

Alex took a step away from me, breaking the two-person cocoon. I felt air swirl between us, evidence of the distance he’d created. He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth and glanced at the floor.