Nothing Personal by Rosalind James

the headwaiter had seemed to know Alec, how attentive he’d been, if she hadn’t seen the bill slip from Alec’s fingers into the other man’s palm.
    Well, maybe she’d still been impressed. Because it was just so . . . so nice. To lean against the worn brick wall in the soft light at the back of the little restaurant, to look into those eyes, so thickly fringed with black. To see the flash of teeth as he laughed, and to think about what Claudine had said. About his mouth, and about what he could do with it.
    And she could have sworn that he wa s thinking about the same thing when those deep blue eyes had looked into her own. Even though he’d been nothing but a gentleman.
    “ You sure?” he asked when the white-mustachioed waiter made his second appearance. “Just soup? Not even a salad? Maybe chicken?”
    “When I’m really tired,” she found herself confessing, “knives and forks are too hard. Even salad’s too hard. All that chewing.”
    “All ri ght, then. Just Tuscan Beef Soup for the lady,” he told the waiter. “But bring her some extra bread. And,” she heard him say quietly to the elderly man, “if you could have them fill that soup bowl up a little higher, that’d be great. And bring it out right away?”
    She’d spooned up every bit of the rich broth, the chunks of beef and vegetables, had dipped a second and then a third piece of bread in olive oil. Alec had w atched it all without comment, while dispatching his own dinner with an alacrity that confirmed to Desiree that he really hadn’t had dinner yet tonight.
    And when they’d finished, he’d insisted, together with Giuseppe—of course the waiter’s name was Giuseppe, because this wasn’t romantic enough, the white tablecloth and the single red rose and the candle and the worn brick against her shoulder—he’d insisted that she order cannoli for dessert.
    “Just one,” he coaxed. “If you don’t want it, you don’t have to eat a single bite. But I think you need to taste whipped cream tonight.”
    “ Don’t you think she needs some whipped cream?” he demanded of the waiter, who smiled back at him , sensing, Desiree thought through a satisfied haze of red wine, succulent beef , and way too much potent testosterone, a truly magnificent tip.
    “Definitely, the signorina needs whipped cream,” Giuseppe agreed. “And we have the best.”
    She wasn’t sure how you had better whipped cream than anyone else, but when the dessert arrived, she had to concede that this was the best.
    Amaretto, one still-sane corner of her practical brain suggested, but that sensible voice was drowned out, oh so rapidly, by the sensation on her tongue, the silky smoothness of cream, the almond sweetness of the liqueur, the delicate drift of pastry and the deep dark pleasure of chocolate. And Alec, watching her as she allowed the rich concoction to drift between her lips, over her tongue, down her throat. Watching her, enjoying the sight of her enjoying herself, as if it were his tongue. His throat.
    By the time he’d slapped a hand against the door of the cab that had again been waiting when they’d stepped out of the restaurant’s front door, leaped back onto the sidewalk and raised that same hand in farewell, she’d been so lost in fatigue, wine, and lust that she could only sit back against the scarred leather and thank heaven that she hadn’t actually kissed him. Or begged him.
     
    And thinking about it now wasn’t doing her one single bit of good. She focused again on the job description she’d roughed out with Brandon for their new marketing communications person. She needed to get that posted, get the trade shows, anyway, off her plate and turned over to somebody else pronto. Once she got this done, she promised herself, she would eat that energy bar. Lunch break.
    She felt a flash of irritation that Brandon hadn’t been willing to take more of it on himself. She was going to have to be careful that he didn’t take advantage of her.