WHY HAD SHE AGREED to this?
Karyn’s foot tapped up and down against the polished hardwood floor beneath the table as she waited for Dr. Desire to show up. Her heel clicked in a rhythm that, coming from anyone else, would have annoyed the hell out of her.
She couldn’t stop.
At least there wasn’t anyone to bother. She sat alone in the quiet room he had reserved for them. Her eyes swept across the cozy space. The dim lighting, flickering candles and mood music all set her nerves on edge. Apparently Dr. Desire hadn’t told the restaurant this wasn’t a real date.
Karyn tried desperately not to fidget. Or admit that a part of her really wished it were a date. A mixture of anxiety and anticipation churned at the bottom of her stomach. She had no idea what to expect, from Dr. Desire or herself.
“Karyn.”
His voice reached her first as he entered the room, melting down her spine in that familiar trail, turning her bones to liquid mush.
He was tall and broad and his presence shrank the already-intimate space. The sheer force of him seemed to consume the excess oxygen in the room, to condense the surroundings to nothing more than a block of space too tiny for them both to occupy—without her brain going fuzzy and her skin flushing hot.
Those billboards did not do him justice.
Karyn knew she was staring, but couldn’t help it. Her first real life glimpse of Dr. Desire had her tongue seemingly glued to the roof of her mouth.
His lips curved into a crooked, charming grin, the same one she’d driven past almost every day for the past eighteen months. Candlelight reflected in his blue-gray eyes, catching the smallest glint of mischief lurking there. Maybe it was the flickering light, but she really thought they were more captivating in person.
He stopped by the table, towering over her.
She looked up and up into his sexy face and had to swallow hard to wet her suddenly dry mouth. Her foot kicked into double time beneath the tablecloth. Heat burst through her body and her nipples tingled in a primitive response she hadn’t experienced in longer than she could remember.
He packed one hell of a punch.
“Karyn?”
She shook off the daze, cringing at the impression she must be making. By nothing more than walking up beside her, Chris had started a chain reaction inside, awakening places on her body she’d thought long dead.
She stared up into his intense eyes and wanted to cry in frustration. Sure she’d made her share of stupid mistakes in life, but what had she done to deserve this cruel twist of fate? The one man who’d finally revved her engine and he’d already said no. Not just no, hell, no, wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot-pole no.
“You’re not Karyn? I’m sorry. They told me…”
She still had to get through dinner, preferably without embarrassing herself more than she already had. “Yes. I am…Chris.” Standing, she tried hard not to bite her lower lip, a bad habit that tended to surface when she was overwhelmed, and motioned to the chair opposite her. Hopefully the table hid the humming energy that made her knees tremble. At least her foot had stopped tapping.
“I’m sorry I’m late. Business.” With his head cocked to the side, he offered a lopsided grin equal parts charm and remorse.
His heat reached out and touched her, mixing with the visceral response still bursting inside. Her entire body warmed, and moisture gathered beneath the unruly mass of hair she’d pulled tight at the nape of her neck.
His eyes snagged her own across the intimate space of their little table, making her feel…caught. Not like a butterfly with its wings pinned down for display. No. The sensation was more like the pull of gravity right before a plane took off. Like some force of nature was holding her back, gathering strength before letting go so she could fly.
She blinked, thinking herself completely insane. She tried to look away but found her gaze drawn back to the magnetic energy he radiated with seemingly little effort.
A shiver of awareness slid down her spine at the intensity of his study. His eyes roamed every inch of her face. Usually that kind of masculine stare would have set her nerves on edge. She was on edge all right. But it had nothing to do with nerves.
Reaching for her water glass, Karyn gulped a swallow, needing busywork for her hands and mind.
He must have taken her silence and hasty chug of water as signs of fear.
Laying his palms flat on the table in front of him, he said, “I want you to know you have nothing to worry about. No expectations. No pressure. We’ll have a nice dinner. That’s all.”
She realized his words and the look of studied sincerity were meant to put her at ease. And if she’d had her normal reaction to a man sitting intimately across from her, they might have been necessary. But Chris Faulkner would not hurt her. She knew this to the soles of her feet.
Fear. Anxiety. Calculating the risks. She thought of none of these normal things. It was the image of those tanned, large, roughened hands on her instead of on the snowy tablecloth that had blood whooshing in her ears.
And that surprised her. Yes, in the safety of her mind she had admitted she had a physical response to Chris, to his voice, to the sky-high images that seemed to pepper the city. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t? He was gorgeous and had the sort of lazy, husky bedroom voice that drove women crazy.
What she hadn’t anticipated was for those rumblings to be exponentially amplified by his actual presence. The reaction she’d had to his picture was safe. She’d never figured on having the opportunity to meet him in person. Now, all she could hear was Anne’s voice in the back of her head repeating over and over, “That man knows his way around a woman’s body. With him, fear wouldn’t be an option. He’d have you naked and panting before you could blink.”
She wasn’t naked, but the room had definitely become stuffy. She went to tug at her collar only to realize she wasn’t wearing her normal high-necked blouse but a low-cut, gauzy silk confection that rubbed deliciously against her skin.
“Karyn?”
His hesitation and low-pitched sound of concern pulled her focus up. Slowly she took in his charcoal-gray suit and white dress shirt, open at his strong throat. Sophisticated and urbane, there was no mistaking him for any man other than Dr. Desire.
She looked up into his dark-blue eyes, at the swirls of gray and flecks of the palest green, and knew this man had it all together. The core of her body clenched.
A smile, one she hadn’t seen slip since he’d walked in the door, tipped the corners of those breath-stealing eyes heavenward. Intelligence, laughter, reassurance. Anne was the only other person who’d given her this immediate sense of ease—if you discounted the hum of energy jingling her spine right now.
“Yes.” The word came out breathy, almost lost in the muted restaurant sounds from outside the room.
“Are you okay?”
No. She wasn’t. For the first time in five years, her body had flooded with heat. A heat she remembered, one she’d feared never feeling again. One she wanted to embrace, explore, capture.
“Yes. I’m…” surprised, excited, achy “…fine.”
“Why don’t we order some champagne? It’ll help settle your nerves.”
What nerves? Any nerves she’d felt had melted away the moment he’d walked through the door.
CHRIS WATCHED Karyn from across the table.
She wasn’t what he’d expected. When he’d pictured her in his mind she hadn’t been ugly—but she hadn’t been beautiful, either. Plain, average, unexciting. That’s what he’d expected.
What