A very happy circumstance, in Greg’s book. Not that he hadn’t dated a stripper—make that exotic dancer—or two in his day. He just had a difficult time reconciling Jackie to that kind of lifestyle.
Besides, he rather liked knowing she hadn’t shared that perfect body with innumerable bachelor parties.
Greg peered around Flanagan’s until he found an exit door in the back. He nodded toward the potential escape route.
“I vote we blow this joint. Do you mind if I walk you to your car to make sure you get there safely?”
“I’m with you.” She squeezed the tablecloth to her body with determined fingers and squeaked her way across the polished wooden floor in her tennis shoes, head held high.
Greg followed in her wake glaring back at Mike’s disgruntled friends as they grumbled over losing their entertainment.
Jackie’s exit proved to be as memorable as her entrance. The cat woman might not be a stripper, but her sense of showmanship could give a seasoned stage veteran a run for the money as she sailed out the door, linen cape flying.
Greg noticed her ramrod straight posture deflated a bit once they’d made it through the exit and into a cramped stairwell, however. The slump lasted all of five seconds before Jackie turned on him and flashed him a sunny grin.
“I can handle it from here, Greg.” She offered her hand as if to seal a bargain. “Thanks for helping me out of an awkward situation.”
The strength of her citrusy perfume kicked up a notch in the small, dim space. Or maybe Greg was only more aware of her.
“I’d like to walk you to your car, if you don’t mind.” He wasn’t just saying it because he was attracted to her and her mile-long legs. No woman should navigate the streets of Boston in a shredded cat costume and a tablecloth.
“That’s okay. If you could just point me in the direction of the ladies’ room I’ll try to make some repairs to my outfit.” Her whiskers twitched as she spoke.
Greg fought the urge to smooth his fingers over them, to trace them from their tips to their source at the top of her full upper lip.
“I don’t think your costume is in any shape to be repaired.”
“Well, I can’t exactly ride the metro in a tablecloth.” Her crooked grin set the whiskers at a jaunty angle. “Besides, I need to retreat somewhere to check in with the Zing-O-Gram desk. I have the feeling our new office temp sent a stripper out to a six-year-old’s birthday party and I’d like to make sure she doesn’t unveil as much as I did tonight.”
He had trouble focusing on her words. He was in a darkened stairwell with a half-naked woman and her perfume was driving him out of his mind. Greg found himself leaning closer, trying to catch a stronger whiff of her fragrance.
Too bad she was already retreating down the stairs.
“Bye.” She managed a little wave, releasing the tablecloth with one hand for all of a nanosecond. “Thank you so much for coming to my rescue.”
Confusion jolted him out of his mission to track her scent. She was leaving?
“Wait.” He didn’t know what he was going to say next, or how he was going to make her stay.
But Greg De Costa knew one thing for certain.
No matter that Jackie the Cat looked like walking mayhem, he wasn’t ready to let her saunter out of his life just yet.
JACKIE PAUSED AND TURNED back, knowing she’d be hard pressed to deny the Adonis in corporate clothes just about anything. Had a tie ever looked so good slung around a man’s neck? Jackie’s eyes kept returning to the enticing hollow at the base of his throat, the hint of skin unveiled by one neglected top button.
He looked way too out of her league—the kind of man who dated women in understated Calvin Klein couture, not misfits in polyester kitty fur. Guys like Greg appreciated women who worked for Fortune 500 companies, women whose golf game was as low as their IQ was high.
Jackie, on the other hand, prided herself on always choosing the road less traveled or the man least likely to conform.
And Greg wasn’t exactly a rabble-rouser. She barely knew him, but his designer tie and suspenders told a story of their own.
“Yes?” She could at least see what he wanted, however. Sure, he was all wrong for her. But he had saved her from extreme mortification in the bar.
Maybe he wanted to know her whole name.
Or her number.
Or maybe a night in her bed as compensation for his gallant tablecloth rescue—a thought that didn’t deter her as much as it should have.
He loomed over her, taller than her to start with, and now he stood two steps above her in the narrow stairwell. His eyes were so dark she could no longer discern their color, but they glistened back at her in the dim light.
“Let me at least drive you home.”
“I’ll be okay.” The offer tempted her, but how could she accept a ride from a man she barely knew? A man who might have only been nice to her because he thought she’d be grateful. “But thank you.”
“Do you know someone who can come pick you up?” Greg’s brow furrowed as he frowned, the gesture adding all sorts of interesting lines to his face.
Jackie shook her head before realizing she should probably just say anything to extricate herself from this awkward social situation politely. The man was proving difficult to shake, but some part of her responded to his concern for her, too.
Jackie had always been good at drawing attention to herself—whether she’d intended to or not. But she’d never mastered the art of holding an audience’s interest, and Greg’s continued attentiveness had her feeling a little light-headed.
“Then let’s scout out a ladies’ room and I’ll tell you my plan.” Greg nudged her forward before she had the chance to register what he was saying.
His hand hovered around the small of her back, not quite touching, yet Jackie was keenly aware of its proximity.
“You need to find the ladies’ room, too?” she asked as they moved down three flights to the ground floor. Nervousness gave her the tendency to be flip.
“No. I’m sending you into the ladies’ room with my shirt so you can pull yourself together minus the tablecloth.” He was already unbuttoning his way down the crisp cotton of his white dress shirt. The intimate action sent a wave of unexpected longing through her.
Jackie couldn’t have stopped herself from peeking if she’d tried. Too bad it was so dark in the stairwell or she would have inspected every new inch of bronzed flesh on the corporate Adonis.
His tan made her own skin look ghostly pale in comparison. And the hints of muscles in the V of that unbuttoned shirt…
Jackie swallowed.
Surely the shadows were playing tricks on her.
“What will you wear home?” she asked mostly just to distract herself from thoughts she had no business thinking.
Namely her lips tracing a path along ridges of muscle defining his abs.
In the middle of that image, a vision growing more explicit by the second, Jackie remembered a popular musician’s myth that you couldn’t create works of great passion until you lost your virginity.
A silly superstition of course. But the musician’s counterpart to an old wives’ tale was well known to those in the business. She’d had a fading diva for a music teacher once who’d told her she wouldn’t be able to sing until she’d screwed.
Jackie had written off the bawdy advice with a laugh. Funny how that wisdom came roaring back in her ears as she stood drooling over