“Thanks, but you just want my protection because your disguise didn’t work,” she said, finally lightening up a little. She grinned, looking him over. “You’re scared of some young, silly, slightly intoxicated girls when all they want to do is show you a good time.”
“They already showed me more than I expected to see,” he said.
“What?”
“That blond one’s wearing a buckle bunny thong. Black with the pink letters PBR written right across…the bunny’s head.”
She gaped at him. “How d’you…”
“She flashed me. In Enrique’s.”
“What?”
“Yep. In the hallway in front of the restrooms. Recognized me and dropped her jeans right there.”
He shook his head, remembering. “Said she sure does like bull riders, and I think she means it since her little bitty shirt says, ‘Wanna buck?’”
They were both laughing as the elevator stopped again.
“What floor are you on?” he said, his hand hovering over the wall of lighted buttons. “Can I come to your room for a little while?”
Well, no. Not now.
“In case they weren’t lying about having my number?”
“Look, I’m just trying to find something to eat,” she said. “I’m not even going back to my room right now.”
“I told you,” he said, shaking the bags with their delicious smells right in her face. “I’ve got enough here for six or eight people.”
“Why’d you buy so much?”
“Couldn’t decide what I wanted,” he said. “I’ve got enchiladas and mole and tacos and tamales and guacamole and rice and beans and nachos and sopapillas.”
He gave her a smile that could break a witch’s heart. “Any of that sound good to you?”
If she had a lick of sense, she’d go on to the coffee shop. She’d get out of here and leave him. She needed to think.
“What floor?” he asked.
But she really was hungry.
“I’d appreciate the favor,” he said. “I’m just not in the mood to deal with a gaggle of lonely, lustful women tonight.”
How about one lonely, lustful woman?
“You’d be flat-out savin’ my life if you’d take me in,” he added. “What floor?”
She hesitated. No wonder Carlie always said Elle was such a rescuer she ought to drive an ambulance.
“They must think I’m easy,” Chase said sadly. “Why else would the blonde flash me like that?” He flexed his hand—the one waiting for her to choose a number—and gave her a mischievous grin. “I promise,” he told her, “that girl doesn’t know the real me.”
She couldn’t keep from laughing at him, even as she shook her head over her own weakness.
“Seven,” she said.
CHAPTER FOUR
ELLE WATCHED CHASE take off his Hotel California cap and the sunglasses and drop them on the desk in the room as if he meant to stay awhile.
“I hope you don’t expect me to entertain you for the rest of the night in exchange for dinner,” she said. “I have to work tomorrow.”
He threw her a glance.
She felt her face redden again. Now he’d think she expected him to stay. Was hinting for him to stay. That she wanted him to kiss her again.
Well, she did want to know if he wanted to. And, to be perfectly honest, she did want him to, so she could find out whether she’d feel just as much the second time.
She slammed her mind shut on that thought and tried to think of something she could actually say to him.
“I have a costume suggestion for you,” she said, as he headed for the coffee table with the food. “You might stay away from the theme of bulls on your clothing if you don’t want to be recognized.”
He gave her a comical look. “You were wrong about the undercover cop deal,” he said. “I’m disguised as a PBR fan.”
“Evidently not very well,” she said dryly, and loved that he laughed, even though it wasn’t that funny. “Maybe get a cap with a slightly more current bull on it.”
They ate sitting on the little love seat, hardly talking, both of them ravenous. Once they’d consumed almost everything, the habanero salsa was burning them up.
“Milk,” Elle said, and went to get it from the small refrigerator. Chase got up and started clearing away the mess.
“Be careful not to throw out the sopapillas,” she said, rummaging for the paper cups. “How many of them did you say you have?”
He laughed. “I didn’t say. And don’t worry about it. You’ve eaten too much already.”
She turned to nail him with a look. “Well, what about you? Let’s see now, three tacos plus a whole plate of enchiladas? And that was after many, many nachos and a lot of guacamole.”
“Hey, what were you doing? Counting everything I ate? Hoping I’d drop a crumb so you could grab it, I’ll bet,” he said, stuffing trash into two of the Enrique bags.
Elle started for the table with the cups of milk, crossing his path on his way to the wastebasket. He stopped directly in front of her, so close his arm brushed hers.
“You’re just lucky you found me when you did,” he said, the words coming slow and low and sexy as his eyes laughed down at her. “Another hour and you’d’ve died of starvation, Elle.”
Her lips parted but she couldn’t quite think what to say. Couldn’t quite think at all.
She stepped around him. “Will you stop it? I burned up thousands of calories tonight in the arena.”
She set the cups down, went to check on the sleeping dog, then came back to the love seat.
You’re just lucky you found me when you did….
Her body must be insisting that his remark had a double meaning because it was trying to sit in the middle of the little sofa. Better not.
She dropped cross-legged onto the floor beside the table, took a drink of milk, then lifted the container of sopapillas out of the double paper bag. Chase came to sit down beside her, to her surprise.
He opened the box, set out the little tub of honey and removed its lid.
“About tonight’s performance,” he said. “I intended to tell you you were great.”
He really meant it. He said it with feeling. He was so sincere that a thrill shivered through her.
Which was ridiculous. She could care less what he thought of her work, after that unreasonable criticism of it in Austin.
“Are you taking back what you said about women bullfighters?”
He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he turned, smiled at her, and said, “I’m saying every move you made tonight was exactly right.”
She had to hold her arms down at her sides to keep from throwing them around his neck and kissing him like a crazy woman. Nobody, not even M.J. or Rocky or Junior had ever praised her work so extravagantly.
She blurted, “I was hoping you were watching.”
Surprise flickered in his eyes. “You were?”
She