He sipped the drink, having gotten the special for himself, and grimaced. “Yeah. Cough syrup.”
“I warned ya.”
“I had to try one holiday-themed drink, and the only other choice was some green, glow-in-the-dark ectoplasm stuff.”
They talked drinks for a few minutes, and then music. He realized they had very similar tastes. She was a great conversationalist, but he would never remember half of what she said. He just lost himself staring at her and listening to that sexy, throaty voice—which occasionally tipped up into a more normal tone, one that seemed familiar to him somehow. He was about to ask if she had a cold, or if she’d been around a smoker, but she asked him something first.
“So, Chaz, why were you overseas?” she asked, taking over the conversation. That was a good thing, since he wasn’t sure he’d be able to think of anything except how much he was dying to taste that vulnerable spot on the hollow of her throat.
Besides, it was better than Nice weather we’re having.
“I’m a journalist. I was following a story in Pakistan and ended up staying in Islamabad to help with a new media outfit.”
“That sounds exciting.”
“It can be. Some days are just routine, but the situation there is just so...unsettled.” Well, that’s the understatement of the night.
“So I hear.”
Remembering some of the darker parts of his trip—the things he’d seen and wished he could forget—he admitted, “It’s a completely different world.”
One where he’d witnessed some of the worst—but also, he had to concede, some of the best—of humanity. Dirt and poverty warred with decency and a strong desire for a better life. He’d met people he would consider good friends...and others to whom he would never have turned his back for fear of them sticking a knife in it. It had been like living on a high wire for two months, but, quite honestly, it was what he lived for. He’d always hated liars as a kid, and now he got to bring down the biggest and worst all over the world. Still, it was exhausting, and he was glad to be back in the U.S. of A. Particularly at the start of the whole holiday season. His parents hadn’t expected him home for Thanksgiving and he looked forward to calling them tomorrow to tell them he’d be there.
“Were you in real danger?”
“I never really felt like it, except the two times I crossed over into Afghanistan. Things got a little hairy on the second trip.”
She gasped. “Are you crazy? How could you take a risk like that?”
“Chasing a story,” he said, amused at her response. She’d reacted as though she were a disapproving family member rather than a woman he’d just met. “Believe me, there wasn’t a minute when I wasn’t aware of my surroundings.”
“Your family must not have been happy about your being there.”
That inspired a brief laugh. “You think I’m insane? I didn’t tell them!”
He’d swear she was frowning in disapproval beneath that mask. “Maybe it’s good you didn’t. I’m sure your parents would have been terrified for you.”
“Yes, they would have,” he said, wondering if she, too, had overprotective parents. “That’s why I didn’t say anything to them. The trips were in-and-out, neither lasting longer than thirty-six hours. No point in worrying anybody when I was so far away and nothing they could have said would have changed my mind about going anyway.”
“I read about some journalists who were attacked there last spring.”
His hand tightened around his glass, an instinctive reaction, and a familiar pang of sorrow stabbed him in the gut. “Yes, I knew one of them. She was a wonderful photojournalist.” Her death had been part of what made him so conscious of his surroundings for every second of the trip—and so determined to keep doing what he was doing.
Maybe that was also one reason why he was being a little reckless tonight. He’d been tense for weeks, he needed to let loose, shake off the last vestiges of emotional darkness, be around someone exciting and daring. Someone like her.
“All I can say is it’s great to be home where...”
“Where you can proposition a sexy stranger?”
He smiled, incredibly grateful that she’d lightened the mood again. It was as if she’d read his mind and understood he’d gone as far as he wanted to go on the memory-lane trip.
“Uh-oh, I think you were the one who stepped forward that time.”
“Sideways, maybe. The question was related to the subject at hand.”
“So it was.” He tossed back the rest of his drink, stood, and offered her his hand. “Let’s dance again.”
She immediately rose, twining her soft fingers with his. He squeezed lightly, wondering why he had such a sudden, shocking feeling of rightness at it being there. Funny, how quickly she was affecting him.
They were back on the dance floor, swaying to another bluesy Halloweenish song, when he remembered what she’d said back at the table. “So, you think you’re sexy, do you?”
“I think you think I am.”
Sexy enough to stop his heart. “Oh? You seem pretty self-assured.”
“Well, you gave me a hint with your have-sex-like-the-sun-isn’t-gonna-come-up-tomorrow line.”
“That wasn’t a line,” he said, his voice steady, resolute. “It was a promise.”
She wobbled again. Damn, he loved rocking her out of her spike-heeled shoes that were more of a sexual invitation than a foot covering.
“Now who’s the self-assured one?” she whispered.
“I guess that makes us a good pair.”
“I wasn’t the one who made suggestive comments about suns not rising.”
“But you didn’t slap my face and walk away, either.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, so obviously trying to regain the upper hand, he almost laughed. “So, the whole sun-not-coming-up thing. What does it mean, anyway? Aside from the obvious.”
He quirked a brow. “Huh?”
“Why would the sun not coming up make the sex better? Is it because it would go on so long since the night would never end?”
She tried to sound arch and noncommittal, but he could already read this woman very well. Part of her was urging him on, another trying to throw up artificial barriers to buy herself time to figure out where on earth they were going with this attraction.
“Or do you need to be in the dark?” She gasped a little, the sound over-exaggerated. “Are you...deformed in some way?”
“Wicked witch coming out to play?” he said with a lazy grin, not letting her get the rise out of him she was trying to.
“Do you like her?”
“A lot.”
“Maybe you haven’t seen her at her wickedest yet.”
He couldn’t make it out entirely, but he’d swear he could see a twinkle in those dark, mask-encircled eyes. She was teasing him. Daring him. Two steps forward again.
“I look forward to it. To answer your question, I have no problem in the light or the dark. I’m quite comfortable getting naked and utterly wild in broad daylight.”
She quivered the tiniest bit before replying, “You certainly did put on a show here.”
He tilted his head to the side,