She moved to slip her arms beneath his again, but this time he caught her off guard. With one hand balanced on the hostess stand, he used the other to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. The friction of his fingernail against her skin was not unlike the lighting of the match. Heat flared where he’d touched her, so gently, so softly and yet with a pyrotechnic flash of instantaneous desire.
“Ariana,” was all he said, four syllables on a deep-throated breath scented with anise, teasing her skin, fanning the flame she’d not so effectively tamped down just moments before. “I don’t think I’ve ever said your name before,” he said, curling the strand behind her ear, skimming her suddenly sensitive flesh as he thread his fingers into her hair.
She blinked, wondering if the mystery drug was the reason for his sudden interest, and if it was, wondering if she cared.
“I like the way you say it,” she admitted, liking also the feel of his hand bracing her neck, his chest pressing closer and closer to hers so that the edge of his tie skimmed across her nipples. Her breasts tingled. Her breath caught. His arousal pressed through his slacks, taunting her. In the morning, he might not remember ever wanting her.
And again, she wondered if she cared.
“You’re incredibly beautiful, Ariana. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a long time.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked instantly, wincing when she realized that she might not want to know the answer.
His smile was crooked, tilted slightly higher on the left side. Still, the grin lacked the sardonic effect such an uneven slant might have on anyone else. Her insides clenched in a futile attempt to rein in her response—a cross between a magnetic pull and a bone-deep hunger for a man who was, in reality, a stranger.
Only he didn’t feel like a stranger anymore, and he hadn’t for a long while.
“Union Street,” he answered.
“What?”
He hadn’t answered her question, wasn’t making sense.
He pushed away from her slightly. “You asked where I lived. On Union.”
She nodded. Right. Get him home and to bed—though not at all in the way she’d originally intended.
“THIS IS INCREDIBLE!”
Max heard his voice echo beneath the clanging grind of the cable car, not certain he’d intended to share such an exuberant sentiment aloud. Yet when Ariana glanced over her shoulder and rewarded him with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes and flashed the whiteness of her teeth, he was glad he had.
“Haven’t you ever ridden a cable car before?”
Max couldn’t remember. He must have, but never like this. Against Ariana’s wishes, he stood on the side step, one hand gripping the polished brass pole, the other aching to wrap around her slim waist and tug her close, back against him. So she could feel his hard-on. And know he wanted her.
And God, he wanted her.
So what was stopping him? He was sure there had been some reason at some time, but he couldn’t remember and he certainly didn’t care. The crisp San Francisco night air, clouded with a late-night fog, trailed through her nearly waist-length hair and fluttered the glossy strands toward him. The tendrils teased him with a scent part exotic floral, part crisp ocean—and all woman.
Without thought, he did as he desired, slipping his hand around her waist and stepping against her full and flush.
She stiffened slightly and nearly pulled away.
“I want to hold you,” he said, beginning to accept that simple thoughts and simple explanations were all he could manage while intoxicated by whatever she’d said someone had put in his drink. He doubted her claim anyway. She had drugged him all right, but no pharmaceutical agent was involved.
She didn’t protest when he curled his right arm completely around her waist, careful to remember that he had to hang on to the cable car with his left. His brain was fuddled, but his heightened senses compensated for his total lack of control.
He fanned his fingers across her midsection. The texture of her ribbed shirt felt like trembling flesh. When he brushed his fingertips beneath the swell of her breasts, her back firmed, then relaxed, then pressed closer against him.
He dipped his head to whisper in her ear, “I want to touch you.”
The cable car rocked and shimmied to a brief halt. A clanging bell blocked her reply, if she’d made one, but when the car moved again, she turned around and traded her handhold on the brass pole for a firm grip around his waist.
“Where?” she asked.
She’d pulled her cap low and tight, so the dark brim pushed her bangs down to frame her large eyes. She bent her neck back to see his face, exposing an inviting curve of skin from the tip of her chin to the sensual arc of her throat.
His mouth felt cottony, but the desire in her eyes spurred a moisture that made him swallow deep. He ran his slick tongue over his lips and when she mirrored the move herself, his blood surged.
“Where will you touch me?” she asked again.
He blinked, a thousand thoughts racing through a brain too thick to harness them. The mantra “location, location, location” played silently in his mind then drifted away. Every single place he wanted to touch her—her lips, her throat, her shoulders, her breasts, her belly and beyond—seemed too intimate, too private to speak aloud.
He’d just have to show her.
He shook his head, grinning when his dizziness sent him swaying. She gripped him even tighter, giving him an excuse to dip his hold lower, over the swell of her backside, another place he most desperately wanted to touch with his hands and lips and tongue.
Max decided then and there that he had to accept his current limitations. As he had his entire life, he had to work with his immediate circumstances and the most basic skills at his disposal. His ability to speak was severely hampered. Forming a complex thought was out of the question. But he still had his instincts—natural, unguarded responses to basic, inherent needs. Hers and his.
“I’m going to touch you wherever you want me to.”
Her smile was tentative, a little surprised and entirely fascinating—as if he’d said something that shocked her.
“What if that doesn’t mean what you think it does?”
He shook his head. Processing that puzzle of a comment was impossible in his condition. He didn’t even consider trying.
“Whatever that means, I’m game. I’m in no condition to be in charge tonight. You’re going to have to tell me what to do.”
She chuckled. The sound was warm and deep and soothing like the liqueurs she’d poured in his drink, like the passions he’d kept in check for way too long.
“You may regret that,” she quipped.
Somehow, he doubted he’d regret anything about tonight, especially when the cable car slowed at Union Street and she jumped off the car and crooked her finger into his waistband to tug him to follow. So what if someone had supposedly doctored his drink, making his mind so fuzzy he had a hell of a time remembering his address? So what if some crucial reason, currently out of reach, existed why he shouldn’t let this incredibly sensuous woman take him home?
But no thought, no logic, no amount of reason could override the surge of power he felt even as she fairly dragged him up the sidewalk. He was going to make love to this mysterious woman with the sassy black hat.
Just as soon as he remembered where the hell he lived.
3
ARIANA SLID HER HAT off her head. Her backpack