Hungry for You (21 page)

Not that she wanted him to kiss her, Alex told herself firmly as she realized the direction of her own thoughts. She hadn’t even allowed their conversations to dip into the personal area since the night they’d painted the dining room together. She didn’t want to get involved, Alex reminded herself firmly, and turned her face forward as Cale turned into the parking lot behind the new restaurant. Her eyebrows rose when she spotted the SUV parked where she normally parked her own car. “Is that Justin Bricker?”

“Hmm.” Cale nodded, his expression serious now.

“I wonder what he’s doing here.”

“So do I,” Cale said dryly as he parked the car.

The moment the vehicle had stopped, Bricker moved to the passenger door and opened it for Alex. Grinning brightly, he greeted, “Hello, beautiful. I see you managed not to kill Cale during your enforced relaxation.”

Alex smiled wryly as he took the print from her with one hand and reached out his other for her to hold as she got out of the car. “It was a close one when he wouldn’t let me go clean the restaurant, but I managed to control myself.”

Bricker chuckled at the claim as he closed the door for her. His gaze then shifted to the print he held. “For the new restaurant?”

“The office,” she answered, peering at it again herself.

“Nice,” Bricker decided. “I like the colors, and it suits a restaurant perfectly.”

“That’s what I thought too,” she said with a laugh, taking the print back.

“So to what do we owe this visit?” Cale asked, coming around the car to join them.

“I came in search of keys to the restaurant for Lucian. He and Lucern are taking Emile over early so he can familiarize himself.”

“Oh, right, I forgot about the keys.” Cale began to search his pockets.

“I’m surprised you didn’t call,” Alex said to Bricker.

Bricker shrugged. “I was in the neighborhood so just swung by. When I realized you weren’t here, I was going to call his cell number to see where the two of you were, but then you pulled in and saved me the trouble.”

“Here.” Cale handed the keys to Bricker. “We’re coming by for supper once it’s open.”

“I’ll let your hostess, Sue, know so she saves you a table,” Bricker promised.

“If it’s too busy, just tell her we’ll eat in my office,” Alex said, not wanting to put pressure on the woman. They were almost always booked to capacity, but if word of Emile’s cooking there tonight had gotten out, she was sure it would be a madhouse, with tables originally ordered for two suddenly sporting four or more as people called friends and invited them along. A certain amount of that happened each night anyway, and they generally tried to accommodate such things, but she suspected tonight would be worse than usual.

“Will do,” Bricker assured her.

“Alex, why don’t you go inside and decide where you want your print? I’ll hang it after I have a word with Bricker,” Cale said quietly.

Alex raised her eyebrows curiously, wondering what he wanted to talk about that he couldn’t say in front of her, but nodded and turned to make her way to the back door.

“Did you pay Peter a visit last night?” Cale asked the moment Alex disappeared inside the restaurant.

The younger immortal nodded with a grimace. “Yeah. He’s an unpleasant little jerk, but he wasn’t the attacker. He was pissed at Alex for not hiring him back, though.”

“He
was
pissed?” Cale asked, one eyebrow lifting.

“I removed those feelings for him,” Bricker said dryly. “He was really bitter, and he’s the vengeful sort.

I figured it was better than leaving it and his causing problems later.”

Cale nodded. “Good thinking. Thanks.”

“So?” Bricker raised an eyebrow of his own now. “Did you have sweet dreams last night?”

Cale scowled. “That’s none of your business.”

Bricker chuckled, not at all offended by his short tone. Turning away, he headed for the SUV, saying, “That would be a yes then. I’ll let Sam know. She’s really fretting over the two of you.”

Had he thought he was starting to like this guy? Cale asked himself with irritation as he watched the younger immortal get into the SUV and start it up. If so, he was definitely revising that opinion. Shaking his head as Bricker gave him a cheery little wave as he pulled out, Cale turned and headed inside.

The sound of pounding reached him the moment he entered the back door and Cale knew at once that rather than wait for him, Alex had gone ahead with hanging the print herself. The woman was entirely too independent. She seemed determined to prove she didn’t need him for anything except the job he’d agreed to do. At least that was how it seemed to him. She was always trying to pay for their meals, always shunning help for the smallest task. She just didn’t seem to know how to accept help. It made him feel kind of useless at times.

Sighing, Cale let the door close behind him and headed for the office, his eyes widening with horror when he saw what she’d gotten up to. Rather than drag out the ladder they’d used while painting, she’d pulled the desk chair over, and was now standing with onefoot on the seat, and one on the arm of the chair as she pounded the nail of a picture hook into the wall. Alex seemed completely oblivious to the way the chair teetered with each blow, not to mention the fact that the damned thing was on wheels and could roll out from under her at any moment.

Cale hurried across the room as—finished with her pounding—she dropped the hammer on the chair seat and picked up the print to hang it. She’d just released the print when he reached the chair, and said sharply, “Jesus, Alex. You’ll break your—”

Breaking off with a curse, Cale reached out to catch her as she gave a start, slipped, and then lost her balance as the chair shifted under her. He caught her close to his chest, closed his eyes briefly with relief that he’d been there to do so, and then snapped them open when she said with irritation, “For heaven’s sake, Cale. I nearly broke my neck. You shouldn’t startle people like that.”

Cale stared down at her scowling face with disbelief. “You—I—”

Alex raised her eyebrows when Cale gave up trying to say whatever it was he was trying to get out and simply stared at her with frustration. She had no idea what had upset him so much. He was the one who had nearly scared her silly. And he was still holding her pressed tightly to his chest too, which was kind of discomfiting for her. She had the most ridiculous urge to slip her arms around his shoulders and press even closer, but managed to resist. Instead, she forced herself to stare back into his face and wait for him to set her down.

Okay, it wasn’t really his face her gaze was focused on. For some reason she had zeroed in on his lips and couldn’t seem to drag her attention away from them as her mind replayed scenes from her dream the night before. Images of those lips moving across her skin and closing over her nipple ran through her head, and she was just thinking that it seemed terribly hot in her office all of a sudden, when she realized that those sweet lips she was staring at were drawing closer.

He was going to kiss her, some part of her mind yelled in warning, and Alex knew she should turn her head away, or kick her legs to be set down, but found she was unwilling to. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted to know if it would be as wonderful as it had been in her dream.

Surely nothing could be that good, Alex thought faintly, and then his mouth drifted softly over hers, brushing across them as lightly as a butterfly’s wings, once, then twice before settling so that his tongue could slide out to urge her lips apart. Alex wasn’t aware of giving her brain the order to do it, but her mouth parted willingly enough, allowing his tongue in, and she had to revise her belief that no real kiss could compare with those from her dream. This was definitely as good or better, she decided, as his tongue swept in to tangle with hers.

Cale tasted of lemon meringue pie and coffee, the snack they’d had during the last break he’d insisted on while they’d been antiquing. But it was combined with another taste entirely his own, and Alex found herself moaning and shifting slightly in his arms so that herhands could creep up around his neck. Cale immediately deepened the kiss, his mouth becoming more demanding, and she found she was actually clutching at him and turning her upper body so that she could press closer.

She wasn’t aware of his moving until he set her down. Alex was vaguely aware of the desk top suddenly beneath her bottom, but that was all the attention she could manage to spare. Her focus was on the hands now sliding over her body, and then playing over her breasts through her sweater.

Alex groaned and arched into the touch, then gasped when he broke their kiss to trail his lips to her ear. She immediately turned her head into that caress with a gasp, her body shuddering as he nipped at the lobe. She opened her eyes with confusion when he pulled back, and then she glanced down to see that he was working on removing her sweater and had already pushed it up her chest to reveal her bra. Alex instinctively raised her arms to help him, emitting a little sigh when he tugged it up over her head and off, then shuddering when his hands immediately moved to cover the silk triangles over her breasts. He began to kiss her again then, his tongue thrusting into her mouth as he kneaded her through her bra. She felt cool air touch the nipples he’d caressed to points, and she glanced down when he broke the kiss again to see that Cale had tugged the cups under her breasts, leaving them exposed. Not for long. She’d barely realized what he’d done when one hand covered an exposed breast while his mouth bent to the other.

Alex gasped and planted her hands on the desk top, leaning on them to arch her back. Cale immediately caught her by the hips and pulled her closer to the edge of the desk until her legs were framing his hips, the center of her pressing against his groin. She groaned as he repeatedly rubbed against her while continuing to suckle and nip at first one breast, and then the other. Alex had never experienced anything like the passion it sent reverberating through her. It came in waves that rolled through her body one after the other, the first seeming to join with the second, and then the third, building up to an unbearable level.

She wrapped her legs around his, pressing him tight against her in an effort to stop his thrusts. Alex then shifted her weight to one hand and tangled the other in his hair, dragging his head away from her breast and up for a kiss. She had never experienced the depth of sensation he was causing, and it terrified her, but her action didn’t help much. In fact, it just made it worse; now he was seducing her with his mouth while one hand took up the torture at her breasts, and the other slid between them to caress her through her jeans.

“Oh God,” Alex moaned, tearing her mouth from his and turning her head away. She needed some cessation, some air. She was sure she was going to faint from the pleasure building within her. But Cale simply trailed his mouth across her face to her ear and set up a whole new clamoring as he nibbled industriously there.

When his hands left off caressing her, Alex felt a moment’s relief that turned to confusion when he caught her by the hips and lifted her off the desk to stand onher own legs. For a moment she feared he intended to stop, and it left her torn. While these sensations were overwhelming her, she was loath to see them end … but stopping was not on his agenda. By the time she realized his hands had shifted to work on the button and zipper of her jeans, they were both already undone, and his hand was slipping inside.

Alex clutched at his shoulders and went up on her tiptoes with a gasp as he now began to caress her through her panties without the heavy cloth of the jeans in the way.

“Cale,” she gasped, hearing the desperation in her own voice, and then twisted her head to catch his mouth again, sucking at his tongue when it slid past her lips. Becoming aware that he was tugging at her jeans with his free hand, she reached blindly to help, pushing them off her hips and shimmying slightly to urge them down her legs, then groaning as that shifted her more fully into his caresses.

Her head was spinning now, and Alex was beginning to fear there had been some damage from her head injury after all. No man had ever affected her like this. It couldn’t just be because of passion, she thought dazedly, clutching at the front of his shirt as he tore her panties from her. In the next moment, his fingers slid across her moist flesh, and Alex decided she didn’t care. The fear was fading under a burning need he was bringing to raging life inside her, and she reached blindly for the front of his jeans to undo his button and zipper, but found the job already done and his erection half-exposed as he shoved his own jeans down his hips.

She barely got to remove him fully from the cloth and clasp him in hand before Cale gave up on the jeans and lifted her onto the desk. Alex gasped at the contact as her hot flesh met the cold wood, and then she was crying out into his mouth as he caught her under the thighs and drove into her, still fully dressed.

Cale paused then, his body filling hers. Alex wasn’t sure why until he broke their kiss to peer down at her. Recognizing the uncertainty and question in his eyes, she reached up to press a kiss to his lips, then clasped his behind and dug her nails in, urging him to move.

They both groaned as he slowly withdrew partway, then groaned in unison again as he slid back in, and then his mouth covered hers again and his hips started into the rhythm of an age-old dance … It was a very short dance. Already on the edge of orgasm when he entered her, Alex lasted perhaps four more thrusts before her world exploded. She was vaguely aware of his accompanying shout and then darkness swept into her brain eliminating everything else.

Eleven

Alex woke up to find herself lying on Cale’s chest
on the couch. He must have moved them after she’d lost consciousness, she realized, and then frowned at the fact that she apparently hadn’t even stirred when he’d moved her.

Biting her lip, she lay still for several minutes, trying to figure out what had just happened and what it meant. Not that she didn’t know she’d just had mind-blowing sex on the desk in the office of her new restaurant with her business manager, there was no denying that. What she didn’t understand was how powerful and overwhelming it had been.