To Trust a Stranger (17 page)

“Oh my God,” Julie said again, a hand flying to her mouth. Shit. But Sid didn't appear to have any idea that anybody who shouldn't be was present-and Mac meant to keep it that way. He reached for Julie-her eyes were now big as flying saucers and locked on Sid-and slid both arms around her waist. Time for damage control. Fast. Clearly startled, she met his gaze.

“Climb up on my lap.” He blocked her view of Sid-and Sid's of the pair of them-with his back as he spoke. Julie's face was just inches away now, so close he could see the creamy texture of her skin, the little veins of gold in her eyes, each separate velvety black eyelash. Her eyes were wide and shocked and her lips were soft and curved, and to make bad worse she felt warm and supple and sexy as hell in his arms. He willed himself to ignore his body's immediate response, to cool out, to respond to this unforeseen emergency like the professional he was. Then Julie did as he told her and climbed onto his lap, straddling him in a remarkably good imitation of the base position of the undulating lap dancer on her left. Her slim, tanned legs pressed tight on either side of his-and yes, he discovered as he automatically grasped warm, taut-muscled, satin-skinned thighs to settle her into position, her legs were bare. His self-control did a kamikaze dive as suddenly Sid's presence became the least of his problems. He had to instantly remind himself of just what had happened to those suicidal Japanese pilots and pull up while he still could. Saved from fiery self-immolation by the narrowest of margins, he took a deep breath and assessed the situation. She was facing him now, instead of Sid, which was good. And her sweet little twat in the silky black panties that he'd gotten just a glimpse of as she'd swung astride was nestled against the big, dumb part of him which had already proved conclusively that it lacked a brain. Which was bad.

12

HANGING ON TO MAC'S SHOULDERS for balance, Julie perched atop his lap and glared at Sid through the reflecting silver wall. Her suspicions were right on, she realized, and felt her stomach clench. She'd known it, of course, all along. Sid was with a woman-two women. Two nearly naked women who were on him like white on paper and seemed to know him pretty damned well. Although the pounding music made it impossible to be sure, she was almost positive she'd heard one call him Sid in a squeaky baby voice that sounded like Marilyn Monroe on helium. Her cheating husband was no more than ten feet behind her now, and if it hadn't been for Mac's restraining hands on her legs she would have dismounted and walked over to him and punched the no-good dirty rotten lying cheater right in the nose. Can you spell “history,” Sid? she thought, watching him pull one of the Minnie Mouse-voiced silicone queens close to his side and nuzzle her neck. 'Cause that's what you're getting ready to be. Sid must have sensed something, or maybe felt the force of her gaze, because just then he glanced her way. To her horror, his eyes fixed on her as she sat astride Mac's lap, sliding down her back in an appraising kind of way, then glancing into the mirror-like wall in an attempt to see her face. Julie panicked, then realized that her image, like his, was faintly distorted by the silver panel, and the blond wig was probably enough to throw him off Still ... She dived for cover. Figuratively speaking, of course. Pulse racing, she ducked without, she hoped, seeming to do so, by the simple method of bending her head and pressing her mouth to Mac's. Desperate situations called for desperate measures, after all. She wasn't ready to confront Sid yet: she wanted to sort this out in her head and with a really hardball-playing lawyer before Sid realized she was on to him. Plus, she was still just a little afraid of Sid's reaction if he should discover that she was following him, although what he might actually do, she didn't quite know. Keeping quiet was the result of a gut feeling, not justified by anything except a kind of sixth sense. But that sixth sense was giving her as shrill and urgent a warning as a smoke alarm in a house on fire. So she shook her false hair forward to hide her face and kissed Mac, knowing that, as her partner in this emergency, he would understand why she was doing it and play along. His lips were dry, warm, and firm, and, she discovered, she quite liked kissing them, his sexual orientation notwithstanding. He didn't seem to have any problems with the kiss either. At least, he did not push her away or recoil in disgust. In fact, after one pregnant instant in which their gazes met, he even seemed to get into it. His lids closed and his hands slid up her thighs with a carnality that made her still open eyes widen. He took over the kiss, handling it like a pro, slanting his mouth over hers and licking between her lips until, just from instinct, her eyes closed and her lips parted to let his tongue inside. Then his tongue filled her mouth, and he was kissing her so expertly and so thoroughly that it was clear he'd had some experience somewhere. His arms went around her, hard and strong as steel bands, and his hands splayed over her back, so hot they burned her skin even through her dress. He pulled her close against him, flattening her breasts against the solid wall of his chest. She loved it. The same sizzle of electricity that had afflicted her when he'd touched her mouth at the bird sanctuary shot through her again times about a trillion, and she went all soft and shivery inside. The warm, wet invasion of her mouth thrilled her clear down to her toes. “Which, she discovered as they curled in ecstatic response, were now bare, her shoes having apparently slid unnoticed from her feet sometime within the last couple of seconds. Totally swept away, she wrapped her arms around Mac's neck and put her tongue in his mouth and kissed him back.

“That'll be ten dollars,” the waitress said.

“What could have been seconds or lifetimes later, Julie registered the words and their meaning and pulled her mouth from his. The way she felt gave dazed and confused a whole new meaning, she thought as she lifted her lids to stare at him in dazzled surprise. His eyes met hers. Julie saw that his pupils had dilated to the point where his irises looked almost black. A dark flush rode high on his cheekbones, and his lips were still parted from their kiss. He was breathing hard. She could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest against her breasts.

“Mac,” she said, alerting him to the waitress's presence. His mouth tightened, and his eyes as they met hers had a hot, sexy gleam in them that made her catch her breath. Oh God, he was gorgeous, she thought, her gaze drinking him in.

“Got it.” His gaze flicked to the waitress. One hand dropped away from her back to dig in the rear pocket of his jeans for his wallet. The other joined it seconds later as, his arms still around her but loosely now, he opened his wallet and extracted a bill. He handed the bill to the waitress, of whom Julie was now only peripherally aware. All her senses were suddenly too full of Mac again to allow anything else to really register. His crotch was pushing into hers, and there was a hard and urgent mound beneath his jeans. It felt so incredibly good pressing against her that she sucked in her breath and pressed back.

“Keep the change.” Mac was speaking to the waitress, but his voice was thick and his eyes were on Julie again. The waitress said something-probably thanks, although Julie couldn't be sure-and disappeared. Mac shoved the wallet back into his pocket, shifting beneath her in the process. Julie felt the nudge of that jeans-covered bulge against the most sensitive part of her and suddenly knew what it meant to truly crave something. Forget chocolate: what she wanted with every greedy nerve ending was sex. With Mac. Her throat went dry, her loins tightened and began to radiate heat. She shivered, conscious of an almost overwhelming urge to rip off her panties and have her way with him there and then. Then it hit her like a baseball bat over the head that this was Debbie-Debbie-and he had a giant-really, truly, enormous hard-on. For her. She blinked in befuddled, passion-clouded surprise. “What was the deal with that?

“Do you--do you go both ways?” Her voice was soft and faintly unsteady. Puzzled, she frowned into his eyes, but even as she tried to make sense of the whole thing she snuggled closer against him, her arms tightening around his neck, loving the hot prickly feel of her nipples as they pressed against the solid warmth of his chest, loving the silky slide of her panties over the hardness in his jeans, particularly loving the throbbing deep inside her panties, too turned on at the moment to do more than wonder vaguely about the fine points of his sexual wiring.

He stared at her, seemingly uncomprehending, for the space of a couple of heartbeats. Then she saw a flicker in his eyes as comprehension dawned, and he grimaced.

“No,” he said, and slid a hand around her nape beneath the heavy flow of artificial hair, pulling her mouth back down to his. Then he kissed her again.

Oh, God, if she had ever been so hot for someone in her life she didn't remember it. His kiss was hard and hungry and yet gentle at the same time, and she was completely bowled over by the warm wet urgency of it. He explored her mouth with an expertise that made her dizzy while she kissed him back and pressed her breasts against his chest and moved sensuously against the tangible evidence that he was experiencing at least this one heterosexual urge. His hands were under her dress now, both of them, cupping her bottom, squeezing her cheeks through the silky panties, and she melted inside like microwaved plastic.

Oh, God, a little more of this and she was going to come .... Somebody lurched into their table. There was a tinkling crash, and Julie felt a cool rain of liquid on her bare instep even as she dragged her mouth from Mac's and glanced around.

“Sorry.” The man who'd been enjoying the lap dancer was on his feet trying to get out between the tables. Obviously drunk, his attention focused on the near-naked woman who was pulling him by the hand, he'd stumbled into their table, causing her wineglass to topple onto its side, break, and disgorge its contents. Wine trickled over the edge of the table onto her foot. With no more than an impatient look at the cause of the distraction, Julie shifted positions to escape the stream and turned back to Mac.

What they were doing felt too good to interrupt for a spilled glass of wine.

“No problem,” Mac said to the man, looking past her.

“Can I get you some more wine?” The waitress appeared with a handful of napkins and started mopping. Julie, impatient, leaned forward to nibble Mac's ear, just to keep him from losing focus until they could get back to business. The lobe was soft and tender and tasted faintly salty. But she was starting to sense some resistance from Mac.

“No thanks,” Mac said to the waitress, sounding as if he was talking through clenched teeth. He was still turned on, she could tell-among other obvious signs, his instant stiffening when she twirled her tongue in his ear was a dead giveaway-but distraction was taking its toll. Then, not particularly to Julie's surprise, his hands closed over her hipbones and he lifted her bodily off him.

“Mac!” She wanted to weep.

Despite her plaintive protest and clinging hands he managed to slide out from under her, slippery as a fish wriggling off the hook, and as her bottom hit leather his hands were busy tugging her arms from around his neck. The waitress, finished with her mopping, loaded the broken glass onto her tray and moved away. Defeated, Julie slumped down onto the banquette, Mac's hands gripping her wrists.

“Sid's gone into the back room. We need to get out of here while we can.”

Sid. Glancing around, Julie realized that Mac was right: Sid was nowhere in sight. She also realized that, in the heat of the last few steamy minutes, she had completely forgotten about her cheating spouse. Unbelievable-but the cause was leaning toward her, looking a million times better than chocolate ever had as he held her wrists in an unbreakable grip, and the situation was extreme when even the size and warmth of his hands keeping her away from him struck her as sexy.

Meeting his gaze, she realized that while his eyes still held a trace of that superheated gleam, his lips were set in an obstinate line and his jaw was hard. Clearly, Romeo had left the building. Meanwhile, she felt as if she'd been poleaxed. The intensity of the voltage that had leaped between her and Mac had robbed her of any outside awareness as thoroughly as if she'd been unwary enough to press her lips to a stun gun.

“Come on, move it.”

Apparently not subject to extended
postmortem
ruminations of his own, Mac slid out from behind the table, picked up his beer and took a quick swig, then pulled her out after him, one hand wrapped around her wrist as if he was afraid she'd try to escape. Still feeling vaguely dazed, Julie fell in with the program. At the same time she tried to figure out what, exactly, had just happened. Her mind reeled as she considered. She'd caught Sid with his hand in the cookie jar, and kissed and been kissed by Mac cum Debbie, all within the space of maybe ten minutes. The unsettling thing was, the events seemed to be assuming almost equal importance in her mind. When she stumbled, glanced down to see what had tripped her up, and discovered that the offending object was one of her own tan leather slides, she wasn't even surprised to find that she had been on the verge of leaving in her bare feet without even realizing it.

Now that was dazed and confused. “What's the holdup?”

As she stopped, Mac looked around at her with a frown. “My shoes.”

She tried to right her shoe with her toes so that she could slide her foot inside, but she couldn't do it because, she thought, all her blood was still busy rushing somewhere more interesting than her brain. Watching, Mac made an impatient sound and swooped on the shoes, scooping them both up in his free hand. Hanging on to them, he headed purposefully toward the door, towing her barefoot behind him.