CHAPTER 10

He played bartender, pouring her a champagne and himself another rye. Then he rummaged through the three small refrigerators under the bar and came up with cheese, cold cuts, olives. Placing them on the marble bar top, he gave a wave towards the lounge. ‘I’m going to find some crackers.’

He came back with nuts, crackers, pickled peaches and lychees, madeleines, as well as two boxes of chocolates, one French and one local, and dumped the foodstuffs on the bar. ‘You have to be a little hungry,’ he said, beginning to rip open boxes.

‘Twist my arm,’ she said with a grin and pointed. ‘Push those chocolates my way.’

‘How about a madeleine with your champagne.’ He slid the two boxes over.

Soon he had all the tins, bottles and boxes opened, he’d found some silverware, plates, a pile of embroidered napkins and he’d poured them both another drink. ‘Am I resourceful or what?’ he said with a grin, lifting his glass to her.

‘If I was dropped into some jungle clearing in the middle of nowhere, you’d certainly be the right man to have along.’ She smiled over the mocha truffle she was about to put in her mouth. ‘I didn’t even know I was hungry.’

‘After seeing you eat at dinner, I thought you might be,’ he said, busy arranging a line of crackers on a bar towel. ‘You have a good appetite.’

‘Is that an insult?’

A swift glance from under his lashes. ‘God, no, don’t glare.’

‘I’m not glaring.’

‘Fuck if you’re not.’ He set down the cracker box. ‘So you like to eat. It’s a good thing. Different, that’s all. Most women pretend they don’t eat.’ Picking up a package of sliced cheese, he began putting one on each cracker.

‘The women you know.’

He wasn’t going there, not even close. ‘You’re right. It’s a narrow segment, I agree. Cheese? No? Did you try the lychees?’ He eased the bottle closer to her.

‘Are you changing the subject?’

‘That was my intent. Do you always take a bite out of every chocolate first?’

She smiled. ‘So you’re not going to talk about the women who pretend to eat?’

Dominic’s turn to smile. ‘Nope. Sure you don’t want a cracker?’

‘And pressing you would be useless.’

‘Very.’ He spooned a dollop of pâté atop the cheese on the first cracker. ‘Tell me about the chocolates.’

She lifted one brow. ‘Maybe I don’t want to.’

A twitch of a smile, quickly suppressed. ‘Do you squabble with everyone, or just me?’

‘I’m pleased you find me so entertaining,’ she said with a sniff.

‘Then we’re both pleased.’ Another quick glance up through his lashes.

She dragged in a sharp breath, his fleeting glance was explicitly carnal, his voice like velvet on her skin.

‘What?’ He smiled lazily.

‘Nothing,’ she whispered. She drew in a deep breath of restraint and the full swell of her breasts, only thinly veiled by the white silk of her robe, rose in two perfect round fuck-me spheres.

Dominic slid the spoon back into the pâté jar. Those ripe tits nearly bursting through the delicate silk would give a monk a hard-on and he was far from abstemious. Food was no longer a top priority. Although Miss Hart’s tremulous approach to sex had to be dealt with gently. And patiently. ‘I’m assuming you don’t like creams,’ he casually said, indicating the half-eaten chocolates in the box with a wave.

‘How polite you are. Do you actually want an answer?’

‘I do. I’m curious.’ He dipped his head in the direction of the ravaged chocolates. ‘I’ve never seen that before.’ He picked up a cheese and pâté cracker. Since he wasn’t going to rush Miss Hart, he had time to eat.

‘Nothing so uncouth, you mean.’

He grinned. ‘No. It reminds me of some three-year-old in the jam jar.’ He popped the cracker in his mouth.

‘You know about three-year-olds?’ Christ, she shouldn’t have asked. ‘Sorry,’ she quickly said.

He finished chewing and swallowed. ‘My sister has’ – he counted on his fingers briefly – ‘six children.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve seen my share of little three-year-old hellions.’ He stabbed a finger at the box. ‘So?’

‘So – I don’t like creams,’ she said, flustered that she’d embarrassed herself by suggesting he might have children. Although he hadn’t actually answered, had he? Rich men like him could have children they discreetly supported so long as the mother was content with the financial arrangement. ‘Checking out the flavours saves me calories,’ she went on under his cool-eyed gaze. ‘And I don’t bite every chocolate like that unless they’re mine – or in this case, yours.’

The word bite and yours caused a predictable jolt to his libido, but he was long past youthful impetuosity. ‘You don’t have to worry about calories.’

‘Thank you. Nor do you.’ There. Better. Unruffled.

‘I work too hard. I have to eat a lot just to keep my weight stable.’

Really. Did everything make her think of sex tonight? She tried not to look at the results of his eating regimen, but his T-shirted torso was only a bar width away, his powerful arms were even closer as he spooned more pâté on top of a cheese-covered cracker and slid it in his mouth. ‘One more drink and then I’d better stop,’ she said, in lieu of all the other possibilities racing through her brain. The ones having to do with unbridled sex and Dominic Knight.