“He was always flirting with Paloma during class,” she explained. “He was so dashing and full of compliments, he became the ideal against which I judged all other boys when I grew old enough to have an interest in them. None had much chance after that.” She sighed wistfully, laughing at herself before she sobered. “I was devastated when I heard he’d been killed. It was the first time I understood that people could die before their time.”
He was staring holes through her, leaving hollow spaces, but she said what was in her because she knew she would regret it if she didn’t take this chance to express her sincere condolences when she had this chance.
“He talked about you with fondness. I was worried about you after the accident. Sad for you losing your brother and your parents. I always wanted a sibling myself.” She shrugged self-consciously at having such depth of compassion for a complete stranger. “I’ve looked you up over the years—which makes me sound like a stalker, I suppose, but I only viewed public things like your events at the games and read up on the apps you developed. That’s why I recognized you and acted so strangely. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable.”
Uncomfortable? Giovanni snorted. He had thought his cover was blown.
Maybe it was. Freja—why had she only given him her first name?—was setting off all sorts of alarms on his internal gauges, from self-preservation to the sexual ones he did his best to ignore.
She was too beautiful to disregard out of hand, though, even in a cheap, ill-fitting catering uniform. Her black vest hugged her slender waist, emphasizing the thrust of her hips and breasts. She wasn’t tall, but he’d watched her for an hour and she moved like a dancer, graceful and light. There wasn’t a speck of makeup on her face, but her translucent skin looked soft and luminous as baby powder. Her lashes and brows were nearly invisible, glinting pale gold, same as the hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. Her blue eyes bloomed like cornflowers and her pale pink lips looked smooth as rose petals.
That impression of absolute innocence was an illusion, though. She possessed an underlying maturity that allowed her to hold his gaze with disconcerting confidence—and imbue their stare with a pulse of male-female awareness.
Proceed with caution, he warned himself, even as he rationalized that he had no choice but to proceed.
“Have dinner with me tomorrow.”
She blinked, appearing startled by the invitation, which didn’t line up with his apprehension that she had approached him for the sole purpose of nurturing a better acquaintance.
Her hesitation could also be an illusion, he reminded himself, but it caused a surprisingly brutal clench of disappointment in him. “No?”
“If I can switch my shift, yes,” she said with a shy smile. “Thank you. I’d like that.” She was looking at him much the way he was studying her. Who is this person? I must find out.
He couldn’t allow her to see beneath his surface, of course, but oh, did he want to dig beneath hers. He took her number.
“I should get back,” she said with a glance to the closed door, but she didn’t rise. She studied him with an expectancy, as though she was waiting for something more.
To hell with it. The manufactured shell of a persona he wore was necessary, but he was all man beneath. A nudge of his wheels and he was close enough to touch her. He didn’t. Not yet. He managed to maintain some shred of self-control, but he wanted to. Unless...
“I’m not my brother.”
“I know.” Her brow quirked, dismissing the very idea. “That was a childish crush, not—”
He lifted his brows, confounded by her and fighting not to show it.
“Whatever this is.” Her gaze searched his.
Yes, what was it? He wanted to know, too. He absently braked his wheels and dropped his hand on the edge of her chair. He felt the small jolt in her thigh against his inner wrist as he leaned in, waited a half second for her to decide if she wanted to reject him, then set his mouth against hers.
He’d been so focused on the job at hand for so long, he’d forgotten how satisfying it was to let himself feel. To taste. To experience the surprised tremble of a woman’s lips. Hers were as smooth and soft as they looked, parting with welcome and moving in tentative response.
Hooks of desire snagged into him while a wind seemed to buffet them, making them sway. He lifted his free hand to her neck, drew her forward a fraction more so he could deepen their kiss, suddenly ravenous for all things sexual. For her. His blood became fire and she was the rain.
She made a noise that was pleasure and surrender, gorgeous and evocative. She leaned into him. One of her hands found his arm, the other touched his shoulder.
Without breaking their kiss, he gathered her and dragged her into his lap.
She gasped, eyes blinking open with surprise before her arms went around his shoulders. She set her mouth against his and made another of those blissful humming noises as her breasts mashed against his chest.
She was making this too easy. He knew that objectively, and he wasn’t so desperate for female company that he took it where he found it. He shouldn’t allow this seemingly unfettered response of hers to fuel his, but he was racing past normal checkpoints. In another instinctive move, he dug his fingers into her hip and pressed her deeper into the cradle of his thighs, wanting the weight and pressure of her in the places he could feel it.
Her hands went into his hair as if she knew how sensitive his scalp was. The tingle of pleasure was so acute, he had to bite back a ragged groan. He buried the sound in her throat as he ran his mouth down to her collar, suddenly starving, wanting all of her, right here, right now.
A pair of women walked past the far side of the vented panel that was the only thing hiding them from view. Their gossipy voices yanked him back to an awareness that he and Freja were essentially in public.
She stared at him the way a stranger might who had blindly stepped in front of his car, her whole life flashing in her eyes while her shiny lips quivered in astonishment that she was still intact.
He felt the same, which was sobering enough to steady his galloping heart.
“Tomorrow,” he promised, forcing himself to remember that she might be a plant. He helped her to her feet, determined to use the time between now and then to find out.
And even though he would need every minute of that time to assess whether he could trust her, he was already urging that time to pass quickly.
Freja walked briskly to the Manhattan restaurant from the gallery where she’d been working a few blocks away.
Her catering uniform was in a bag over her shoulder. She had already changed into a tweed skirt over knee-high boots with red leggings and a red turtleneck. She’d topped it with a brown motorcycle jacket mined from a thrift store. When she had combed out her hair, it had immediately lost the waves she’d hoped to retain by keeping it in a plait all day. No such luck. As always, it was fine as spider silk and arrow-straight. She had plopped a newsboy cap over it and called it “good enough.”