Jane was liking his ideas better and better. Her memories of two days ago in the park, their bodies pressed together, dominated her thoughts on self-defense lessons.
“So this will involve lots of, um, close contact?”
His expression remained neutral. “Yeah, lots of it.”
“Hmm. That could be interesting.”
He cracked a smile. “We’ll have to keep ourselves focused on the task at hand, of course. This is serious business.”
Jane finished her pizza with visions of Luke wrestling her to the ground and showing her all the techniques he knew dancing through her head.
“How about we get started tonight? With the lessons, I mean,” she said without thinking.
Stress again. It had to be stress that took her from worrying about crazed stalkers to having self-defense lesson fantasies in a matter of minutes.
Luke glanced at his watch, an expensive Swiss brand that suggested exactly the sort of clients he normally worked with—probably not people who attacked him with breath spray and gave him oral sex in the bathtub. Jane smiled to herself.
“Not tonight. I need to meet with another client at eight tomorrow morning, and I’ve still got some work to do before the meeting.”
Jane quirked an eyebrow, not sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved. “You wouldn’t be brushing me off, would you?”
He smiled slowly. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than go back to your place, but after what happened yesterday, I know we wouldn’t get much sleep.”
She blinked, amazed at the sudden rush of emotion in her chest. Was she actually offended that her bodyguard had just turned down an opportunity to get intimate with her? Had that really been her only motive in asking him back to her place? She swallowed a dry lump in her throat.
Maybe it had.
And she’d become the sort of woman she scolded soundly in The Sex Factor for letting sex control her life. How had this happened? But the question no sooner formed in her head than she knew the answer.
She needed only to close her eyes and imagine the most amazing Sunday afternoon of her life to know.
“Jane? Are you okay?” Luke was peering at her as if she’d just fallen asleep on her plate.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, shifting in her seat.
“How about we meet up tomorrow for the self-defense lessons? I should be free after lunch.”
She frowned, pretending to go over her schedule in her head. It was true she had writing to catch up on, and in spite of the way her body responded at the thought of seeing Luke tomorrow, she decided it was best to finally start following a bit of her own advice and make him wait.
“I really need to catch up on work all day tomorrow. How about later in the week?”
“We need to get an overall security plan for you in place as soon as possible. I don’t want to wait too long until our next meeting.”
Uh-huh. Jane resisted a smile. “How about Thursday?”
But then she caught a glimpse of his hand resting on the table, so large and perfect. Smooth café-au-lait skin sprinkled with dark hairs, long capable fingers that had worked with such skill—had made her cry out and writhe around shamelessly. She squeezed her thighs together and frowned. So much for her newfound self-control.
“Are you sure you can’t make time on Wednesday? I just don’t want to put this off any longer than necessary.”
“Wednesday is perfect,” she blurted with a little too much enthusiasm.
Luke tossed her an odd look but said nothing.
By the time they paid for dinner—arguing over the bill and finally settling on Luke getting the tab and Jane leaving the tip—and made it out to the parking lot, Jane was nearly humming with pent-up desire. She wanted to grab him, tug him into the back seat of her car, and demand a quickie to get her through the next two days.
Two entire days. How would she survive? How would she focus on writing when an onslaught of erotic images filled her head and threatened to drive her mad?
Jane drove home with her teeth clenched together, tried to listen to National Public Radio for all of two minutes before a discussion of some obscure poet became too much, and eventually gave up trying to resist thinking about Luke. She wanted him desperately. Wanted to feel the heat and firmness of his body against her again, wanted to feel him pumping inside her again, wanted to try out all the techniques and positions and scenarios she’d read about with a clinical detachment in magazines like Excess over the years, but had never had the urge to try before.
By the time she reached her town house, which was blazing with lights thanks to the automatic random light settings Luke had installed with the security system, she feared she’d be awake all night.