Dirty Deal (Perfectly Matched 2)

Bryan had changed too, but instead of droopy old duds like hers, he’d opted for what she could only assume was his best panty-dropping attire. His dark-washed jeans hung low on his hips, clinging to his powerful thighs. In deference to the still-warm summer evening, the fitted army tee he’d worn earlier had been switched out for an equally fitted black tank top. With the combo of his muscled arms and the scent of whatever was in the bag he held, it was an effort not to drool.

“Can I come in?” he said. “I had to kill a kraken to get across the moat into this place, but here I am.”

“Cute. Come on in.” She stepped back and waved him in as she tried to pull herself together and think relaxing thoughts.

Calm blue oceans, calm blue oceans…

He walked in front of her as if he already knew where he was going, and she caught a glimpse of the back of his pants.

Calm blue oceans, calm blue…jeans clinging to his…

“Seriously, this place is like a castle. It should come with a guard dragon.” He set the white paper bag down on the wide marble island in the center of the room and she took a deep breath before walking over to help him with the food.

“Yeah, it’s a lot of space,” she admitted.

He pulled Styrofoam containers from the bag and set them on the surface, popping open each lid as he went. He’d brought a veritable smorgasbord of food, all slathered in various sauces and paired with fried rice or deep-fried rolls. Just smelling it, she’d probably gained a good fifteen pounds. The last container he pulled out was hers, though.

A huge pile of steamed broccoli and water chestnuts, which looked more than a little pathetic in comparison to the rest of the spread.

“Got plates? I mean the common-folk kind. You don’t have to break out the china.” His grin was teasing, and she laughed in spite of herself.

She moved to the other side of the island, but as seemed to be his custom, he was standing directly in her way. She cleared her throat, and he moved to the side. Not far enough, though. As she reached for the paper plates, she could still feel his hard muscles brushing against her, and a shiver of recognition traveled down her spine.

She had to get control over herself and the situation. “So, how do you want to do this? Eat and then study or study while we eat, or…?” She looked up at him questioningly, but he only shrugged and grabbed a plate from her.

“I’m game for whatever.”

“Okay. Cool.” She swallowed, suddenly aware of just how close they were again. The smell of his aftershave mingled with the scent of the food. At least two of the deadly sins all up in her kitchen.

She stepped away to dig some napkins from under the sink and set them out before putting the space of the island between them again.

He shoveled food onto his plate and took a seat on a high-back stool across from her. Good. They had a two-inch-thick, eight-foot-long slab of marble and all of the food between them. Hopefully it would be enough to keep her from jumping his bones. Again.

“So, um, I guess the first thing to figure out is how we met.”

“Okay.” He noshed on a chunk of mandarin chicken and seemed to think it over. She might have intervened with her own ideas if she hadn’t been so distracted by the way his angular jaw worked as he chewed, or the slight sheen on his lips that was way more tantalizing than any of the food in front of them. Finally, he swallowed. “How about this. I was a lowly grifter and you were a starlet with amnesia and together we became an unlikely pair who overthrew the town’s government and—”

“All that time and you couldn’t have put it into something that might actually work?” She pretended to feel annoyed, but she didn’t. Mostly she was just trying not to laugh, but she’d be damned if she let him know as much.

“It’s not my style.” He speared another piece of meat with his chopsticks and held it out to her. “Want a taste?”

She shook her head and stuck another piece of broccoli in her mouth, desperately trying to numb her senses to the wafting goodness of all the fried food.

“Okay, well, where would I meet someone like you, then? Where do you typically meet people?” He raised his eyebrows before taking another bite.

Where did she meet people? She thought back on the past few months, then had to spread the net out further to the past few years. Everyone knew she was a sort of “girl about town,” but when she got to the bare bones of it? She wasn’t attracted to a lot of guys. She still talked a good game, and went out once in a while to keep up appearances, but she always found herself bored and wishing she was back home with a glass of wine, watching a movie or something. The rest of her time was spent with people at work events. Or planning work events. Or researching work events.

She shoveled another hunk of flaccid broccoli into her mouth and chewed, suddenly depressed. Serena Elliott was totally boring and pathetic. When had that happened?

“I’m not sure. Guys usually just sort of, approach me. You know, on the street. At the supermarket. In a construction zone,” she lied.

“In a construction zone?”

“Yeah, if I pass through and nobody whistles at me, I’m a little pissed off. It’s how I gauge if my outfit looks hot or not.”

When he laughed, all her self-pity slipped away, and she found herself smiling again.

“Well, everyone at these things is going to know I’m not a construction guy, so that’s not going to work.”

Maybe not, but the visual sure did wonders for her imagination. Bryan, with a hard hat covering his buzzed hair, wearing nothing but a tool belt…

“What if you had some kind of medical attack or something and I had to help you? I met a woman once after she started choking at a restaurant. Had to give her the Heimlich maneuver.”

“How did that work out?”

“Not great. She lived, but… Remember that story about a girl and a cliff?”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.” Bryan scooped up a pile of rice dotted with sprouts and morsels of chicken, all glistening with greasy goodness, and plugged it into his piehole. He grunted in approval as he chewed, and her stomach growled in answer.

Well, shit.

She eyed the containers of food in front of her. Not all of it was fried. There were some thin slices of chicken in a light sauce with carrots. A mound of steamed dumplings, like plump little pillows of savory goodness. Surely those couldn’t be so bad. And besides, at the rate it was taking them to even get one detail straight, she was going to need her strength.

The last of her resolve crumbled. She poked at the meat with her chopsticks and then gingerly took a bite.

Sweet baby Jesus, was that good. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually ordered full-fat Chinese food, and apparently it had been so long that she’d forgotten the taste. She closed her eyes to savor the bite but was brought back to reality when Bryan cleared his throat. Her eyes snapped open, and she realized he was staring at her.

“You like it?” His voice was low and husky, his intense gaze glued to her mouth.

She nodded, cheeks going hot as she remembered the last time he’d asked that question. Had she moaned in ecstasy when she was chewing the same way she had that night? She shoveled in another bite so she didn’t have to speak. To her everlasting relief, he redirected the conversation back to business.

“So, what else do we need to know? Allergies, right? Mine are cherries and hay.”

“I don’t have any.” She toyed with a new piece of chicken, this one fried. “Why don’t you tell me about your family?”

“Well, you met my sister Quinn at the charity event. I call her Q.”

She thought back to that night and pictured the woman. She was pretty and h

er features resembled Bryan’s without all the hard edges. “Interesting. Other siblings? Parents? Crazy uncles who have made a name for themselves by playing the spoons at every family function?”

“Parents. Mom died a few years back from an aneurism. My father passed away about ten years ago.”

She waited for him to go on, to offer additional information, but when none came, she took another bite of her food. The dismissal of the topic was clear, and she wasn’t about to push. Maybe he’d remember that when it got to be her turn.

“How about you?”

She still didn’t want to lie to him, but she’d shared more than she wanted the first night they’d met. She didn’t owe him more personal stories or childhood memories than she’d already let slip. He should understand that, since he was apparently so tight-lipped with his own.

“I don’t think people are going to ask about me,” she said. “And if they do, I can go along with whatever you say.”

“You’re not going to know what I said unless you’re glued to my side all night.” He chewed on something amber-colored and covered in sesame seeds and then swallowed. “We can’t keep contradicting each other.”

He was right about that. Things would get sticky if they weren’t on the same page. “Okay, well, I used to live here with my grandmother.”

“Right, I remember you saying this was your grandmother’s house. Didn’t your parents live here?”

She took a sip of the water in front of her and thought carefully about how to continue. “My mother grew up here, but then she and my father moved out when they had me. They got divorced and remarried to other people.” Lots and lots of other people, but she kept that little gem to herself. “And then married to each other again.” Three times. “I didn’t live with them much as a kid. They sent me to boarding school all over the world. London, Switzerland, and then finally Paris. I’d just landed a modeling contract there when I found out my grandmother was sick. I came home to take care of her until…” She took a deep breath.