I move my arm a little closer to his fingers and lower my voice. “So you take pleasure in my pain, is that it?”
“Ellie girl, I would love the opportunity to bring pleasure to you.”
I swallow. An alarming amount of saliva has flooded my mouth and my breathing is coming out quick and shallow, making me lightheaded.
“But I know you’re not ready,” he says, his eyes following the rise and fall of my chest.
“I’m not?” My brain may be foggy but my body is clearly displeased by his reluctance to ravish me here and now, right on top of my turkey club.
“You don’t want a rebound, remember?”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, ghostly words spoken in a loud country-western bar have come back to haunt me. “Oh, right…”
“And you know, I really think it’s for the best,” he says, leaning nearer to me. Sam raises the arm resting on the counter and reaches behind me. “I wouldn’t want to rush you into anything.”
“There’s no rush,” I whisper, my eyes fluttering downward, preparing to close.
“Would you mind?” he asks, his breath brushing my lips we’re now so close.
I part my lips, eager to feel his mouth against my own. “No, I wouldn’t…”
“Thank you,” he says softly, his lips now mere inches from me. “I love the fries here.”
He loves the what? I open my half-closed eyes and watch as he leans back and away from me, a self-assured smile on his lips. The arm that had gone around the side of me draws back and I see a golden, crinkled French fry between two of his fingers. I follow the journey of the fry to his smiling mouth and I’m half tempted to lean forward and bite off the other end. Thankfully, the roughneck on my right bumps against me as he hoists his gut off the stool, and I come to my senses.
I turn away from Sam, take a deep breath and steady my out of control hormones. Two inches and it would’ve been my tongue in his mouth instead of that French fry. Damn him and his diner innuendo. I grab a couple of fries from my plate and shove them in my mouth. Maybe if I consistently stuff my face for the rest of our conversation, I’ll avoid the urge to stick my tongue down his throat.
Peg drops a cheeseburger and fries in front of Sam. I look up at her desperately, needing her intervention if I’m going to survive the lunch hour fully clothed. She must think me pretty pitiful because she turns to Sam and fixes him with a hard stare.
“Young man, I hope you’re not bothering my customer any,” she says, waving her pad of paper at him.
Sam picks up the cheeseburger from his plate and gives Peg a smile too naughty to be nice. “You know me, Peg, always happy to make new friends.”
“Uh-huh.” She turns and raises her eyebrows at me. “Be careful of this one, sweetie. He’s two parts hound-dog if his old uncle is any indication.”
I shove my turkey club into my mouth in response. I’ve known Sam James was trouble since the moment I met him, so why have my psychic alarm bells been so frustratingly silent when he’s around? He’s too good looking, too sexy, and too dangerous; those bells should’ve made me deaf by now. I sneak a look over at him and see that he’s happily eating his cheeseburger, enjoying the lustful turmoil he’s put me in.
I can’t believe he remembers me in that pink dress. It had to be eight months ago. And why is he always popping up lately? Is it some universal sign that, hard as I might try, I’ll never be able to get away from these bad boys? No, it must be a test, a test to see if I can stick to my resolution and find my H.E.A. with a nice guy. Take Brook’s cousin for example. Oh crap…
I glance again at Sam who’s doing a better job than me of pretending to ignore the tension between us. He can’t find out about my blind date. I’ve turned him down twice now. If he finds out about my date with Ellery, he’ll probably never speak to me again, and that will greatly lessen the chance of him tearing off my clothes in the future. No, stop it! I push my half-eaten plate of food away, dig ten bucks out of my wallet, and drop