touched her. Biting her lower lip, Maya stared out the windshield as he backed out of the garage at a speed that should have taken them through the trees at the rear of the yard.
"I should have hired a zoo keeper. How long do you think we dare leave them alone?"
"That depends on the amount of destruction you can tolerate." With the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Maya relaxed a little into its warmth. She should never have worn this dress. She'd been challenging him again.
Although, it had been fun watching Axell nearly crumple when she flashed her leg. Men didn't generally look at her as if she were a sex symbol. She was too short, too red-haired, too weird looking. But her husband looked at her as if she were the only female on the planet. That knowledge gave her warm butterflies in her middle.
"You know them better than I do. How much destruction can they wreak? I don't want the kids involved in a war zone."
She even liked the worried timbre of his voice in the velvet darkness of the expensive car. She liked so many things about him, it scared her to death.
"I haven't seen Cleo in years. I barely know her anymore. But she's always been more self-destructive than hurtful. Stephen, well, Stephen has tantrums. But they're usually harmless," she replied brightly. She didn't know what she was saying. Was she trying to make him turn around and go back? She'd never have left the kids with Stephen and Cleo if she'd had any doubts about their welfare.
"We'll get home early," he said evenly.
Early. Did that mean they'd just eat and not stop anywhere on the way home? Or that they'd eat and go home and climb into Axell's bed? She wished the damned man wasn't so enigmatic. She'd never been this nervous in her lifetime.
"It's too late to drive all the way into Charlotte," she answered cautiously. As much as she would have liked an evening of dinner and dancing, she knew when she had to be practical. The kids weren't used to their absence. Stephen and Cleo would entertain them for a while, but they couldn't be trusted for long. Dorothy was a good sitter, but she couldn't control adults.
"I'm all for reducing driving time," he said solemnly, staring straight ahead, but Maya thought she detected a teasing note to the comment.
"You want to tell me just what you have planned?" she demanded. He always had everything planned, even sex, she figured.
"Fine wine, dancing, and good music." Glancing at the slit baring her thigh, he admitted in all honesty, "Followed by hot sex."
The covetous glance, his seductive tone, and the promise of his words shot straight through Maya's sex-deprived hormones. She'd never made love with a man half so handsome, half so downright masculine as her husband, and she wanted it right now.
Clearing her suddenly dry throat, she tugged at the gap in her skirt. "Feed me, and we can skip the first three."
He almost drove the car straight into the ditch.
"Fast food." He swung the car off the main road and roared down a secondary one.
"They have chicken in town," she offered. Axell's restaurant was the only other alternative in Wadeville, and that definitely wouldn't be fast.
"I feel like a cheap jerk taking you for fast food chicken."
Axell's hold on the steering wheel was pretty tight, Maya noticed. She wondered if it was because of the kids or her and started to inquire, but as they approached the main street of town, he cursed and veered the car into a parking lot.
Holm's Bar and Grill took up the entire end of one of Wadeville's blocks, so that the rear of the restaurant could be seen from this side street. Startled, Maya glanced up to see what had caught Axell's attention.
"I'm sorry." He jumped from the car without explanation and stalked toward the kitchen.
All she saw was two men entering the rear door. The employees often stepped outside to have a smoke. She didn't see anything unusual about that. The furious expression on Axell's face in the light of the security lamp warned otherwise, not that anyone else would read that tightened jaw as easily as she did. A stranger would just think him more stern than usual.
Hurrying in her high heels wasn't easy, but Maya managed to cross the gravel lot and enter the back door just after Axell. Men in a fury were often unpredictable. With Axell's concealed Scorpio, he was capable