Книга - Exposed

Exposed
Julie Leto


Ariana Karas is feeling restless - and an affair with a sexy stranger sounds like just the cure.Maxwell Forrester is about to marry one woman…and can't stop lusting over another. When Max finds himself captivated by exotic Ariana at his own rehearsal party, he knows he's in trouble. Especially when he wakes up the next morning to find her in his bed - hours after his wedding should have occurred!Though with Ariana in his arms, it's hard to have any regrets…until he discovers he was deliberately set up. Together, Max and Ariana search for the truth. Only, they never dream it will leave them both exposed….









Max the stranger became Max her lover with every intimate kiss.


Max cupped Ariana with his hands, flicking his thumbs over her moistened flesh, while his kiss wandered across her collarbone and up her neck. Their lips clashed in a hot, breathless battle. She touched him everywhere. Down his back, up his arms, her fingers pushing through his hair, then dipping into his boxers. Learning him as he learned her.

He lifted her as he stood, letting her feet touch the ground long enough to remove the last scraps of clothing between them. Then he wrapped her legs around his waist and carried her to the ledge of the balcony.

Max settled her down and turned her toward the glorious view of the bridge and the bay drifting in and out of the fog. Twinkling lights appeared behind Ariana’s heavy eyelids when Max slid his hand down her belly and through her dark curls, testing her need.

Stroking her gently, he said, “Open your eyes, Ari. I promised to show you the view.”

Swallowing deeply, Ariana mumbled, “I don’t need to see. I just want to feel.”

Max tugged her earlobe with his teeth. “You can do both. Don’t settle for less when you can have it all. When we can have it all.”







Dear Reader,

This month marks the launch of a supersexy new series— Harlequin Blaze. If you like love stories with a strong sexual edge, then this is the line for you! The books are fun and flirtatious, the heroes are hot and outrageous. Blaze is a series for the woman who wants more in her reading pleasure….

Leading off the launch is bestselling author Vicki Lewis Thompson, who brings us a heroine to remember in the aptly titled #1 Notorious. Then popular Jo Leigh delivers a blazing story in #2 Going for It, about a sex therapist who ought to take her own advice. One of today’s hottest writers, Stephanie Bond, spins a humorous tale of sexual adventure in #3 Two Sexy! Rounding out the month is talented Julie Elizabeth Leto with the romp #4 Exposed, which exposes the sexy side of San Francisco and is the first of the SEXY CITY NIGHTS miniseries.

Look for four Blaze books every month at your favorite bookstore. And check us out online at eHarlequin.com and tryblaze.com.

Enjoy!

Birgit Davis-Todd

Senior Editor & Editorial Coordinator

Harlequin Blaze




Exposed

Julie Elizabeth Leto








For the members of the Tampa Area Romance Authors (TARA), who continuously and generously buoy and cheer both my career and me.

My success is rooted in your loving support.




A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR…


I vividly remember the day I fell in love with San Francisco. I was sixteen and on my first trip without my parents, visiting a place that was on the other side of the country. The romance, the craziness and the sensuality of the City by the Bay snared me instantly. It was a different world than anything I’d ever seen before—and I was in love!

Now I love to travel, and big cities are my favorite destinations. San Francisco. L.A. New York. When the idea behind the SEXY CITY NIGHTS miniseries came to me, I was in Chicago. The idea hit so hard, I nearly called my editor from my cell phone (which, to Toronto, isn’t cheap!). The skyscrapers, the crowds, the nightlife—cities like San Francisco offer everything to everyone, if you’re only willing to take a chance.

I hope you get as caught up in the SEXY CITY NIGHTS as I was that first time in San Francisco. Please drop me a line and let me know. You can write to me at P.O. Box 270885, Tampa, FL 33688-0885. Or, if you’d like to get a sneak peek at the next books in the series, link to my web site at www.Julieleto.com—and send me an e-mail while you’re there!

Julie Elizabeth Leto




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16




1


“HEY, SWEET THING. Wanna lift?”

Ariana Karas swung her pack securely over her shoulder, ducking her head so the tube of architectural plans shoved inside didn’t knock off her lucky hat. She secured the Greek fisherman’s cap by pressing the brim firmly over her dark bangs and stepped onto the Powell-Hyde cable car for her ride back to the restaurant. She flashed a weary grin at Benny, the sixty-something brakeman who flirted with her on a nightly basis, just enough to make her smile—even tonight.

“Sweet thing?” she asked, eyebrow cocked. “I should be offended, Benny.” She produced her transit slip.

Benny rubbed his bearded jowl and laughed. He released the lever and tweaked the bell, setting the car—empty except for her in the front and a group of chilled tourists riding inside—in motion up Powell Street toward Fisherman’s Wharf.

“Heaven help me if I ever offend you, Miss Karas. That tube you’ve been carting from the restaurant to Market Street for the past few months would end up whacked upside my head.”

Ariana laughed silently, wondering how Benny and everyone else in the world could ever get the idea that she was so tough. Sure, she talked a good game to keep her rowdy bar patrons in line or to ward off the aggressive transients that sometimes hung around in front of the restaurant, but on nights like tonight, Ariana relived all the uncertainty she’d felt when she’d left home, young and starved for independence. Against the wishes of her entire family—grandparents, father, mother, two brothers and two sisters—she’d packed up and moved across the country from Tarpon Springs, Florida, to San Francisco, California. She’d had a degree in accounting from the local junior college and little knowledge of the world outside her tight-knit Greek community.

But she’d also had dreams taller and wider than the Golden Gate Bridge. She’d wanted to be her own woman, make her own dreams come true—on her terms and with few debts owed to anyone when her lifetime of fantasies became reality.

Eight years had passed. And tonight, three years of marriage, one divorce and five years of fourteen-hour days later, she was one week away from seeing her dream begin. Starting tomorrow afternoon, the restaurant she operated would be closed for business for the first time since her uncle had turned management duties over to her. When the remodeling was done and she reopened, she’d have a large, airy, modern space to serve locals and tourists alike. Customers would line up to taste her eclectic blend of hearty Greek and Italian foods and sip original libations in her signature bar.

She’d call it Ari’s Oasis.

She’d worked so long, so hard to compete with the other operations on the Wharf, some of which had been serving food to San Francisco since the turn of the century. Her uncle inherited the building from her aunt Sonia’s family, fishermen who used to sell their catch from makeshift carts. The permanent structure had evolved over the years, but the crisp, white-paneled walls, quaint fishing nets strung from the ceiling and red checkerboard tablecloths, while homey, were showing their age. Even Uncle Stefano knew the time for change had come. But he enjoyed sipping strong Turkish coffee in the mornings and ouzo in the evenings with customers more than supervising the menu or balancing the books.

Ariana had left home specifically to work for Stefano and Sonia, in hopes of inheriting the business from her childless relatives. Marriage to Rick got in the way. But soon after Ariana found herself divorced and jobless, she’d accepted Stefano’s offer to take over. In record time, she’d put the restaurant in the black and on the map, and had secured financing for much-needed renovations. She’d even approved every blue pencil mark on the prints she carried in her pack.

Now she had seven days—the contractors wouldn’t arrive until a week from Monday—to clear out the place before they started knocking down walls. Since Uncle Stefano insisted that he supervise the moving of the equipment and furniture into storage, he ordered Ariana to take the week off—her first real vacation since she moved to California—to rejuvenate before her life descended into complete turmoil.

And who was she to argue? Stefano had a way of making his rare commands sound like sweet talk—a skill he’d developed to deal with his loving but willful wife. A woman Ari reminded him of, judging by the times he called her Sonia, particularly during a disagreement. Ari swallowed a bittersweet smile.

Sonia’s death and Ari’s divorce had been strong catalysts to her single-minded pursuit of success for the restaurant. She’d worked tirelessly for five years. But now she really needed a break. For herself. For her sanity.

The cable car rattled and shook as it moved uphill, a familiar buzzing hum beneath her feet and a crisp San Francisco night chilling her cheeks. The fog was rolling in late tonight. Fingers of smoky moisture twirled toward them from the Bay. But over her shoulder the scene was clear—the glittering, neon and historic charm that was San Francisco.

The cable car paused between the intersections at Geary and Powell, then shrugged forward when no one jumped aboard at Union Square. The main cable car traffic at this time of night was on the return trip, from the Wharf to the hotels at Market Street and stops along the way. At least, that’s what she’d heard.

On most Friday nights, and Saturday through Thursday as well, she was helping her hostess find seats for customers, checking on orders with her chef or serving her specialty drinks in the bar. She knew little to nothing about the charming, diverse, anything-goes city she called home. Her explorations were limited to the nightspots her former husband once played with his band and the blocks around Chinatown where she lived in a rent-controlled apartment above Madame Li’s Herb Shop.

But she had one week to see the city, every inch of it if she could, before she immersed herself in supervising the contractors who would turn her quaint dockside eatery into a restaurant of international reputation.

Before she could contemplate what her father would think of her bold, risky move from storefront eatery to full-fledged culinary powerhouse, a flutter of glossy pages caught her eye from farther down the bench, snared She slid over and plucked the magazine from the seat, recognizing it as one of the hip women’s periodicals her landlady bought for her shop so the older patrons who stopped by for her delicious blend of tea and gossip could laugh at their younger counterparts and their silly ideas of womanhood.

She might have agreed with them about some of the magazine’s topics, but this issue’s feature caught Ari’s eye.

Sexy City Nights: San Francisco Style.

Sex. Now there was an interesting activity Ari barely remembered. She fanned the pages until she found the large color spread featuring a couple leaning against the bright orange railing of the Golden Gate. Darkness and a fine mist of fog shadowed the models’ bodies, but their faces were angled into the photographer’s light just enough to capture expressions. Wanton desire on the man’s. Sheer ecstasy in the eyes of the woman.

Whatever he was doing to her, she was enjoying it.

A lot.

The cable car rattled along, slowing beneath a bright street lamp long enough for Ariana to see that the man’s left hand had disappeared somewhere beneath the woman’s incredibly short and fluttering skirt.

Ari swallowed, briefly marveling at the bold sensuality of this mainstream magazine. But soon her intimacy-starved imagination superimposed her own face, equally enraptured, equally pleasured, over the model in the photograph. A pressure, not unlike the sensation of a man’s fingers, slipped between her thighs and stirred a throbbing loneliness she usually felt only late at night after a hot shower or early in the morning after a restless battle with erotic dreams.

How thrilling, how inviting—to be in a public place while a man touched you privately—with only the night and the thin misty remnants of fog to shield the sensations from prying eyes. For a woman to risk such discovery, the desire for a man’s touch and utter need for intimacy would have to override every ounce of good sense, every inkling of decent behavior.

Ari sighed. Once upon a time, she’d been caught up in a man enough to leave her logic at the door. Unfortunately, though the sex hadn’t been bad, her ex-husband, Rick, had been more concerned with his own pleasure than hers. And she, barely into her twenties and wholly inexperienced, hadn’t known better.

On the bumpy road to now, she’d learned about her needs. But by the time she knew what she wanted from a man, Rick had packed his bags for a gig in Seattle, leaving behind the divorce papers, their apartment lease and an ocean of emotions she’d only just emerged from.

But now she had a whole week off and a magazine detailing a city full of possibilities.

Benny leaned over the wooden bench to peak over her shoulder. “So, what are you planning to do when Athens closes?”

Ari turned the page of the magazine, intrigued by another sultry photo shot in a cell at Alcatraz. Talk about bondage.

She glanced up to see if Benny had noticed, but his eyes were back on the line, his hands working the brake and bell with practiced grace.

“We’ll be closed for over a month, but I only have a week for vacation. I’m not letting those contractors tear out one nail unless I’m watching.”

Benny shook his head and clucked his tongue. “You can’t be there all the time. Girl as young and pretty as you shouldn’t be cooped up in that restaurant as much as you are. You need to get out. See the city. Enjoy being young while you can.”

Ariana folded the next page over, her breath catching at the image of nude lovers immersed in the mineral baths in nearby Napa Valley. She’d never been to Napa. Not once. And by the looks of the photo, she was missing a lot more than wine.

“Sounds like a plan,” she answered. “I’ve got one week to experience San Francisco. Think that’s enough?”

Benny laughed heartily, the booming sound coming from even his belly. The straining cables beneath the street, the heartline of old San Francisco seemed to chuckle right along with him.

“With the right man, a woman can experience the world in one night.”

Ariana laughed in response, but privately mulled his words over, allowing her romantic side to believe Benny knew what he was talking about—that there was a man out there for her. One completely enamored with her. One who would put her pleasure, her satisfaction, before his needs. No, her pleasure and satisfaction would be his needs.

She wanted a sexy, uninhibited, confident man who would show her the soul of the city and the depths of her desires. And then, at the end of the week, he would fade away as if he’d never existed, leaving her with a lifetime of scorching memories to heat her through the cool San Francisco nights.

Without warning, the quixotic fantasy was slapped out of her head. Her hat tumbled onto her lap and she scrambled to catch it and the magazine before they flew off the car. Adjusting her backpack, she grinned wryly at the long tube that had just hit her—and at her own fanciful interlude. Such a dream lover didn’t exist…in her experience. She had no men at all in her life except for Ray, the restaurant’s day manager, who was happily married and treated her like a sister; her uncle, Stefano; the majority of her wait staff; and, of course, her customers.

Customers.

One in particular.

Benny slowed the cable car to pick up a trio of laughing coeds, then made the turn at Jackson Street for the brief ascent to Hyde, up toward the fancy houses on Russian Hill. Toward the place where she’d heard he lived. He being one Maxwell Forrester. A customer.

But not just any customer. The customer she lusted after. The customer who’d shown up in one too many of her fantasies as of late, even though they’d exchanged no more than twenty-five words in the past year, not including, “Would you like lime in your club soda?” or “The crab pasta is particularly good today.” He’d become a regular at Athens by the Bay, though one she’d wisely kept a distance from.

He possessed too much potent male power for a woman like her, at first reeling from a divorce and then determined to make her own way without any distraction from her goals. And Maxwell Forrester most definitely distracted her.

He jogged into the restaurant every morning for coffee before finishing his run to his office somewhere in the Embarcadero. Luckily, since she usually came in around two o’clock to handle the afternoon and evening crowds, she’d only seen him in the mornings on rare occasions. His sleepy, bedroom eyes and barely combed-through hair did a number on her senses each and every time. Not that seeing him after a long day at work was any better. He often jogged back from his office, in sweatpants and a jacket that were just ratty enough to mold to his broad shoulders and lean thighs, and just designer enough to remind her that he was out of her league.

She didn’t know much about him—he was wealthy, did something in the real estate business and lived in Russian Hill. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t even see him again until the restaurant reopened sometime at the end of next month.

Ordinarily.

Except that if fate was on her side… She checked her watch, shifting the magazine so she could activate the blue light. He might still be at the restaurant. The private party, a wedding-rehearsal dinner, had been booked at Athens by the Bay by Maxwell Forrester’s friend, Charlie—another regular customer, but one she’d gotten to know a bit better. Charlie had worked with her to plan tonight’s dinner, using their one-on-one meetings to casually drop the information that Max would be his best man at his upcoming wedding.

Charlie Burrows had all the subtlety of a barge. The groom-to-be made no secret that he thought Max and Ari should get to know each other better. Until she and Charlie had met yesterday to finalize the plans, Ari interpreted Max’s cool friendliness toward her as a hint that he’d also heard Charlie’s matchmaking arguments and wasn’t interested.

But during their last meeting, Charlie had claimed that her assumption wasn’t true. He’d never encourage Max to date anyone since his pal hated fix-ups. Unfortunately, Charlie was a horrible liar and Ariana sensed that there was something in his claim that didn’t ring true.

But completely focused on her goals, Ariana had waved away Charlie’s suggestion. She didn’t need a date with anyone but her architect and her loan officer, and those were strictly business.

Of course, now all the blueprints were authorized and the financing was signed, sealed and delivered. She had to face the fact that she had a whole empty week ahead of her, a fascinating city all around her and an ignored libido driving her crazy.

Suddenly, crazy didn’t seem so bad—and it definitely wasn’t out of place in San Francisco. She fanned through the article, witnessing once again what this amazing, charming, insane city had to offer—with the right man and the right attitude.



MAXWELL FORRESTER SHOVED his platinum credit card back into his eelskin wallet and shrugged over the cost of his and Madelyn’s wedding-rehearsal dinner. He had more than enough money to cover the expense, but growing up poor had saddled him with a frugal nature he constantly battled. A day didn’t pass when he didn’t remember going to bed hungry, knowing the food stamps had all been used, all too aware even at the age of ten that if he wanted so much as an extra peanut butter sandwich, he’d have to go out and earn it himself.

As expected of a man in his current financial position, he’d told Charlie, his best man, to spend whatever was necessary to make the evening elegant for Max’s future bride, their families and wedding party. He should have known better than to hope Charlie, Madelyn’s favorite cousin and Max’s best friend, would even think of capping his spending.

“You ready to go?”

“It’s early yet,” Charlie scoffed. “You’ve got one more night of freedom and you want to call it quits at—” he pulled his sleeve back to read his watch “—midnight?”

Charlie’s argument lost some of its punch when even he realized that it was indeed late, what with the wedding less than twelve hours away.

Eleven hours, to be exact, Max realized. Not twelve. Not a minute more than eleven. Once he said, “I do,” he’d be stuck with his decision to marry Madelyn. He shrugged away the thought. He wouldn’t be any more stuck tomorrow than he was today. Max had already made a promise to Madelyn that was just as binding as a wedding vow. And though he considered himself an arrogant, driven son of a bitch who sought financial gain over just about anything else, he’d never break a promise to a friend.

“Marriage to Madelyn isn’t a threat to my freedom,” Max grumbled. He wasn’t lying. Madelyn couldn’t be a threat to his freedom when he’d really never had any in the first place. Max was a prisoner of his ambitions—he’d accepted that fact before he turned sixteen. But tonight the reality really rankled, partly because he was tired of this conversation with Charlie, and partly because as he scanned the crowd in the barroom off to the left, he saw no sign of a Greek fisherman’s cap bobbing behind the bar—or more specifically, the exotic dark-haired beauty who wore it.

“That’s only because you don’t know what freedom feels like, tastes like.” Charlie grabbed his jacket from behind the chair, but slung it over his shoulder instead of putting it on, a sure sign that he wasn’t ready to go. “You should leave that office of yours every once in a while—and not to jog through a city you don’t see or to show a property you don’t appreciate as anything but a potential sale. Heck, you and Maddie barely even date each other!”

Max attempted to tear his gaze out of the bar before Charlie noticed, but he wasn’t quick enough. Charlie’s grin annoyed him all the more.

“I don’t want to hear this, Charlie. Madelyn is your cousin. You should be supportive of our marriage. It’s what she wants.”

Charlie grabbed Max’s arm and tugged him into the bar. “Maddie is not just my cousin. She’s my favorite cousin. She’s the one person in the whole snooty family who didn’t write me off when I flunked out of Wharton or when I decided to try my hand at acting before I moved back home. I owe her.” He forced Max onto a bar stool and waved at the carrot-topped, college-age kid tending the bar. “She introduced me to you, didn’t she? Got you to give me a try selling real estate. And who was your top agent last year? For the third time? Who’s helping you become a millionaire more than any of the Yalies or finishing-school lovelies who show your listings?”

Max glanced back at the door, knowing he should leave. He needed sleep. At least when he was sleeping, he wasn’t thinking. And tonight, he didn’t want to think. He’d promised Madelyn Burrows that he’d become her husband. They’d been friends since college. She’d helped him take the coarser edge off his Oakland habits, teaching him about designer clothes and fine wine and which fork to use at the country-club dinner. He’d repaid the debt by giving her a shoulder to cry on when she broke her engagement to P. Howell Matthews, her parents’ handpicked son-in-law. She’d wept, not because she’d loved the guy, but because her parents had treated her like a mass murderer rather than a woman scared to death of choosing the wrong man.

So instead, she chose a friend, her best friend. He and Madelyn shared a love for jogging and naturalistic art, and they both appreciated old buildings—she saved them, he sold them. They also had a mutual desire to marry for reasons other than love.

Max had nothing against love. In fact, he admired the emotion. Revered it, even. His parents loved each other, and they loved his footloose brother, Ford, and Max unconditionally and with all their hearts. But love hadn’t paid the rent on their tired Oakland apartment. Love hadn’t kept his father from working twenty-hour days driving a cab. Love had only marginally helped his mother endure the frustrations of teaching six-year-olds how to read and write when most of them were more concerned with getting their one, state-subsidized lunch, usually their only decent meal all day.

Love hadn’t been enough to keep his family together when his father was shot on the job. Unable to work, John and Rhonda Forrester had shuttled their sons from resentful relative to resentful relative. Eventually, the family had reunited, but the result was Max’s single-minded pursuit of wealth and, over time, power, which had led him directly to the eve of a marriage that had nothing to do with love at all.

And he wouldn’t even go into the havoc the emotion caused his brother. Ford was the most easygoing, likable man on the face of the planet, but he fell in and out of love quicker than Max unloaded a waterfront foreclosure. His younger brother had absolutely no idea what real love was about, and this was one lesson his big brother wasn’t qualified to teach.

He was certain of only one immutable fact—love was fine and good for people willing to sacrifice and suffer for it, but Max preferred to pursue success and financial satisfaction. Romance was a distraction. Until he’d met Maddie in college, he’d considered dating an unnecessary expense. Then she’d introduced him to her friends, girls with rich fathers and boundless connections. He’d dated the ones he liked, but drew the line at emotional involvement. So after graduate school, when Madelyn had suggested they “date” to keep her parents from fixing her up with another son of the country-club set like P. Howell Matthews, Max agreed. The ruse was born and had lasted all these years.

Madelyn was a pal. She understood his desire to make all of San Francisco forget that he was once a poor kid from Oakland—that now he was a force to be reckoned with in the lucrative business of buying and selling the most valuable properties in northern California. The marriage thing was more than he had bargained for, but Madelyn insisted the deal would work out for both of them.

Married to a Burrows, Max would have every door in San Francisco opened wide to him. Her father, her grandfather and her great-grandfather before him had all been prominent bankers with ties to every section of the diverse San Francisco community.

For Madelyn, the trade-off wasn’t so clear—at least, not to Max. She claimed that marrying him would not only appease her parents, but the union would give her more clout with the wealthy matrons who financed her building restorations. Personally, he thought Madelyn deserved better—a man who loved her like a wife and would give her the passion she deserved. And he’d told her so on more than one occasion. But he owed her so much, cared about her so much, that when she begged him not to worry and to trust her decision, he’d gone along.

Like Charlie, he wasn’t so sure he was doing the right thing. But he’d made his choice and he couldn’t betray Madelyn now because of a bout of uncertainty.

“You’re a real pal, Charlie, but Madelyn and I have discussed this over and over. I won’t back out.”

Charlie ordered two beers and shook his head. “You and Maddie are so blind. Neither one of you knows what you’re missing. Lust, passion, desire. Marrying a friend is all well and good, but without the fire…” Charlie’s words trailed off, his blue eyes glazed over.

Recently wed in Las Vegas to a woman he’d met in a suspicious jogging accident at Pier 39, Charlie was still high on the thrill of pure passion and uninhibited lust. Max paid the young bartender when he slid the beers in front of them, shaking his head at his friend, then glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone had overheard this unusual prewedding conversation.

That’s when he saw her.

She entered through the front door between a departing party of four, stopping to shake hands with satisfied customers while Stefano Karas, the host for the evening, grabbed her backpack, shoved it at a nearby waiter and then ushered her into the bar.

Max turned aside. The last woman he needed to see tonight was Ariana Karas, with all her long, jet hair, ebony eyes and curves even her slimming black turtleneck, jeans and boots couldn’t hide. She was exotic sensuality and alluring confidence all molded and sculpted into a compact package that made him fantasize about endless nights of sex. Nights that turned into days. And weeks. Maybe months.

Nothing but sex. No work, no money. No troubles.

He downed half his beer without taking a breath.

“Sex isn’t everything, Charlie.”

Charlie took a generous slurp of amber brew. “Oh, yeah? Says who? And I’m not just talking about sex, anyway. I’m talking about true love.”

He sang the last two words as if he was joking, but Max knew Charlie well enough to realize his friend was a hopeless romantic. He was a free spirit who’d finally found some level ground with a job he was damn good at and a woman who obviously adored him, and vice versa.

“Yeah, well, if marrying your true love is so highly rated, what the hell are you doing here with me?” Max asked. “You should be home in bed with Sheri, not keeping me out till dawn.”

Charlie chuckled, then quieted when Ariana grabbed a black apron from the coatrack behind the bar.

“Sheri could use a little time to herself and you need me to talk some sense into you.”

Max barely heard Charlie’s explanation, more intrigued with watching Ariana flip the apron over her head before freeing her dark hair from beneath the pretied knot around her neck and fanning the luxurious length of it over her back. While wrapping the tie around her slim waist, she instructed the young guy who’d served their beer to cover the tables while she took over behind the bar. She tilted her hat at that jaunty angle that grabbed Max right at the center of his groin, and before he could look away, she captured his stare with a questioning glance.

“Something I can get you?” she asked.

Max sipped his beer, trying not to wince when the brew suddenly tasted strangely flat. “I’m fine, thanks.”

She smiled, then made her way from one end of the bar to the other, checking on her customers, making small talk, replacing empty glasses and refilling snack bowls—all done with a quiet animation that made her both friendly and mysterious at the same time.

Max decided then and there that he was an idiot. He knew all about the lust Charlie lectured about. He’d been feeling the pull with growing intensity ever since he jogged into Athens by the Bay a little over two years ago and caught sight of the owner’s niece helping a crew unload boxes from a delivery truck.

If he’d simply flirted with her and gotten to know her, he’d probably be long over this intense interest. Instead, he’d played cool, ignored the attraction, turned away from her not-quite-shy, not-quite-inviting smiles that haunted him long after he’d run from the restaurant to the office, showered and parked himself behind his desk.

Now he was less than a day away from marriage, and the woman of his dreams was only an arm’s length away.

“Hey, Ari,” Charlie called, “how ‘bout one of your specialty drinks for the road?”

“You driving?” she asked, grabbing a cone-shaped glass from beneath the bar.

Charlie grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, guess I am. Then how about making one for my old friend here?” He slapped Max on the shoulder. “He needs it more than I do anyway.”

Ariana didn’t laugh as Max expected, or as perhaps Charlie expected as well. Instead, she grabbed a collection of exotic liqueurs, one blue, one green, one amber, pouring the jewel-toned liquids into the glass on the edge of a knife, skillfully layering them with a clear, unidentified libation, so the colors barely mixed. After floating a layer of ruby-red grenadine on top, she moved toward them.

With confident grace, she lifted the drink in one hand and a bottle of ouzo in the other. She set the glass down in front of Max and without a word, swirled the ouzo over the grenadine. Focused on the glass, Ariana shielded her eyes from Max behind thick lashes, pressing the lips of her generous mouth into a pout that was focused and sexy as hell. When she finally looked up, meeting his thirsty stare straight on, he caught the glimmer of a smile twinkling in her night-black eyes.

He slid his hand forward, brushing his fingers over the base of the glass. She crooked her finger around the stem. “Not so fast,” she instructed, her voice breathy and low, but compelling all the same.

He questioned her with raised eyebrows.

She stepped up on the lower shelf behind the bar so she could lean forward and keep their exchange private. Max wanted to glance aside to see if Charlie or anyone else was watching, but he was slowly, surely, losing himself in the depths of her fathomless eyes. To hell with everyone else. She was just offering him a drink, not her body.

“This is my most special specialty.” She skimmed her finger on the top layer of ouzo, careful not to disturb the rainbow of liqueurs underneath, then dampened the rim of the glass—precisely where his mouth would be when he took a drink. “I don’t make it for just anyone.”

Max’s mouth dried. He moistened his lips with a thickening tongue. “I’m flattered.”

“You should be. But you have to do your part, too.” She dampened her finger again, but this time she touched the taste of ouzo to her lips. “This drink is called a Flaming Eros. Just like good loving, it takes two to make it hot.”

Hot? Oh, yeah. Max was learning about heat very, very quickly. His collar grew tight around his neck. His body dampened with sweat. The perfectly starched shirt beneath his perfectly pressed jacket was starting to buckle.

“Makes sense,” he managed to say.

Her fingers dipped into the pocket of her apron, then she slid her hand toward his, something small hidden beneath her palm.

Her phone number maybe? The key to her apartment?

He glanced down. A box of matches?

“So,” she said, slightly louder, but still in a voice meant entirely for him, “care to light my fire?”




2


ARIANA SWALLOWED, savoring the ouzo she’d boldly stolen from his drink. She didn’t know where the seductive move had come from; she wasn’t exactly experienced with this sort of thing. But she’d spent enough time tending bar to watch some real pros work the room. Judging by the way Max Forrester’s pupils expanded and darkened his eyes from pale jade to pine green, she wasn’t doing half bad.

One week of freedom was all she had and, dammit, she wanted to spend at least one night with the man she’d lusted for since the first time she’d seen him. She’d never had an indiscriminate affair and, quite honestly, she wasn’t starting now. Hell, since her divorce, she’d become the most discriminating woman in San Francisco. But Max Forrester exceeded even her high standards. He was gorgeous, had not just a steady job, but a full-fledged career and, according to Charlie, wasn’t in the market for a wife.

She’d made the mistake of marrying her first lover and ended up waylaying her own goals and dreams in favor of his. Charlie claimed Max was a man of strong ethics, but he wasn’t interested in long-term entanglements. And according to her own personal observation, he was potently sexy, inherently classy and, most important, he was undeniably interested.

Max took the box of matches from her, fumbling slightly wile sliding it open, and extracted a single match without spilling the others. She couldn’t help but be impressed. She, being incredibly clumsy, had long ago taken to inviting her customers to remove a match rather than risk her sending them flying across the polished teak countertop. But she’d never made the offer with such a libidinous double entendre as “Care to light my fire?” Or if she had, the second meaning simply hadn’t occurred to her before. That invitation to fire her personal hot spot belonged to Max and Max alone.

He shut the box, then poised the red-tipped end of the match against the flint. “My mother told me never to play with matches.”

She leaned forward a little closer, unable to stop herself. Once she’d made the decision to seduce Charlie’s best man, she wouldn’t back down. Couldn’t. The tide tugging her toward Max Forrester was more treacherous than the waves outside Alcatraz, and just as invigorating.

“She told you that when you were a little boy, right? Well, you’re not a little boy anymore. Are you?”

He struck the match, inflaming the head, emitting a burst of smoke and sulfur that tickled her nose. She listed closer to him like a boat following the command of the waves. Amid the wispy scent of fire, she caught wind of his cologne. A musky blend of spices and citrus flared her nostrils and rocked her equilibrium.

He held the match toward her and she blinked, knowing she’d better get a hold of herself before she lit her Flaming Eros. She was already hot enough without adding third-degree burns.

She skimmed her fingers beneath his, brushing his hand briefly as she took the match away. The warmth of his skin was soothing. The look in his eyes was not.

She slid the glass back and skimmed the fire over the alcohol until the drink ignited in an impressive blue and orange flame. The bar erupted in applause and Stefano shouted last call. Ariana couldn’t wait around to watch Max drink her concoction. She immediately had orders for three more. After sliding a small plate from beneath the bar to help him extinguish the flame and instructing him to do so before the fire burned through the grenadine, she grabbed his half-empty beer and her bottle of ouzo and moved farther down the bar.

She needed space. She’d probably only imagined the increase in her body heat the moment he’d stroked the match against the box, but she hadn’t imagined the look of utter fascination in his eyes. How long had it been since a man looked at her that way? Since she’d let a man look at her that way without extinguishing his interest with a sharp phrase or quip?

Since her marriage? If she took the time, she could count it down to the minute. But she wouldn’t. For the life of her, she was going to make sure that her marriage and divorce would cease to be a milestone in her life. Tonight would be the turning point.

She mixed the three flaming aperitifs, each more quickly than the last, letting the customer remove the match, but doing so much more silently and efficiently than she had with Max.

Care to light my fire? she’d asked. Trouble was, he’d done that a hell of a long time ago without even trying—simply by coming into her tiny wharfside restaurant one evening, ordering his beer with cool politeness and leaving a big tip—and then disappearing into the night. But he’d come back, nearly every weeknight. Never saying more than a few words, but speaking to her nonetheless—in sidelong glances, clandestine stares. Perhaps saying things she wasn’t ready to hear.

Until tonight.

Little by little, the crowd thinned. The dining rooms were emptied, vacuumed and reset for the final breakfast crowd. Uncle Stefano stuffed the night’s receipts into a vinyl bag then disappeared in the office to secure them in the safe so Ari could tally them later. In couples and trios, the customers went home. Waiters called good-night after scooping their tips from their pockets and tossing their aprons into the laundry basket by the kitchen.

But Max Forrester didn’t move.

Ariana stuffed dirty glasses in the dishwasher, replaced all the bottles she’d used, stacked the mixers in the small refrigerator and wiped down the bar—all the while aware that Max hadn’t left. Charlie had, sometime when Ariana hadn’t noticed, and he’d done so without saying goodbye or thanking her for her help with his rehearsal dinner, which she thought odd but not surprising. The man was getting married in the morning. She was more than likely the last thing he had on his mind.

But obviously she was of interest to Max. Never before had he stayed late. Why else but for her? She was flattered. Terrified. Excited. He’d never flirted with her in the past, never so much as attempted to strike up a conversation beyond the day’s specials. At the same time, he’d never been cold or dismissive. Just standoffish, controlled. As if he chose to ignore their mutual attraction just as she did.

And yet, he’d lagged behind tonight. That had to mean something.

Ariana poured ouzo into a short shot glass and downed the fiery liqueur in one gulp. The licorice-tasting essence of anise coated her mouth, burned her eyes and her throat, but she needed the fortification. If Max hadn’t left, it was, perhaps, because he’d read the subtle invitation in her eyes earlier, understood the hidden meaning in her question. Possibly she was about to be granted the wish she’d made while riding that cable car down Russian Hill, the bright moon shining just over the Bay Bridge, casting a hypnotic glow over the dark waters of San Francisco Bay.

She wanted to have an affair. This week and this week only. With Max Forrester and Max Forrester only.

She smoothed her damp cloth closer and closer to him at the bar. He didn’t turn toward her. He sat, staring straight ahead, his gaze lost in the rows of bottles behind the bar. His Flaming Eros had barely been touched.

She glanced at the collection of whiskeys and bourbons and vodkas, wondering what held his attention so raptly.

“Hey, Max? You all right?”

Cautiously, she walked directly in his line of vision. There was a distinct pause before his eyes focused on her.

“Yeah. I’m great.”

He blinked once, then twice. She saw him sway on his bar stool.

She shot forward and grabbed his hand. “No, you’re not.”

She glanced down at his drink again. He’d sipped maybe a quarter of the concoction and though her mixture was potent, she’d never seen anyone get drunk on just one. Maybe a little silly, but not ready to pass out.

“What did you drink tonight?”

She remembered clearing away a half-empty beer, but she had no idea what he’d had before she returned from her appointment with the architect.

She waited for him to answer and when he didn’t, she asked again.

“What? Oh.” He glanced down at his drink. “You made me this.”

“No, I mean before. At dinner?”

He squinted as he thought. Remembering took more effort than it should have. He was drunk. Ariana rolled her eyes. Great. Just great! I finally decide to have an affair with a guy and he’s three sheets to the wind. She recalled the distinctly forgettable experience of making love to her husband when he’d had more than his share of tequila after a gig in the Castro. Not an experience she’d ever want to repeat.

“Max, what did you drink at dinner?” she asked once more, losing her patience with the same speed as her attraction.

“Tea,” he answered finally, nodding as the memory apparently became clearer and clearer. “We had tea.”

“Long Island Iced Teas?”

Ariana hated that drink. She’d seen more than her share of inexperienced drinkers get sloshed thanks to the innocent-sounding name. Too bad there wasn’t a drop of tea in the thing. Just vodka, gin, tequila, rum, Collins mix and an ounce of cola for color. “Great, just…”

“No, iced tea. Unsweetened. With lemon.”

As the truth of his claim registered, she stepped up on the lower shelf behind the bar again to look directly into his eyes. His pupils were huge—and passion had nothing to do with it. He was sweating more than he should have been. His jaw was slightly lax.

“You’re sure? You’ve had nothing to drink but iced tea, half a beer and a few sips of my Flaming Eros?”

For a moment she thought she’d given him way too much to think about, but he managed to nod. “I feel kind of weird,” he admitted. “I think I should…”

He pushed off his stool slowly, his hands firmly gripping the bar. If she hadn’t been watching so closely, she might not even have seen him waver when his feet were firmly on the floor.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Ariana scurried around the bar and caught him before he’d taken a single step toward the door.

“I can walk home,” he reminded her, though he didn’t pull away from the supportive brace of her shoulder beneath his arm.

“Oh, really? You make it to the door without my help and maybe, just maybe, I’ll let you go.” She had absolutely no intention of allowing him to go anywhere by himself, though her idea of seducing him was a great big bust. “You’re not drunk, Max. Someone…someone in my establishment,” she added with increasing anger, “slipped you a Mickey.”

“A Mickey?”

She ignored his question, knowing that after a brief time delay, he’d understand. Someone had drugged him and it certainly hadn’t been her. However, since the event had happened in her place, she could only imagine the trouble that could come just as she was about to break into the international restaurant scene. She’d heard about people using such deception at college parties. She’d read about the practice at raves and in dance clubs. But in a family-style restaurant? A neighborhood bar?

“Why?” he finally asked.

She shifted beneath his weight and guided him toward the door. “I have no idea.” She called to the kitchen, which she suddenly noticed was quiet. She shouted twice more, than leaned Max against the hostess stand and ordered him not to move.

“Uncle Stefano? Paulie?”

The kitchen was empty. The floors were damp and the dishwashers steamed, but no one was around and the back door was bolted tight. She checked the office. Empty. Uncle Stefano and her chef, Paulie, never left without saying goodbye and making sure she had a ride home. It was nearly one o’clock and the last cable car left the turnaround at 12:59.

As she grabbed her backpack from behind her desk, removing the architectural plans and placing them atop the file cabinet, she wondered if Uncle Stefano had seen Max lingering in the bar and assumed she had plans for the night. She didn’t know why he’d make such a ridiculous assumption except that, this time, he might have been right. And he had been hounding her about dating again, even agreeing with Charlie that Max made a good potential suitor. Perhaps Stefano thought she’d finally taken him up on his advice.

“Looks like it’s up to me to take you home.” She closed the office light and grabbed the keys.

Max shook his head, staggered then steadied himself to catch his balance. “Just call me a cab.”

Ariana glanced at the phone, frowning. Yeah, a cab could get him home—he supposedly lived only a few blocks away. But what would happen in the morning when Maxwell Forrester, San Francisco real estate and power broker, woke up with a severe headache, possible memory loss and other unpleasant side effects? What would happen when he realized that she could be held culpable for his condition, even if no one who worked for her was involved? She didn’t know how mad he’d be, but she imagined herself in his place and didn’t like the picture that came into focus.

Negative word of mouth would be the least of her worries. He could call the press, file a lawsuit. If she lost her liquor license, even for the briefest time during an investigation, her business would be dead in the water. She’d invested in the reopening every asset she and her uncle held. She couldn’t risk what had happened to Max—though through no fault of her own—jeopardizing her future.

She’d planned to take Max home tonight. No sense in changing the blueprint of her original plan this late in the construction.

“If we hurry, we can make the last cable car. Your place is…”

She moved to slip her arms beneath his again, but this time he caught her off guard. With one hand balanced on the hostess stand, he used the other to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. The friction of his fingernail against her skin was not unlike the lighting of the match. Heat flared where he’d touched her, so gently, so softly and yet with a pyrotechnic flash of instantaneous desire.

“Ariana,” was all he said, four syllables on a deep-throated breath scented with anise, teasing her skin, fanning the flame she’d not so effectively tamped down just moments before. “I don’t think I’ve ever said your name before,” he said, curling the strand behind her ear, skimming her suddenly sensitive flesh as he thread his fingers into her hair.

She blinked, wondering if the mystery drug was the reason for his sudden interest, and if it was, wondering if she cared.

“I like the way you say it,” she admitted, liking also the feel of his hand bracing her neck, his chest pressing closer and closer to hers so that the edge of his tie skimmed across her nipples. Her breasts tingled. Her breath caught. His arousal pressed through his slacks, taunting her. In the morning, he might not remember ever wanting her.

And again, she wondered if she cared.

“You’re incredibly beautiful, Ariana. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a long time.”

“Why didn’t you?” she asked instantly, wincing when she realized that she might not want to know the answer.

His smile was crooked, tilted slightly higher on the left side. Still, the grin lacked the sardonic effect such an uneven slant might have on anyone else. Her insides clenched in a futile attempt to rein in her response—a cross between a magnetic pull and a bone-deep hunger for a man who was, in reality, a stranger.

Only he didn’t feel like a stranger anymore, and he hadn’t for a long while.

“Union Street,” he answered.

“What?”

He hadn’t answered her question, wasn’t making sense.

He pushed away from her slightly. “You asked where I lived. On Union.”

She nodded. Right. Get him home and to bed—though not at all in the way she’d originally intended.



“THIS IS INCREDIBLE!”

Max heard his voice echo beneath the clanging grind of the cable car, not certain he’d intended to share such an exuberant sentiment aloud. Yet when Ariana glanced over her shoulder and rewarded him with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes and flashed the whiteness of her teeth, he was glad he had.

“Haven’t you ever ridden a cable car before?”

Max couldn’t remember. He must have, but never like this. Against Ariana’s wishes, he stood on the side step, one hand gripping the polished brass pole, the other aching to wrap around her slim waist and tug her close, back against him. So she could feel his hard-on. And know he wanted her.

And God, he wanted her.

So what was stopping him? He was sure there had been some reason at some time, but he couldn’t remember and he certainly didn’t care. The crisp San Francisco night air, clouded with a late-night fog, trailed through her nearly waist-length hair and fluttered the glossy strands toward him. The tendrils teased him with a scent part exotic floral, part crisp ocean—and all woman.

Without thought, he did as he desired, slipping his hand around her waist and stepping against her full and flush.

She stiffened slightly and nearly pulled away.

“I want to hold you,” he said, beginning to accept that simple thoughts and simple explanations were all he could manage while intoxicated by whatever she’d said someone had put in his drink. He doubted her claim anyway. She had drugged him all right, but no pharmaceutical agent was involved.

She didn’t protest when he curled his right arm completely around her waist, careful to remember that he had to hang on to the cable car with his left. His brain was fuddled, but his heightened senses compensated for his total lack of control.

He fanned his fingers across her midsection. The texture of her ribbed shirt felt like trembling flesh. When he brushed his fingertips beneath the swell of her breasts, her back firmed, then relaxed, then pressed closer against him.

He dipped his head to whisper in her ear, “I want to touch you.”

The cable car rocked and shimmied to a brief halt. A clanging bell blocked her reply, if she’d made one, but when the car moved again, she turned around and traded her handhold on the brass pole for a firm grip around his waist.

“Where?” she asked.

She’d pulled her cap low and tight, so the dark brim pushed her bangs down to frame her large eyes. She bent her neck back to see his face, exposing an inviting curve of skin from the tip of her chin to the sensual arc of her throat.

His mouth felt cottony, but the desire in her eyes spurred a moisture that made him swallow deep. He ran his slick tongue over his lips and when she mirrored the move herself, his blood surged.

“Where will you touch me?” she asked again.

He blinked, a thousand thoughts racing through a brain too thick to harness them. The mantra “location, location, location” played silently in his mind then drifted away. Every single place he wanted to touch her—her lips, her throat, her shoulders, her breasts, her belly and beyond—seemed too intimate, too private to speak aloud.

He’d just have to show her.

He shook his head, grinning when his dizziness sent him swaying. She gripped him even tighter, giving him an excuse to dip his hold lower, over the swell of her backside, another place he most desperately wanted to touch with his hands and lips and tongue.

Max decided then and there that he had to accept his current limitations. As he had his entire life, he had to work with his immediate circumstances and the most basic skills at his disposal. His ability to speak was severely hampered. Forming a complex thought was out of the question. But he still had his instincts—natural, unguarded responses to basic, inherent needs. Hers and his.

“I’m going to touch you wherever you want me to.”

Her smile was tentative, a little surprised and entirely fascinating—as if he’d said something that shocked her.

“What if that doesn’t mean what you think it does?”

He shook his head. Processing that puzzle of a comment was impossible in his condition. He didn’t even consider trying.

“Whatever that means, I’m game. I’m in no condition to be in charge tonight. You’re going to have to tell me what to do.”

She chuckled. The sound was warm and deep and soothing like the liqueurs she’d poured in his drink, like the passions he’d kept in check for way too long.

“You may regret that,” she quipped.

Somehow, he doubted he’d regret anything about tonight, especially when the cable car slowed at Union Street and she jumped off the car and crooked her finger into his waistband to tug him to follow. So what if someone had supposedly doctored his drink, making his mind so fuzzy he had a hell of a time remembering his address? So what if some crucial reason, currently out of reach, existed why he shouldn’t let this incredibly sensuous woman take him home?

But no thought, no logic, no amount of reason could override the surge of power he felt even as she fairly dragged him up the sidewalk. He was going to make love to this mysterious woman with the sassy black hat.

Just as soon as he remembered where the hell he lived.




3


ARIANA SLID HER HAT off her head. Her backpack came down off her shoulder with it, but she held tight to the strap so it didn’t touch the polished marble floor. She wasn’t exactly a rube from some hick town, but standing in Maxwell Forrester’s living room certainly made her feel like one. She’d expected wealth, not sheer opulence.

Everything was white. Pure white. The carpet, the furniture, the walls. Do-not-step-on-or-touch-me white. Glass cases of crystal sculpture reflected sparkling rainbow prisms, but the color was icy, precise. Only Max, a mass of gray and brown and flesh tone who shuffled in front of her before he flopped on the couch, shedding shoes and jacket and tie along the way, warmed the room with subtle invitation.

“Could you dim the lights? I had no idea I’d installed three-hundred-watt bulbs in my living room.”

Ariana grinned. Filthy-stinking-rich or not, Max was in bad shape and needed her help. They’d walked nearly three blocks to his house and, with each step, the playfulness he’d enticed her with on the cable car had begrudgingly faded away. Right now he was in no condition to tell her where the light switch was, never mind detailing how and where he was going to seduce her. Maybe things were working out for the best. She would dim the lights, make sure he was comfortable and get the heck out of Dodge before she made a huge mistake.

But first she had to find the light switch. She searched fruitlessly, soon realizing that when they’d first come in, Max hadn’t flipped any switches. He’d opened the door, they’d walked in and, snap, the lights had flared to life.

Oh, great. A house that was smarter than she was.

She backed up in the foyer and reluctantly laid her ratty leather backpack in the corner closest to the door and propped her hat on top, running her fingers through her windblown hair while she scanned the wall for a control panel that simply had to exist.

“Ariana? Are you still here?”

His voice was a mere whisper, but the sound still stopped her, warmed her—frightened the hell out of her. There was no mistaking the sound of hope mingling with the possibility of utter disappointment if she didn’t answer, if she’d abandoned him in his glittering marble palace.

She found the switches behind a thick drape and slid the controls until the recessed lights shone like subtle moonlight rather than like the outfield at Candlestick Park.

“I’m here. Is that better?”

He’d removed his arm from across his eyes, then slid his elbows along his sides and propped himself up. “Now I can’t see you.”

She remained in the foyer, her boots firmly planted.

“What’s to see?”

The only thing coming in clear to her was the fact that she couldn’t seduce Max Forrester. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. And she couldn’t let him seduce her. Could she? She must have lost her ever-lovin’ mind. She obviously didn’t belong here—with him—even temporarily. She was just a middle-class Greek chick trying to make a name for herself in the big city. He lived in a world she didn’t understand and, therefore, couldn’t control.

This was all a very big mistake.

“I said I’d get you home safe and sound. I should—”

“Don’t leave.”

For a man muddled by an unknown substance, he could issue a command with all the authority of a mogul, yet all the vulnerability of a man lost in a foreign land. She couldn’t leave him—not, at least, until she was certain he’d be okay.

Somewhere between leaving the restaurant and sprinting to catch the last cable car, the desire that had deserted her when she thought he was merely drunk had crept back under her skin. The mystery substance made him dizzy, yes, but it also loosened his tongue and his inhibitions. The way he teased her on the ride, touched her, innocently and yet with utter skill, fired her senses and fed her fantasies.

If she forgot about the million-dollar town house, the imported sculptures, the computer-controlled light switches and focused only on the man, the possibility of making love to him didn’t seem so impossible. Just…simple. Elemental. A fact of life in the wild, sexy city they called home.

Still, she held back, even while her mind said, This is it. Her chance of all chances to step onto the snowy carpet, shed her own jacket and make her fantasies come true. Heck, Max was already in a semireclined position. He’d already detailed several delightful means to “get to know each other better”. How hard could a seduction be at this point?

But even if he wasn’t drunk, he was, technically, “under the influence.” If and when she and Max explored their mutual attraction, she wanted no regrets—from either of them.

“You don’t know me, Max.”

His grin lit his face, contrasting against the shadows all around him. “I’d like to remedy that.”

His smile wavered at the same time as his balance. He slid his arms down, plopping back onto the cushions of the long couch and letting out a deep-throated groan. “Just my luck. I have the most beautiful woman in San Francisco standing in my doorway and I’m too dizzy to seduce her.”

She laughed at the wry turn in his voice—until his words actually sunk in. Those drugs sure were powerful. The most beautiful woman in San Francisco?

She crossed her arms over her chest. Doubt and hope clashed in a war that resulted in her usual sarcasm. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

He turned his head on the leather cushion. “Ariana, come closer. I’m in no condition to attack you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” she insisted, straightening her backbone, crossing her arms tighter and nearly stamping her foot on the tile. She wasn’t afraid of anything, or anyone. Except, perhaps, of herself…with Max.

He shook his head and chuckled. The sound, like warm molasses, sweetened her indignation into humor, despite her preference to remain offended and aloof. Safe.

“I’ve seen you toss men twice my size out of your bar when they’ve gotten obnoxious. I didn’t think you’d be afraid of me, particularly not when I’m seeing two of you.”

She tugged on her lower lip with her teeth and released her arms to her sides. Just as Charlie had told her, just as she suspected from her own observations and brief interactions, Max was a man she could trust. Trouble was, she didn’t trust herself.

She hadn’t factored in his natural charm and instinctive warmth when she flipped through the pages of that magazine and imagined Max making love to her in all those exotic locales in the city. What if, after a night of hot sex, she wanted more? What if sating this particular hunger only whet her appetite? Would she be able to walk away? Would she have the chance? The courage?

“Can you see the Golden Gate from here?” she asked, pointing at the bank of clear-glass windows in Max’s dining room facing the bay, delaying her decision if only a moment more.

Glancing over her shoulder at her backpack, she thought about the magazine. She hadn’t read the whole article, but she remembered one of the romantic settings was an incredibly posh hotel suite overlooking the bay. The view of the Golden Gate glittered to the northwest, the Bay Bridge gleamed somewhere farther southeast, and the lighthouse at Alcatraz flashed at the center. The couple made love against a wall of windows with an unhampered view of the city.

“The best view is from the third floor, my balcony. I would show you…”

She lifted her foot to step on the carpet, then sat instead and unzipped and removed her boots.

“You’re not in any condition to climb stairs. Maybe I should make you some coffee.” She lined up her shoes by the door. “Point me in the direction of the kitchen and I’ll brew a pot.”

“I think I’ve had enough of your libations,” he answered.

“I could just leave—” she teased.

He hoisted an arm in the air from where he lay stretched full length on the sofa and pointed to her right. “Through the archway and up the stairs. I’m not sure where the coffeemaker is.”

She stepped onto the carpet, sinking nearly an inch, the plush softness of the flooring cushioning her stockinged feet as she walked. “I know my way around a kitchen.”

“What about bedrooms?”

She stopped beneath the archway. Damn, but anything the man said sounded like a come-on, with that deep, raspy voice of his. She was suddenly glad they hadn’t exchanged more than a few dozen words over the past two years or she’d have ended up in his bed a long time ago.

Nevertheless, so long as he was asking about bedrooms, she might as well find out exactly what he had in mind. She stepped slowly to the edge of the couch. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on the armrest on either side of his bare feet.

“What do you want to know about bedrooms?”

A lock of her hair fell forward, brushing over his toes. His lips opened as if to answer, but no words came out.

“Max?”

“Sweats. I could use a pair of sweats.”

She nodded and smiled, then headed back toward the kitchen. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Again, the room lit up the moment she entered, and like the living room, the light gleamed off polished white surfaces. She searched first for the coffee and a pot to brew it in. Then she’d think about his bedroom.

His bedroom. Dangerous territory.

She had no idea if his request for sweatpants had been what he’d originally intended to ask for, but she didn’t doubt that he’d chosen a safer topic by requesting the change of clothes. He had no way of knowing that her knowledge of bedrooms was essentially limited to the art of sleeping in one. Her sexual experiences from her marriage—more specifically, the first few weeks of her marriage—seemed a lifetime ago rather than just a few years. She vaguely remembered the sex between her and her husband to be wild in the beginning, but even then she hadn’t had much of a reference from which to draw comparisons.

She’d married as a virgin, sheltered by a family and community who clung to strict codes of feminine conduct—codes she’d wanted to rebel against for a very long time, but hadn’t had the courage until her nineteenth birthday. She’d packed her bags and bought her plane ticket without telling a soul. Only after she was securely on her way to live with Uncle Stefano in San Francisco did she call her parents from her layover in Atlanta. She hadn’t wanted a big scene. She just wanted to experience life on her own, with her own rules.

Her first goal had been to meet some gloriously sexy man and have a whirlwind affair. And she’d actually met Rick while waiting for a cab at the airport. A musician with his guitar slung over his shoulder, shaggy blond hair and kind eyes, Rick had captured her sensual imagination with his first smile. He’d offered to share the cab, and on the twenty-minute ride to the Wharf, they’d chatted and laughed and flirted and fallen in love.

But it was the wrong kind of love. The kind of love that didn’t last. The kind of love exchanged by people who had little in common but lust. The kind of love that destroyed her second goal—the restaurant she finally now had just within her reach.

She’d learned the difference between lust and love the hard way, even if she’d never really experienced the latter emotion firsthand. Working with Stefano and Sonia, even intermittently before her aunt’s death, taught her that what she’d had with Rick wasn’t even close to what she deserved. She’d confused lust and love once. She certainly wouldn’t do so again.

After her divorce, she realized that maybe if she’d just slept with Rick a few times before the quick wedding ceremony at the courthouse, the magic might have worn off long enough for her to see that they weren’t in the least compatible. His goals included fame, fortune and, ultimately, a move to Nashville where he now lived and performed. At the time, her only goal had been independence, complete freedom from her family and the chance to run her own business. Marriage pretty much canceled both out. She’d inadvertently traded one controlling force for another. Once Rick was completely out of her life, she’d realigned her goals, recaptured her dream of being in charge.

But her personal goals? Her private wants? Until tonight, until she’d glanced through that magazine, she hadn’t allowed herself the luxury of those. Such an unattainable, dangerous dream could spin her in the wrong direction yet again. So she limited her fantasies to when she was sleeping, or when the romance and rattle of the cable cars worked a sly magic on her tired, lonely heart.

Until tonight, she hadn’t had time for a lover, even a temporary one. She worked twelve to sixteen hours at the restaurant every day of the week. Her one indulgence to pampering herself was practicing tai chi with Mrs. Li, her landlady, and sharing an occasional tea and conversation with the women who gathered in the shop below her apartment.

If she’d learned one thing about men in the past eight years—heck, in her whole life—it was that they demanded attention. Men like Max Forrester needed either a dutiful, socially acceptable wife to cater to his every need, or taffy-like arm candy—sweet and pliable to his slightest whim. She couldn’t allow herself to be either. She’d end up investing herself in her lover rather than in her own future. She’d done it before and damned if she’d do so again.

She found and set up the coffeemaker, impressed at the organization she found in the cabinets and drawers. Either Max was completely anal-retentive or he had an incredibly efficient housekeeper. Probably a combination of both.

While the coffee perked and popped, emitting an enticing aroma that reminded her that she’d had nothing to eat since lunchtime, she decided to search his bedroom for the clothes he wanted. The staircase she’d taken to the kitchen continued upward and she figured the master suite more than likely took up the greater portion of the top and final floor.

The house reacted to her entrance by engaging the lights again, but this time the glow was slight from a single lamp at the bedside. The lampshade’s geometrically cut, stained-glass design reflected hues of gold and amber, with a touch of ruby red that reminded her of fire. Where the bottom floor reflected cold class and wealth, his bedroom was all male heat and casual comfort, though the lingering smell of money still teased her nostrils like aged wine or hand-rolled tobacco.

The walls were paneled with rich wood—not the cheap stuff her father had in his den back home, but thick, carved planks of teak that reminded her of the opulence of a castle—the sort of room a knight or duke might entice his lover to. The paintings, from what she could make out with the individual lights above them unlit, captured outdoor scenes—listing cutters with fluttering sails on an angry ocean, a majestic lake surrounded by snowcapped mountains, a single aquamarine wave rolling in on a honey beach.

And the bed—the California king, with a simple sleigh headboard and footboard—was huge and, most likely, custom-made. The fluffy comforter, half-dozen pillows and coordinating shams picked up the blues and greens from the paintings and swirled them with just enough gold to brighten the dark space to a subtle warmth. A pair of gray sweatpants had been tossed across the perfectly made and arranged linens. This was Max’s room. The real Max. The Max she had wanted to seduce.

Truth be told, the Max she still wanted.

She grabbed the sweatpants, then thought to bring him a T-shirt as well. With a shrug, she carefully opened the drawers in his dresser, smirking when the top drawer yielded an interesting collection of party favors he’d obviously gotten from Charlie’s bachelor blowout: a package of cheap cigars shaped like penises, chocolate lollipops sculpted like breasts, several foils of condoms with doomsday sayings about marriage printed on the packages.

She hadn’t exactly planned and prepared for this evening’s possible seduction, so in the interest of safe sex, she grabbed the square with the least offensive message and tossed it on the bed before resuming her search for a shirt. After grabbing one with Stanford emblazoned on the front, she moved to return to the kitchen, but stopped when she noticed the wall of heavy drapes facing the bay. Curious after remembering his comment about the best view being from the third floor, she fumbled behind the thrice-lined curtains until she found the right button. One click and the window treatments slid aside, a mechanical hum accompanying her awed gasp.

The entire wall was a window—sliding glass doors, to be exact. Beyond was a tiled balcony almost entirely enshrouded in thick San Francisco fog. She couldn’t resist a closer look. Tossing Max’s clothes back onto the bed, she worked the locks with ease, then stepped into the mist as if entering a dream.

The air stirred with the breath of the Bay. An instant chill surrounded her, penetrating her clothing and dampening her hair. Her clothes drank in the moisture, making the cotton cool and clingy. Her nipples puckered beneath her turtleneck, rasping tight against her satin bra. She thought of Max, nearly passed out in the living room. Dizzy. Flirtatious. Sexy and charming and more potent than 120-proof rum.

Too bad he wasn’t here when she needed him, when she just might be tempted to surrender to desire.

Tiny red lights blinked to the west, indicating the span of the Golden Gate. She strolled through the wispy fog until she approached the wall, surprisingly low—maybe three feet tall—that enclosed the patio. She kept a safe distance from the edge and closed her eyes, remembering the image in the magazine of the lovers on the bridge, right up against the railing. She superimposed her face on the woman again. And this time she did the same to the man, giving him Max’s thick, dark hair, rugged square chin and gentle, probing fingers.

She saw them clearly. A man—Max. A woman—her. An undeniable desire, hidden by just a touch of fog. Tonight’s mist was particularly thick for such a late hour—San Francisco fog usually rolled over the city around four o’clock and dissipated by midnight.

Yet nothing about this night was usual. Definitely not her. Not her uncontrollable desire for Max. Not the circumstances that brought her here or the consequences she’d face in the morning if she stayed.

She pursed her lips, realizing the consequences—a little embarrassment, perhaps a dose of discomfort in the morning light—were more than worth the price of living her fantasy, grabbing her dream with both hands and saying, “Yes! Now!” That strategy had paid off once when she’d taken over the operations at the restaurant. Had she not succumbed to her youth and married the first man she met at the airport, she might have been able to say the same about the day she bought her ticket to San Francisco and left her loving, but stifling, family behind.

“Yes. Now,” she repeated aloud, trying the words on for size.

“Just tell me what you want.”

His voice rolled over the tiles and through the thick fog like a warm blast of summer air. The contrast spawned a ripple of gooseflesh up the back of Ariana’s neck, then crept beneath her turtleneck and played havoc with her skin.

She squeezed her eyelids tighter as the sensations rocked her balance, nearly unraveling her completely when Max’s breath mixed with the fog and whispered into her ear.

“Tell me what you want. Anything, Ariana. Anything goes.”




4


“IS THAT A FACT?”

Her tone was saucy, despite the whimper begging to erupt from the back of her throat. She tamped down the sound of surrender with a thick-throated swallow and willed herself to remain in control. Acquiescence to the night—the passion, the mood, the man—should be resisted. She had to keep her wits. But she couldn’t deny that this liaison would be more than a fantasy come true, more than a living dream.

The night. The fog. The man. The desire. Ariana knew without a doubt that what swirled around her at the ledge of the balcony was a gift, a once-in-a-lifetime twist of fate that she’d be a damn fool to refuse. If only he was thinking clearly!

Max stepped around, taking her hand and leading her to the ledge. His bare arm brushed against hers as he reached for the round, brass railing that edged the thigh-high brick wall enclosing his patio. Tan skin stretched tight over powerful arms and sinuous shoulders.

He’d removed his shirt. The sprinkle of tawny hair over his arms and across his chest prickled in the cool air. When the fog shifted, she realized he’d shed his pants on the way upstairs as well. He wore nothing but a thin pair of midnight-blue boxers, damp from the mist.

She tried not to allow her gaze to linger, but found her quest impossible. The shape of his erection, swathed in silk and taut with want, ignited a throbbing heat between her legs. A thrill skittered straight to the center of her chest.

She swallowed and rubbed her arms to ward off a shiver that had little to with the temperature. “Aren’t you cold?”

He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding impressively. His muscles were distinct and smooth, honed from running and perhaps some weight lifting or rowing—the kinds of exercise a rich man used to mold his body for the torture of women like her.

“I like the cold. It’s invigorating.” He turned and sat on the low railing, his legs stretched leisurely outward. Plucking her sleeve with his fingers, he snapped the clingy material against her skin. “You should experience it for yourself.”

A zing of awareness shot through her arm, but she found it hard to enjoy with him poised so precariously on the ledge. Her stomach clenched. A threatening whirl of dizziness danced at the edges of her eyes. God, she hated heights!

“That railing is awfully low, you should be…”

Max smiled and leaned completely backward. Ariana screamed and shot forward, grabbing both his arms and fully expecting both of them to tumble over. But a wall of clear, thick Plexiglas caught him before he rolled them off the three-story building. The shield vibrated from their combined weight.

The wall of his chest caught her, vibrations of a sensual kind rocked her to her core.

“Cool feature, huh? Lower wall, better view,” he explained, slipping his arms around her waist and pulling her between his thighs and onto his lap. He was hard beneath her, hard all around her. Hard and male and dangerous. “But still completely safe.”

Ariana decided then and there that men like Max Forrester shouldn’t be allowed to use the word safe in any form. She shivered from the cold, from the pure, unadulterated lust coursing through her bloodstream and firing her every nerve ending. She panted to catch her breath.

“That was a cruel trick,” she answered, forcing herself to look him in the eye.

His grin faded. “The cruel trick is you coming out here without me and leaving one of these on my bed for me to find when I came looking for you.” He held the foil packet aloft. “An invitation?”

She arched an eyebrow. “A friendly reminder.”

“I do remember that I promised to show you this view myself.” He tugged her closer. The scent of sandalwood, enhanced by his body heat and diffused into the fog, assailed her. The result was a light-headed euphoria that made her hold him tight.

“And I promised to touch you wherever you wanted me to. Put those two promises together,” he said, grinning at her impassioned grip on his arm, “and the experience will be absolutely unforgettable.”

He swallowed deeply, and Ariana watched the bobbing of his Adam’s apple and the undulation of his throat, fascinated.

“You say that now. But that drug can alter your memory.”

“I don’t feel drugged by anything but you.”

Her chest tightened in response to his declaration. She couldn’t see clearly in the dim lighting on the balcony, but Max certainly seemed to have control of his balance now, something he hadn’t had earlier. Maybe the Mickey had lost some of its effect.

Anticipation warred with her uncertainties—sexual excitement battled with a lifetime’s worth of repression and regret. She had every reason to believe that Max’s desire was honest—true in a way that was elemental to a man and ideal for a woman like her. She could have him tonight, love him tonight, knowing they were both sating a desire born long ago and hidden for reasons that, right now, simply didn’t matter.

What did matter was that in the morning she’d have an adventure to remember, a sensual liaison that would erase the erotic pictures from the magazine with images of delight so much more personal and real.

She grazed her hands upward from his elbows to his shoulders, kneading the thick sinew as she worked inward to his neck. For a man who reportedly wielded great power during the day, his muscles were now completely relaxed and pliant to her touch. His eyes, half-shut as she threaded her fingers into his hair, were focused entirely on her, seeming to see something fascinating, something no other man ever had.

She moved forward to kiss him, but his hands snaked from her waist to her elbows and stopped her.

“Wait,” he ordered.

Confused, she instinctively pulled back from his grip. He released her, but stood and stepped immediately back into her personal space. She gasped and retreated. He shadowed her move.

“Don’t bolt, Ariana.”

“Why’d you stop me? This isn’t a good idea.”

“You were going to kiss me,” he answered simply.

She bit her lower lip before replying. “And?”

“And you were touching me.” He did as she did earlier, sliding his hands from her elbows to her shoulders, then massaging inward to her neck until his thumb teased the lobes of her ears.

“You didn’t like it?” she murmured. She couldn’t imagine how he wouldn’t have. She was having a damn hard time keeping her eyes open and her moan of pleasure contained in her throat.

“I loved it, but that’s not what tonight is going to be about.”

“Huh?”

If a more intelligent response existed, Ariana couldn’t summon it. Not with his scent, hot and male and potent, assailing her nostrils and his body heat defeating the night’s chill like fire against ice.

“My brain has defogged. My balance is back. And if I remember correctly, I promised that if you stayed, tonight would be about you. Me pleasing you. Not necessarily the other way around.”

She barely had time to register that he had just voiced her ultimate fantasy, when he lowered his head and brushed her lips with a teasing sweep. The sensation unleashed that imprisoned whimper, then several more as the kiss deepened, mouths opened, tongues danced. Before she realized it, Max untucked her shirt from her jeans and skimmed her belly with a light, exploratory touch.

Electric need surged through her. She jumped, startled and thrilled and excited, then grabbed his cheeks and pressed closer to force herself past her panic. Max wouldn’t hurt her. Max would stop if she asked.

And she definitely didn’t want to stop.

His lips stretched tight as he grinned beneath the kiss. He unbuttoned her jeans and released the zipper, barely touching her in the process, which only stoked her hunger for more. She broke the kiss long enough to whip off her turtleneck, tossing it aside to disappear in the soupy mist swirling around them, then kissed him again. He led her backward until her calves bumped against an outdoor chaise lounge.

Pressing his hands on her shoulders, he guided her into the chair, following her down so that he knelt beside her. With intimate slowness, he eased her fully against the cushion, altering his kisses from bold and insistent to soft and scattered, touching her nose, her eyelids, her cheeks, her chin, lulling her into an anticipatory state where she held her breath and waited for his next touch.

When she finally opened her eyes, his grin was pure sin.

“Do you feel it?” he asked, his green eyes twinkling with some untold secret.

“Feel what? You stopped.”

“Oh, honey—” he smiled as he removed her jeans, the denim rasping over the sensitive skin of her legs, leaving her wispy panties askew “—I’ve only just started. I meant the anticipation. Do you feel that?”

She nodded, rubbing her tongue-dampened lips together tightly. The fog kissed her bare legs. The chill made her shiver, but the sensation was nothing compared to the waves of want rocking her from the inside out.

“It’ll only get better, I promise.”

He tugged the denim off her ankles, then straddled the chair so he could attend to her bare feet. He massaged her arches and toes with a strong pressure that at first made her wince, then he kneaded softly until she sighed. She hadn’t realized how tired her feet were. But with each press and swirl, his hands erased the ache of the workday and enhanced the bittersweet torment of unsatisfied need.

He inched upward, lifting her left leg and placing an anklet of wet-tongued kisses on her skin, followed by a seam of laving up her calf and behind her knee. She started to slip down the fog-slickened cushion. The plunging sensation made her grab the arms of the chair.

“Relax, Ariana. I won’t hurt you.”

“It’s not that. I feel like I’m falling.”

“You are. You’re falling for me.”

She shook her head, smiling at his sweet sentiment, but not surprised that he didn’t understand.

“I’m afraid of heights,” she admitted.

“Heights of passion?” His teasing tone and sparkling eyes drew her into his double entendre. He scooted forward another few inches, then draped her knee over his shoulder. She held her breath, watching, fascinated and vulnerable and thrilled, as he smoothed his hand from beneath her lifted thigh, down to her nearly bare bottom. Wordlessly, he grabbed an elongated cushion from a nearby chair and placed it behind her hips, securing her in the semi-lifted position. She grabbed the neck roll and slid it behind her head, assisting him as he arranged her body for his full view and complete attention.

“I wouldn’t know about the heights of passion, Max,” she admitted. She’d avoided them the same way she’d avoided climbing Coit Tower or walking the span of the Golden Gate. The possibility of plunging down, losing herself, was a real one she’d always meant to avoid. “Never really climbed them.”





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