Exposed

“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.