Bending the Rules (17 page)

And part of her was happy about it. She felt lighter, the way she had that time back in the fifth grade when she’d escaped having to take a test she’d studied insufficiently for because of a rare snow-day school closure, which had given her a second chance to prepare. Now, as then, she’d been saved from her own less-than-brilliant impulses.

Yet at the same time…

An excitement she couldn’t deny had percolated inside of her as she’d assembled the Stroganoff, taken a quick shower, shaved her legs and donned the new undies she’d bought from a sale bin at Victoria’s Secret last week. Facing her intentions squarely, she admitted that feeding de Sanges probably hadn’t been the primary motivation driving her.

That leg-shaving thing was the big clue.

Grinning to herself—because, really, she had a feeling the man was waaaay out of her league, sexually speaking—she put the bag back on the floor in front of his door, hunted up a pen and notepad in her purse and scribbled a quick thank-you note. Ripping it out of the pad, she placed it atop the casserole dish in the cloth bag, which she left behind as she headed back down the corridor to the elevator.

Only to have the door to the stairwell open and Jason step out before she reached it.

They both stopped short, and while Poppy guessed his heart probably wasn’t doing a sudden tap dance, hers sure was. “Um, hi.”

“What are you doing here?” He jerked his tie loose, directing Poppy’s attention to his snappy suit. Then his eyes narrowed. “How the hell did you get my address?”

“Jeez, not paranoidly suspicious or anything, are you?” Still, she couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t suppose you’d buy me looking you up online?”

“I’m a cop, Blondie. You could search the Net until your pretty tight skin sagged around your ankles and still find damn few of us with a published address or listed phone. So which politician did you buy off this time?”

“Same guy as the past two times—the mayor. He looooves me. And get over yourself. I’m not stalking you and I’m not here to bomb your apartment house. I brought you a pan of the famous Calloway beef Stroganoff to thank you for all you did yesterday.”

He went still. “You cooked for me?”

“Sure. And not just anything, pal. Chefs all over the greater Seattle area weep when my mother refuses them this recipe. It’s to die for.” Then she shot him a wry smile and admitted, “Not that I could always make that claim. You’ll just have to trust me when I say it’s come a long way since Mom’s tofu period.”

His face registered the proper horror and a visible shudder rippled his strong shoulders.

“Tell me about it,” she agreed. “And you never even had to eat it. I lived on that crap for two, maybe three, years. I can’t remember the exact number, but it felt like ten.”

“That’s just plain cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Amen to that, brother. There oughtta be a law. If I ever have a kid, I will never serve her tofu. You can take that to the bank.”

He hesitated for two long heartbeats, then craned his head forward, his bony nose raised like a cartoon character following a beckoning finger of scent. “I think I smell it. You better come in and show me how to cook the thing. I’ve never had much homemade food, and I’d hate to screw it up.”

“Not sure that you can.” He’d never had homemade—Catching herself, she fell into step beside him. “It’s merely a matter of heating it through, which you can do in the micro. But I can toss the salad while you do that.”

He turned his head to stare at her over his shoulder. “You brought me salad, too?”

“Uh-huh. And a baguette and a bottle of white.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re not an alcoholic, are you?”

The corner of his mouth ticked up, which Poppy interpreted as riotous amusement. His teeth were very white against his swarthy skin and five-o’clock shadow. “Nah.”

“Glad to hear it. ’Cuz this baby’s got a cork and everything. I probably wouldn’t go so far as to give it a minute to breathe, but if you’re particular we can do that.”

“I’m still stunned at the cork part. That’s a big step up from the last bottle I bought.” Arriving at his door, he swept up the Trader Joe’s bag, unlocked the door and stood back for her to precede him into his apartment. “Although I gotta admit that once I fished the glass out of the neck I’d opened against the counter it was a very fine three-buck-chuck.”

Oh, God, oh, God. A sense of humor. She’d thought the hardly-even-a-hint she’d caught of it a while back had been a one-off thing, but that was a joke he’d just made. An honest-to-God joke!

She wanted to have his baby.

She’d settle, however, for checking out his apartment. Absorbing as many impressions as possible, she followed him down the short hallway, taking the opportunity to look around when he ducked into his bedroom to hang up his jacket.

The place turned out to be another surprise. Not the fact that it was neat as a pin—that was hardly astonishing, considering. But she’d pegged him as the minimalist type and if she’d put any thought into it she would have predicted his style as Early Military Barracks, a sort of no-frills bare-essentials look.

Instead, it put her in mind of his sharp suits: clean lines, understated and nothing bargain basement about it. She could see a few good pieces of furniture where the end of the hallway opened up into a living area. And a couple of interesting art reproductions that he’d probably spent more money on matting and framing than he had the prints.

But what amazed her most was the personal stuff. She really had to quit trying to pigeonhole him, she realized. Because the truth was she’d half expected all the surfaces to be bare and clean. And while they were the latter, they were far from the former.

Books were crammed into the gorgeous mission-style bookcase and atop it were a couple of candles, one of those Japanese-style trays with white sand, another candle and some interesting rocks. He even had a fairly healthy plant, for God’s sake. Plus a couple of framed snapshots.

Her fingers nearly itched, so badly did she want to get her hands on those photos. But Jason came out of his bedroom, minus his jacket and gun, and crossed to the small kitchen as she was edging down the hall. With a sigh, she followed. She supposed it would be rude to just blow past him in order to paw through his stuff.

First opportunity, though, she intended to check it out.

Then Jason grinned as he began pulling the groceries out of her shopping bag and her intentions evaporated like so many tears in the desert. “Wow,” she said, her heart skipping as she made herself at home, opening cupboards until she located his quartet of wineglasses. She grabbed two. “You oughtta do that more often.”

“Huh?” He looked up from the container of Stroganoff that he’d opened and brought up to inhale deeply. And…good God. He looked like a guy who’d just got his. All he lacked was the cigarette.

Oh. Not a smart comparison. She was way too aware of him as it was and certainly didn’t need that kind of image scorching through her thoughts. Forcing lightness into her voice, she said, “Smile. You should smile more often. You have a very nice one, but you hardly ever use it. I guess it’s true what they say, though. The way to a man’s heart really is through his stomach.”

His smile grew wider, making her notice the long creases bracketing his mouth. “You have no idea how true,” he agreed. “Except for grilling the odd chunk of meat, I’m not much in the cooking department. Restaurants and takeout is more my speed, but it gets old. And, man, even cold this stuff smells good.”

“Go ahead and put it in the micro and set it for—” eyeing his clunky counter model, she saw it was pretty ancient “—maybe two minutes to start, then give it a half turn and zap it for another two. After you start that, grab me a salad-size bowl and you can cut the baguette.”

“Bossy little thing, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know about little, but bossy? You betcha. You can save yourself a heap of aggravation by simply letting me have my way from the get-go.”

“Right.” He snorted. “You keep clinging to that raft, sister.”

She sighed and poured the greens she’d cut up earlier from her Ziploc bag into the bowl he handed her. “Fine, do it the hard way. You’ll learn. They all do.” She reached for the bottle of Asian Caesar dressing and unscrewed its top.

“All who? Men?”

She looked at him, saw the sudden intense glitter in his eyes and the walls seemed to take a giant step inward. The air suddenly grew warmer, thicker, moister. At the same time her mouth went dry. She cleared her throat. Attempted a careless shrug. “Men. Women. Children, dogs. The world in general, pal.”

“O-kay. Nothing wrong with your ego.” He handed her a glass of wine.

“What can I say? I was born to rule the universe. Just ask my folks. Dad claims he knew commune living wasn’t going to work for me practically the minute I emerged from the womb.” She took a sip of the crisp pinot grigio, resisting the urge to knock back half the goblet in one gulp.

“Good wine,” he said.

“Yes, and you should take a moment to feel the pride of using a corkscrew to open it rather than breaking the top off against the nearest hard surface.”

The corner of his mouth tugged up, that long crease forming once again in his stubble-darkened cheek. He turned back to slicing the bread.

When he finished, he removed two plates from a cupboard and handed them to her. “Want to set the table? Just toss the stuff on—I don’t have any place mats or those napkin ring things. Or napkins, come to that.”

“How will I get by?” Then she laughed and gave him a friendly hip bump. Another ill-conceived move as it turned out, given her instant awareness of the warmth and hardness of his body, but she forged ahead as if she hadn’t registered that in her bones. “You don’t think I eat like this every day, do you? Like you, I rely on a lot of takeout or slap together a sandwich or a salad. Occasionally I cook, but when I do, I make it count and cook up enough to last me the week. Either that or invite my friends or family over. I’ve got a container of Stroganoff in my fridge that matches the one I brought you.”

“Hell, I’m not sharing mine then. Go home.”

“Wanna make me? I don’t have any of that pinot grigio back at the homestead, so I’m ready to rumble.”

He took a long-legged step forward, his dark eyes locked on hers, and the air surrounding her threatened to catch fire. Her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest when he suddenly went still. Looked down at the glass in his hand.

And tossed back the remainder of the wine in it. “Okay, fine,” he said, running a knuckle over a drop clinging to his lower lip, his eyes still on her. “But I’m only sharing a little. So don’t go eating like a trucker.”

She couldn’t unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth to save her soul, but gave him what she really, really hoped was a careless look that said, You don’t affect me, big boy.

She feared, however, what it probably looked like was closer to, So, Sheik. Looking for a sex slave?

Somehow, however, she survived the meal, finding her voice and dredging up innocuous subjects until the image of him clearing the table with one sweep of his arm and slamming her down for some set-the-world-afire sex finally loosened its grip on her imagination. She almost felt back to normal by the time they set their forks across their plates.

“Damn, that was good,” he sighed, wadding up his paper towel and tossing it atop his cutlery. “I could eat that for the rest of my life.”

Tickled, she flashed him a genuine smile. “I’m pretty sure it would wear thin if that was your sole diet.”

“I suppose. But not for a long time.” He pushed back from the table and climbed to his feet. “You want some coffee?”

“No, thanks. Much to the disgust of my Norwegian grandpa I have to cut myself off by five or I toss and turn all night.” Rising as well, she gathered their dishes and followed him into the small kitchen. Taking them to the sink, she turned on the hot water.

He looked up from the gold filter he’d balanced atop a coffee mug. “Hey, you don’t have to do that. You cooked. I can do the dishes.”

“I’ll wash. You dry.” She found the plug and squirted soap under the stream of hot water.

“Is this one of those ‘just let you have your way from the get-go’ moments you were blathering about?”

“I don’t blather, bud. But feel free to categorize it as a control thing if you want. Me, I’d be more practical.”

He actually laughed. “You’ve got a point, considering you’re offering free labor. So, okay.” He hitched a shoulder. “I can live with that.” After hefting the stainless teakettle from the back burner as if to test for sufficient water, he replaced it and turned on the burner.

He rolled up his shirtsleeves and dried as she washed, then, when the kettle whistled, flipped the towel over his shoulder to make himself a single cup of coffee. Sipping it, he tackled the few dishes left in the drainer. Poppy turned away to wipe down the counters, resolutely ignoring his strong forearms with their feathering of black hair. Trying not to notice how long, how strong-looking his brown-skinned, white-nailed fingers were.

She wanted those hands on her.

Involuntarily she squeezed the sponge in her own hand and water dripped onto the stove top. She wanted his hands on her. Had wanted them on her from the first instant she’d clapped eyes on him. And what was she doing about it?