For Kicks (3 page)

“Wow.”

“That’s my folks for you.” She could almost hear Anthony whispering in her ear to be nice.

“I knew I’d heard the name somewhere. Your parents, they wrote a book, right?”

“Yes.” Her eyes widened as she tried to look at him and the road at the same time. How the hell did he know about a natural childbirth manual? Her parents’ laboring suggestions had been another source of ridicule in school.

“Have you read it?” If he had, it probably meant he had three kids at home.

“Actually, yes. Is that weird?”

“I haven’t read it.” It all came together now. He didn’t have a girlfriend because he was married with children, and he asked her out to dinner because he could cover and say it was business. She knew he was too good to be true. “Do you have kids?”

“Me?” He pulled his head back. “Oh, because I’ve read the book. No, no kids. My sister was on bed rest at the same time I had surgery on my feet. We spent two months on our backs at her house, reading and watching daytime television. I made her read Shakespeare and she forced me into discussing baby manuals. It was shockingly enjoyable. Not the childbirth talk, but spending so much time together again.”

“My brothers would never do that.” She turned back to the road as traffic inched forward. Someone buy this guy a medal. Hanging out with his pregnant sister. Still, there must be something wrong with him. She wanted to ask what kind of operation, but asking would mean she wanted to know him personally, and she didn’t. Couldn’t.
 

“I’m thinking Thai.”

“Tie?”

“For dinner. Or maybe a steakhouse. I’m so hungry I can’t decide.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Her heart raced as she tried to will traffic to move. She couldn’t go to dinner with him alone. It would be too much like a date.

“Why? Are you a vegetarian?”

“Yes, but that’s not—”

“Thai it is. Take this exit.”

“This is not a date,” Breeze said for the third time in ten minutes.

Logan smiled at his
date
, having decided nine minutes ago not to argue the point. “Fine. But if we’re talking business, then you’re buying.”

He leaned back in his chair as the waitress arrived, setting the appetizer platter between them. He thanked her and then spun the tray so Breeze wouldn’t have to look at the satay or beef salad.

“The papaya salad is good.” He picked up a fork and motioned around the dish. “And the spring rolls are great too. All vegetables.”

She spied the tiny piles of food on the large plate with apprehension before spreading her napkin in her lap and picking at the peanut-topped cucumber salad with her fork.

Deciding that was good enough, Logan dug in, trying to quell the rumble in his belly and get sustenance to his brain so he could formulate some way to convince her that this was indeed a date, and would be ending as such—with a plan to see each other again and his lips on as many parts of her body as she’d allow. When he had cleared his half of the plate he looked up and noticed she’d polished off both the papaya and cucumber salads. He knew she had to be hungry.

He pulled a bottle of pain pills from his messenger bag and downed three. He rarely had to take anything anymore, but she’d kept him on his pinned-together feet all day. He would have taken something sooner, but he didn’t like to take meds on an empty stomach.

“Headache?” she asked, straightening the napkin on her lap.

“Feet ache. I don’t know how you managed all that walking in heels.” He smiled wide, hoping she wouldn’t ask about his feet. He didn’t want to have to talk about the accident, the end of his professional soccer career, or the mental anguish at having to rework his entire life. With as crushed as they’d been, his feet had recovered remarkably. He’d never run a marathon, but the limp was practically unnoticeable now.

“I’m in heels every day during store hours. Every inch helps when you’re vertically challenged.” She tilted her head, looking quizzically at the plate of food.

“You don’t like spring rolls?” He plucked one from the plate, dipped it in the sweet chili sauce and took a bite.

“What’s in there?”

“You’ve never had a spring roll?” he asked after swallowing. “They’re vegetables and rice noodles wrapped in rice paper.”

“Rice paper?” She wrinkled her nose. “Why would I want to eat paper?”

“It tastes like rice, just rolled out so it can hold all the stuff together. Taste it.”

Her smile was completely irresistible as she handled the roll like it might explode and took the daintiest bite.

“It’s better with the sauce,” he said, just to encourage her to let him watch her take another taste.

She did, and a satisfied grin lit up her face. “It’s like a salad you can hold in your hand.”

“I guess so.” He laughed. “Haven’t you been out for Thai food before?”

She shook her head. “I don’t eat out much.”

“I eat out constantly, so I can be your tour guide of the best restaurants Portland has to offer. Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, Italian. You name it.”

“Egyptian?”

She must have decided this was a date after all. “Egyptian it is. I’ll pick you up so you won’t have to drive again.”

“Pick me up?”

“Dinner, tomorrow night. You, me, Egyptian food.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Logan.” She set down her half-eaten spring roll, put her hands in her lap and sat up straight in her chair.

“Egyptian is not as risky as you think.” He was not about to let her squirm away. She worked too hard, had shown him as much today. He was just the person to make sure she had a good time. “But we could do something more traditional. Mexican?”

“I don’t date.”

“You don’t date?” Frustration tightened his jaw. “Why not?”

“There isn’t room for it in my life.”

“Well, make room.” A tension-filled silence sat heavy between them until the waitress returned to clear and then deliver plate after plate.

“You haven’t told me what you’ve decided about the project.” She blinked her big blue eyes as if she hadn’t put the skids on their conversation and thrown it in reverse.

What he wouldn’t give to be able to shake her aloof composure. “I’m just one opinion.” He surveyed the plates on the table and rearranged them so the green curry with tofu and vegetarian pad Thai were closest to her and pulled the chicken basil stir-fry closer.

“Which is?” She placed a single bite of the curry and noodles on opposite sides of her plate. She tasted each with cautious precision.

“Mendelssohn’s needs to focus on training to make sure their employees are ready for the Kicks roll out.”

“We’re keeping the exclusivity program?” She piled half the dish of noodles on her plate and smothered them with peanut sauce.

“Probably. But there will be some conditions, I’m sure.” He slid his foot under the table until it connected with hers. “Can we be done with work talk now?”

“No.” She shook her head, the dark ringlets that escaped her clip swaying. “This is a business dinner.”

“And after dinner?”

He’d sensed the mutual attraction all day, but she’d opposed his flirtatious advances with her arsenal of retail knowledge. He knew she was just trying to keep her own attraction at bay. And all day he’d let her, especially since they were in her stores.

But this was a restaurant. A quiet table in the back with low lighting. The only business going on was in her head.

“It would be unprofessional for anything to happen between us.” She spoke in her ever-efficient manner, which he already found disturbingly endearing.

“How so?”

“We work together.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a manager for Mendelssohn’s department store. I’m a brand manager at Nitrous. We work for separate companies.”

“Companies with a tenuous agreement at the moment. One which I’d like to convince you we can honor.” An undeniable spark of enthusiasm lit her baby blues.

“I have no doubt in your abilities, Breeze. But you have no bearing on a business agreement. So we’re free to explore whatever we’d like.”

“I’m not interested.” She set down her fork and gave him a sympathetic smile. “I would never jeopardize my career by mixing my professional and private life.”

“I’m not asking you to do that.” He set down his own fork and stared into her eyes until she dropped her gaze.

“I’ve worked too hard to have people think my success is due to anything other than my professional abilities. And when you’re a woman, that’s exactly where people’s minds go.”

“But we don’t work together.”

“People will assume the Nitrous account ebbs and flows with how we’d be doing personally.”

He dropped his head back and cursed the part of himself that found her protests charming. “Then you’d better give me your home number and address.” Her eyes were wide when he gazed down at her and squared his shoulders.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“If work is the only place I can get a hold of you, people will talk. If you want to keep things private, we can.”

“I’m flattered, really. But there’s no room in my life for what you’re offering. I’m focused on my career. I work over a hundred hours a week.”

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Why would you do that?”

“To be the youngest store manager in Mendelssohn’s history.” She picked up her fork again, smug satisfaction lighting her face.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“And how old was the youngest store manager?”

“My grandmother was twenty-eight when she got her first store.”

So she was trying to follow a family tradition. Still, that was no excuse. “Aren’t you worried about burnout? Exhaustion?”

“I manage my time very efficiently. I try not to waste a moment.” She returned to her food, obviously not wanting to waste a nanosecond debating the issue with him.

What she needed was someone to show her there was more to life than work, breaking records, living up to someone else’s expectations. That living life in fast forward meant missing all the good parts.
 

What she needed was
him
.

He ate carefully, watching her every move. Planning how he’d launch his sensual strike on her. There was so much more to life, so many wonderful things he could teach her to enjoy. And exotic food was just the beginning.

But it was a start.

“You have to eat.” He set his fork next to his empty plate.

“I couldn’t have another bite.” She pushed her plate away, a satiated grin playing at her lips.

“No, I meant dinner tomorrow. If you really do make the most of every moment, then you can find a way to work us into your agenda.” Pulling his wallet from his back pocket, he dropped some bills on the table and found his feet.

“I thought I was paying,” she said, reaching for her purse.

“Then it wouldn’t be a date.” He took her hand and pulled her up beside him. With her body flush against his, a feverish awareness heated his blood. How he wanted to take advantage of the situation. But he knew if he moved too fast, it would be the last he ever saw of Breeze Cohen.

“This is not a date.” Her statement made him grin. Keeping her hand in his, he led her out of the restaurant and back to her car.

“It is a date, Breeze.” He backed her up to her side of the car, stepping closer so she couldn’t duck away.

“No, it’s not.” A hint of laughter danced in her eyes.

“Then why am I doing this?” He ran his finger along her jawbone and her breath hitched as he tipped her chin up. Her eyes darkened to a cobalt blue as he neared, long lashes fluttering closed as he lowered his mouth over hers.

All her resistance evaporated. In the kiss he only tasted intuitive surrender. She melted into him just as she had when she’d fallen into his arms that morning. Wholly and without the slightest reservation.

His lips glided softly against hers, gently coaxing her into far more forbidden territory. He threaded his hand into her thick curls and slanted her mouth more securely against his.

Her purse dropped to the ground with a distant thud and her hands reached for him. One hand rested on the arm he had braced against the car door. The other moved between them. She touched his chest tentatively with her fingertips, her palm, then flattened against him. Logan felt the imprint of her splayed hand through the thin fabric of his shirt as if she’d branded him without ever touching his skin.

A breathy moan parted her lips, opening her to him. He dipped inside, tasting her, drowning in a softness that seemed to go on forever. Knowing this was as far as she’d let things go, he took his time. Sampling, learning, enjoying.

Greed and lust had him stepping closer still, pressing the length of her body against his, and she froze, stiffening beneath his hands. Sensing her doubts, he drew his mouth away but couldn’t bring himself to lose contact yet. He brushed his thumbs along her jaw and pressed his forehead to hers.

“Dinner, tomorrow.”

“Logan.” She frowned, her finger tracing her slick bottom lip. “I don’t think—”

“Breeze, if I have to kiss you again to convince you I’m not sure I can stop there.”

She nodded. “Dinner. Tomorrow.”

Chapter Three

Breeze floated into her office the next morning and grabbed the black pantsuit from the back of the door. Exhaustion should have set in after her marathon day yesterday, the restless sleep filled with echoes of Logan’s kiss, and arriving at the store by five to work new freight to the sales floor. But long days were nothing new. And that kiss still had her walking on air.

Not to mention her dreams. As she changed, her skin prickled with heat at the memory of some of the things her unchecked mind had come up with. The thrill that Logan liked her and she liked him warmed her from within. And really, they weren’t working together.

Technically.

She groaned and twisted her unruly curls into submission. It was a terrible idea to get involved with him during such an important project. She knew that. Both times she’d tried to balance dating and her career had ended badly. Before a second date, at the moment they got grabby or demanding.