Lucky Break (10 page)

Chapter Eight

Lucky struggled to swallow the mouthful of fish. She was too worked up to pay much attention to the delightful flavors of the seasonings used to create the palate-loving masterpiece. At any other time she’d be moaning in pleasure over the meal, but right now she was awestruck over Jared’s words. After taking a sip of wine, she decided to move the conversation to a lighter topic.

“So you have two sisters?”

His swift grin left her breathless. It brought an instant change to his features. He went from looking dark and brooding and sexy as hell to flirtatious-playboy gorgeous. “I do. They’re older and think they can solve all the problems in my life.”

“Ah. Well, you can’t blame them for trying.” She knew she’d done it enough times with poor Kay. “Older sisters care and don’t like seeing the younger sibling make mistakes.”

He chuckled. “I’m guessing you’re the older one?”

She flushed and grinned. “I am. But it’s true, you know. I love Kay and would hate to see her make the same mistakes I’ve made. Even though she’s a grown woman and makes her own decisions in life, it’s tough to sit around and watch someone hurt a family member you love.”

His smile slid off his lips. “Yes, that’s what my sisters have said to me before.”

She frowned at the sad look on his face, wondering what her words had reminded him of. “What about your parents? What do they do?”

Almost as if he’d been pulled back to the present by her question, he started cutting up his food and taking bites. “My mother is, as she has termed herself, a ‘trophy wife.’”

Choking over her food, she drank water and stared at him. “A trophy wife? How old is she?”

He laughed. “About fifteen years younger than my father, but she refuses to age, and so she has told everyone she’s his trophy wife because, according to her, she is too good-looking and young to be anything else.”

She grinned. “What about your father?”

“He was my partner at the security company for a long time, but he retired last year to take his trophy wife to travel the world while she’s still young enough to be considered one.”

Giggling over his words, she finished her meal. “So wait, you have a security company? I thought you were a professional poker player.”

She waited for him to answer while the waiter cleared the table.

“I started playing back in college, just for fun. Everyone told me I would never get the game because I was always trying to figure out the other person’s angle.”

She lifted her brows. “Card counting?”

“I didn’t mean to. It was just natural to me. I have a photographic memory, and I’m good with detail. So the more I played the game, the better I got.”

“Wow.” Stunned, she could do nothing but gape.

“It’s not that big of a deal. People do it all the time.”

“Smart people do.”

He shrugged. The waiter brought them dessert menus. She glanced down and smiled at the first item she saw.

“We’ll have the tartuffo.”

When her gaze met his, his eyes were twinkling with delight. “Ice cream?”

She chuckled, handed the menu back to the waiter, and grinned. “I did promise you ice cream and cake. I didn’t say you’d get them at the same time though.”

* * *

“Where to next?”

The sexy rasp in his voice pulled her out of her daydreams and made her glance over at his profile while he stared at the road. He was sexy all right. But now that they’d talked and she’d seen him joke and laugh, he was even sexier to her. There was still that hardness about him, which made her wonder what had happened to him. Or, maybe more to the point,
who
had happened to him. Experience had made her wary, and it probably brought out the hard side she saw at times in Jared. When he wasn’t being careful, she saw the real man having fun, relaxing. She liked him way more than she should.

“The cake tasting is next.”

Once she’d given him directions, she alternated between watching where they were going and peeking at his profile. He ran a hand through his short blond locks and managed to give himself an even sexier rolled-out-of-bed look. Her heart did somersaults. Zooming in on his mouth, she was once again lost in sensual fantasies, remembering all the things he did to her. Her pussy throbbed; she wanted to tell him to stop the car and have his way with her. She’d lick her way all over his tattoo and dig her nails into his ass, pulling him deeper with each of his thrusts while they fucked. Her breathing quickened.

“Lucky?”

She snapped her head sideways, almost getting whiplash in the process, and glanced at him. They’d stopped, and he was watching her with an inordinate amount of fiery passion in his gaze.

“We’re here.”

Unsnapping her seat belt, she was ready to bolt out the door when he stopped her.

“Wait, I’ll get you.”

He’d been such a gentleman, opening and shutting doors for her all day, holding her hand and even going as far as he had now, telling her to wait so he could help her out of the low-sitting car. They were parked in the back lot of the bakery.

The door released quietly. He held her hand and anchored her so she could get out of the vehicle. Oppressive heat stroked her skin the moment she stepped out of the car. A well-known cake designer met them at the entrance to her shop. They were led into a private room with a table for two. Forest-green linens covered the table, and a centerpiece of mixed flowers sat in the center.

“If you’d like to have a seat, I’ll bring out the samples shortly.”

Their host left them alone in the room. Lucky dropped her notepad on the table and made notes on the cake shop. After a moment of silence, she peeked up when warmth made her skin heat. Jared was watching her intently.

“I’m sorry. This must be so boring for you.”

He shook his head, curled his hand over hers across the table, and squeezed. “I’ve had a nice time.”

She gulped. His dark gaze had dropped down to her mouth. In an involuntary move, she licked her lips. Flutters swarmed in her stomach the moment he groaned.

“Baby, you’re making it damn hard to be a gentleman.”

Her mind went completely blank. She shouldn’t speak. They were in a private place running wedding plan errands. But all she could think of was seeing the flare of lust in his eyes grow brighter. “Maybe I don’t want you to be a gentleman right now.”

It took all of a blink, and he was leaning over the table cupping her face and kissing her. His chair fell back, hitting the carpeted floor with a soft thud. She raked her nails through his short hair, gripping the strands and meshing her face with his, their lips locked tight, fusing their mouths together in a wild display of carnal passion.

Electricity shot through her veins to her pussy and back up to her nipples. She moaned with each stroke of his tongue over hers. He cupped her jaw, ran circles over her chin with his thumb, and sucked on her bottom lip, nipping her lightly. Her pussy ached, begging to be filled.

“Ahem…” A throat was cleared.

She jerked her lids open and shuddered when he gave her a full-on possessive “I’m going to take you home and place my stamp all over your body” look from his dark eyes.

“I’m…so…er…sorry.” The baker giggled nervously.

Lucky widened her eyes in alarm and watched Jared lift the fallen chair, take a seat, and smile at the baker as if nothing had gone wrong.

“I can’t seem to keep my hands off her.”

The baker sighed. “What a lovely couple you both make. It’s so nice to see people so in love, even with the craziness of wedding plans.” She placed a large oval gold-rimmed plate on the table. “Most of the couples I see at this stage are either fighting over budgets, seating plans, honeymoon destinations, or how many children they’re going to have.”

He turned from the baker to glance at her. “We don’t have those issues. It’s hard enough for me to get her to spend time with me as it is.”

The baker laughed and winked at Lucky. “He’s funny.”

Lucky forced herself to smile when all she wanted was to tell the woman to get the hell out, jump on the table, spread her legs wide open, and offer herself to him as his next meal. Heat crawled to her face, and she was damn glad he couldn’t read her mind.

“Yeah,” she snorted. “He’s a riot.”

“I’ve brought you the choices you requested. There’s vanilla with dulce de leche filling, vanilla with guava filling, chocolate with mousse filling, chocolate with vanilla filling, and banana with cream filling.”

Lucky had known Nina loved sweets, but damn. This was harder than she had expected, since she loved dulce de leche and guava.

“And the groom’s cake?”

The baker laughed and rubbed her hands on the sides of her uniform. “I got the request. Vanilla cake with cheesecake filling, right?”

She nodded and wrote a note, hoping neither the baker nor Jared noticed the pen shaking in her grasp.

“I’ll leave you to try. Make whatever combination you think you want per layer and we’ll work it out for you.”

“What’s the groom’s cake?” Jared asked once they were alone again.

Glancing up from her notes, she smiled at his confused frown. “A cake made with the groom in mind.”

“Does Max know about this? He never mentioned a groom’s cake.”

“No. And unless you want a very pissed-off Nina, which is never a good idea, I’d suggest you keep what you heard to yourself.”

He showed his gorgeous, even teeth again when he smiled. “What’s the big deal with this cake?”

She nibbled on her lip, wondering how much she should tell him. “It’s something she wanted to do for him. It’s a special cake: the filling is her favorite, but the shape of the cake is all for him.”

His brows lifted and curiosity filled his eyes. “What shape is it?”

“It’s going to be shaped like the
Enterprise
.” She giggled at his confusion. “Come on, Max is your friend. You know he loves
Star Trek
.”

“You mean they’re going to recreate the
Enterprise
in cake form? For Max?”

“Yes.”

He whistled. “Wow. Nina really must love him to go that far. He’s going to go nuts when he sees that.”

She grabbed a fork and dipped it into a piece of fluffy cake. Her hormones were still bouncing around from that kiss. “Well, it’s usually what happens when people love each other. They try to do things they know will make their partner happy.”

He stopped her from lifting the fork from the plate with his hand and tugged it from her fingers. A sexy smile flirted over his lips. “Let me.”

Their gazes locked as he brought the piece of cake to her lips. Warmth seeped down her veins, heating her to the core. Opening her mouth, she watched his attention drop to her lips. She allowed him to place the small bit of cake into her mouth. Sweet decadence exploded on her tongue from the guava filling. She moaned and shut her eyes.

“Jesus.”

She snapped her eyes open to meet his. Arousal whirled in his gray depths. His jaw was clenched and his nostrils flared. “Are you trying to kill me, woman?”

She laughed at how frustrated he sounded. “What are you talking about?”

“You can’t eat cake like that anymore. It will only end in us finishing this early and me having to sit here in discomfort.”

Another round of laughter bubbled up her throat. “You know, not everything I do is done to tempt you.”

He leaned forward, caressed her cheek with his other hand, and watched her lick her lips. “I know that. It’s what’s making it harder to sit here and not take you home and forget about this cake stuff.”

She widened her eyes, surprised at how gentle and serious he sounded. It was surreal. She’d never seen a man react that way to her. A thrill of pleasure traveled straight to her heart.

“Here.” She picked up a piece of chocolate cake and brought it to his lips. “Tell me what you think.”

He grabbed her hand and held it while he inserted her fingers, cake and all, into his mouth and proceeded to suck on her digits.

She gulped, trying to calm her racing heart and the throbbing in her pussy.

Entranced, she stared as he pulled her fingers out of his mouth, sans cake, and chewed. “Mmm. You’re right. This is really great cake.”

What? Oh right, the cake. Shit.
She should probably just go with the vanilla guava combination and get the hell out of there before the baker came back to find them in a compromising position involving cake and two very naked people.

“Yeah. I think we’re going with what I know Nina would prefer.”

A random, naughty thought slipped through her mind then. She stood, walked over to him, and reached into his pocket, pulling out the red panties he’d shoved in there earlier. A sinful grin split his lips. She wiped the corner of his mouth with the material before dropping them back into his pocket.

“I think we should go.” She jumped away with a giggle when he tried to grab her.

They left a few moments later, arousal buzzing between them. The sun dropped lower on the horizon, creating darkened areas in the empty lot. When they reached the car, she waited for him to open the door as he had been doing. She was unprepared to find herself draped over the vehicle, her back on the metal and Jared’s hard body pressed to her front, his erection rubbing her belly and making her moan.

Their lips met in a desperate bid to mate. She tasted the man, dark, mysterious, sexy. She tasted the sweet chocolate he’d had moments before. Whimpering into their kiss, she caressed her way up to his shoulders, curled her hands behind his neck, and dug her nails into the short hair at the nape of his neck.

Sweet desire shot all thinking to hell. She could only feel. He ran his hands through her hair, cupping the back of her skull and holding her at the angle he wanted. The longer their tongues danced, the more irrational her thinking became. She was ready to beg him to do her right there in the back lot of the bakery, when he tore his mouth away from hers.

Passion filled his eyes. They panted in unison, trying to clear the haze of lust from the kiss.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.