Something Wild (7 page)

Then, of course, he remembered that she wasn't as simple as he'd originally assumed. But outwardly, the Penny most of the world knew, and the Penny he was
supposed
to see, indeed fit with the home she'd chosen. He couldn't deny feeling comfortable there.

A few minutes later, they sat down together at the table. "This is great," he said, savoring each bite of pot roast he put in his mouth. "I don't think I've had this since I lived at home."

"Really?" Her eyes widened. "I don't think I could live without home-cooking. It's hard to cook for just myself, but I try to as much as possible."

"Is that why you opened a restaurant?"

She shrugged. "Partly. But I'll admit Patti and I were also thinking of money. We chose the pub atmosphere and downtown location with that in mind, and it's paid off. And our menu doesn't have much home-cooking on it—mostly sandwiches and a few soups—but I'm fond of food in general, I suppose. I like making it, and I like eating it."

Ryan laughed, thinking her terribly cute. He noticed that even though she wasn't a pound overweight, she also wasn't sporting that skinny-as-a-stick look girls seemed to find so attractive these days. "I like a woman who eats," he confided in her. "A lot of the girls I've dated recently are the types who order a salad, no dressing, then watch me eat a huge steak. It makes for a pretty boring meal. I like to eat
with
someone."

Penny grinned. "I know what you mean. I don't mind eating alone, but if I'm sharing a meal with somebody, I want to really share the meal."

Ryan nodded his agreement, surprised she actually understood what he was talking about, since he'd never really thought about it before.

"So what brings you to Cincinnati from a bustling place like Chicago?"

"Just felt like I needed a new start," he said, keeping it simple. It was one thing to confide your eating quirks to someone, but another entirely to admit a history of job failures, especially considering the circumstances of their own relationship so far. "Martin made me a good offer and I liked what I saw in the company."

Penny nodded, and Ryan was sure he'd just imagined her disconcerted look at the mention of Martin's name. "Martin's a good boss, and a good businessman. I'm sure you'll be very happy with him."

"Can I ask you something?" he asked, after a moment. Part of him knew he shouldn't keep taking them back to that night, yet they were getting along so well he didn't think it was unreasonable to seek clarification on this.

She looked a little worried, but said, "Okay."

"About you and Martin. Did you, uh, tell me you were engaged? I … missed some of the details when we were discussing it."

Penny pushed back a lock of stray hair, dropped her gaze, then said, "No, we're not engaged, at least not yet. He's proposed, but I haven't given him an answer."

He nodded. "I see." He'd thought that was what she'd said, but hadn't been sure, and he'd wanted to know how deeply he'd encroached.

"And speaking of Martin, that reminds me—" she lifted one finger to her bottom lip "—he once showed me a program for another restaurant that had this nifty feature where you click on the item someone orders and all the little options pop up beside it, so no matter what someone wants or doesn't want on their food, the server doesn't have to let anyone know anything special because it's all right there in the extra menus." Then her pretty laughter washed over him. "Do you have any idea at all what I'm talking about?"

Swallowing the bite of baked potato in his mouth, he grinned. "Believe it or not, I do. It's a pop-up option box that displays a list of all the possible choices. There are several ways it can be programmed, and I've got some templates for it loaded on the laptop, so I can let you take a look at them before I leave."

"Great," she said, and they shared another smile.

Unfortunately, though, Ryan had the scary feeling that maybe these were getting to be more than just normal, professional smiles. Especially this one, because their gazes locked for a long time. He felt the connection in his gut, and he couldn't help noticing how deep the blue of her eyes shone in the dim lighting of the kitchen as the sun started dipping behind the trees outside.

"Well…" she said, suddenly sounding nervous again.

"Dinner was great," he said, taking over for her. "Thanks a lot. Now I'd better show you those templates, then get out of your way for the evening."

He rose to his feet as Penny nodded in agreement, then wasted no time making his way back to the living room to his laptop. Taking a seat, he used the built-in mouse to maneuver his way to the windows he wanted to show her.

When she dropped into the chair next to him, he kept his eyes on the computer. "This screen shows the most common way to display the options," he said, then clicked to open another window, adding, "and this layout takes up less space on the monitor, but it's a little harder to see. There's a third method I personally like—" He reached to click the mouse again, but suddenly Penny's small hand came down soft on his.

His stomach clenched.

He swallowed and looked at her.

"Can you go back to the first option?" she asked. Yet when she saw his expression, she quickly drew back her hand as if realizing her error.

"Uh, yeah." His heart thumped like a seventh grader's who'd just been touched by a pretty girl. Eyes on the computer, he reopened the first window. "Sorry if I was going too fast."

"No, I just wanted to compare the two I've seen so far. Can this print be made smaller?" She reached across him to point at the monitor with one long, tapered finger, leaning closer than she had any time throughout the day.

"Not really." His senses began to swim with the fresh scent of her perfume. "Makes it too hard for the computer to distinguish which option is being selected with the screen-touch method," he continued, but he thought his voice sounded sort of strangled now.

"Ah," she said. And although she started to pull her arm back, she did it way too slowly … slow enough to give him time to wonder, to consider, to make the impulsive decision to reach up and gently catch her wrist in his hand.

Angling his body toward hers made it even clearer to Ryan how close they were to each other, how near her sweet eyes rested, and her soft lips, parted now in something that was either passion or surprise, he couldn't discern which. Time moved perilously slow. "I…" What? He what? "Oh, hell," he murmured, then leaned forward to brush a short but tantalizing kiss across her lips.

Penny nearly melted as the featherlight kiss swept through her. She hadn't expected it, but it had felt like a taste of heaven. Except for one thing. It was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Yanking her arm away, she kicked her feet out to send her desk chair rolling across the room.
"What
do you think you're doing?"

"Kissing you?"

She couldn't believe he'd done it, no matter how nice it might've felt! "You can't be kissing me!"

Ryan nodded emphatically. "I know that, believe me."

"Then why did you do it?"

He gave a helpless sigh. "I have no idea."

The words left her even more stunned, only in a different way now, and she gasped, affronted, almost insulted. He was kissing her and he didn't even know why?

"What I mean is…"

"Yes?"

His demeanor shifted. "I have a lot to lose here, you know. Like my job."

"Then don't you think kissing me is a bad idea?"

"Absolutely." He suddenly looked determined, stalwart. "In fact, you're exactly the
last
type of woman I need in my life."

She pulled in her breath sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well," he began, lifting his gaze to hers, "frankly, you're too wild for me."

Penny's mouth dropped open. What had just happened here? And how could he think…? Well, okay, she supposed he actually had every reason to think she was wild, but she'd hoped she'd succeeded in explaining all that away the other night in the limo. Apparently not. "Listen, I told you, that was just a onetime thing, a person I made up—"

"Sure, that's what you
told
me, but…"

She blinked in disbelief. "Are you calling me a liar?"

"I'm just saying … maybe you're a little wilder than you think you are."

"How would you know
what
I am?"

"Because you can't fake what we did together."

His answer hit Penny low and hard, and she struggled for a reply, feeling defensive now that his words hung in the air. "Well, you were just as wild back, and—and you didn't even think I was someone you knew! At least I
thought
I knew you."

"Well,
I'm
not the one denying I'm wild. I'll admit I have the capacity to be that way, but I can't because I came to Cincinnati to settle down and be a good boy."

"If you're such a good boy, then why did you respond in the limo?" Aha, Penny thought, she had him now.

But when their gazes met, she quit feeling defensive. His eyes were such a warm, alluring shade of brown and he looked … desperate,
passionate.

"I couldn't resist," he finally admitted.

At least ten feet lay between them now. The fronds of a potted palm jutted in front of Penny's face. There seemed safety in distance, but his eyes were enough to melt her and she suddenly wished the limo hadn't been dark, that she'd had the pleasure of gazing into them as heatedly then as he gazed at her this moment.

"Can't now, either," he said, getting to his feet. He closed the distance between them before she could even think, let alone protest. He reached for her hand, pulled her up next to him, then lifted his palms to her face.

Don't.
The word echoed inside her, but didn't make it to her lips. It was an automatic response, but not what she really wanted.

The kiss was as gentle and fleeting as the one just a minute ago, but this time Penny savored it and let the pleasure trickle warmly through her body. "Oh…" she breathed. "This isn't me."

"Yes, it is," he assured her, and she had no choice but to believe him when his next kiss came stronger, laced with the same thick desire she'd felt from him in the limo. She remembered the power, the restraint she'd felt in his kisses because she felt it now, too. And as she let herself get lost in the sensation of his mouth on hers, she longed to ask him to let go of that restraint and do everything to her.

"Your hair," he murmured in her ear as he sprinkled hot kisses just below. "It feels different than the other night."

Penny could barely find her voice. "I … curled it then."

"It feels so silky. And it smells so good. I thought it was your perfume, but it's your hair."

"Sh-shampoo," she managed, yet his breathy hot voice had turned her knees to jelly and she didn't want to talk anymore. Lifting one hand to his cheek, she led his mouth back to hers. As much as she loved being kissed other places, right now she needed to feel his magnificent kiss on her lips.

She'd never imagined such powerful chemistry could exist between two people, but it had the other night, even in the dark, and it pummeled her now, too, making her feel completely won, completely weakened, completely at his mercy.

That's when he pulled back, breaking away from her. "Oh God," he said, his gaze planted behind her as things came to a grinding halt. "I'm sorry."

She followed his eyes to the desk, to the large vinyl portfolio Martin had given her to store her paperwork on the system design. The words Schuster Systems were emblazoned across it in bold gold lettering.

"It's okay," she said, trying to come to grips with all of this—his fabulous kisses, and the fact that, for both of their sakes, she should not have accepted them.

"No, it's not." He shook his head. "I can't do this."

"Neither can I."

"I shouldn't have. I don't mean to be a jerk."

She spoke quietly, gazing again into eyes she thought more beautiful each time she looked at them. "I don't think you're a jerk. I think we're just … in a weird situation." She paused, trying to clear her head. "We shouldn't be working together alone like this."

"I know, but how would we explain that to Martin?"

She glanced down. "That's the only reason I agreed to it—I couldn't figure out a way not to without looking suspicious." Raising her eyes back to him, she sighed. "But I think you should probably go now."

"Definitely."

Penny watched from the same spot where she'd stood kissing him a moment ago as he moved to the desk and hurriedly packed his laptop and the notes he'd taken during the day. Cramming it all in a leather bag, he strode to the front door, and only then did he stop to peer back at her.

"Penny," he said, looking desperate now, "I'm really sorry about kissing you. It was way out of line, weird situation or not. I just…" he sighed "…well, never mind."

I'm just so madly attracted to you I couldn't stop myself,
Ryan had wanted to say, but no good could come from that much honesty. He couldn't believe what he'd done, how much more difficult he'd just made things for both of them. What had he been thinking? But then, that was the whole problem—he hadn't been thinking, he'd been
reacting.
To her. To everything about her. Damn his impulses.