The Tycoon (10 page)

She looked up at him, questioning with her eyes.

He leaned on his right elbow on the bar’s black padded edge. His gaze moved down to her mouth. “The last thing I want to be at this particular moment, ma’am, is under the influence.”

Her heartbeat raced off on a wild tangent. She turned away and set her glass on the bar.

He braced his left boot on the rung of her stool, his thigh touching hers and sending heat rushing up her neck. “Where, um, are you driving to?” he asked.

“Ca—” She stopped herself. Did she really want to tell him where she lived? “Home,” she said.

The bartender reappeared and set another glass of ice water on the bar. Drake straightened, picked it up, sipped and set it down. “You were with someone earlier. Did he leave?”

Oh, hell. He had to be talking about Jordan.
“He…yes. We weren’t really together. We’re just friends.”

The next thing she knew, Drake had stepped to her side and placed his hand under her elbow and was urging her off the stool. “Walk with me,” he said.

As if he were Pied Piper, she offered no resistance as he steered her away from the bar.

****

Hearing her say she wasn’t Palmer’s girlfriend sent satisfaction through Drake, but could he believe her? “Just friends” was a too-casual phrase that had no real meaning in his lexicon. “Do you have a coat?” he asked.

“It’s in that coatroom in the corner.”

He guided her without obstacle or interruption through the thinning crowd toward the coat storage area. She was tall, he noticed, but still inches shorter than he, even wearing high heels. Her scent wafted to him, something womanly and sexy.

“Most of this crowd is associated with the real estate business,” he said. “You’re what? Broker? Investor?...Wait, lemme guess. A politician.”

“Um, no. None of those things. I, uh, just came here with Jordan.”

But she had already said she
wasn’t
with Palmer. Something wasn’t right, but Drake couldn’t quickly figure out what, wasn’t sure he wanted to know about it if it conflicted with his greater purpose.

They reached the makeshift coat closet. She opened her purse, pulled out her ticket and handed it to the steward who manned the coat check. He hurried away and soon returned carrying a short black jacket. With a wide smile, he offered Drake her jacket. He took it and held it while she slipped her arms into it. It was fancy, but lightweight. “This doesn’t look very warm.”

She smiled up at him, showing perfect white teeth. “It isn’t. It’s strictly an evening wrap.”

He pulled his money clip out of his pocket, peeled off a twenty and handed it to the steward.  “It’s pretty,” he told her.

She smiled again. “Thank you. It’s a vintage garment. My grandmother wore it years ago

when she was young. It makes me feel glamorous in a nineteen forties kind of way.”

An old fashioned girl
? She didn’t look the part, but the idea that she might be intrigued Drake all the more. He could think of none of his female acquaintances he would call “an old fashioned girl.”

He took her elbow again and guided her out of the foyer, into the spacious hallway. He

gestured toward an alcove almost hidden by a tall vase holding a splashy floral arrangement. “Let’s stop here for a minute.”

She turned to face him, her back pressed against the wall, her hands behind her. Her jacket opened, showing deep cleavage. Spurred by the blatant body language, Drake placed a hand against the wall beside her head and forced his eyes up to hers.
Green.
Her eyes were green, but not just any green. They were the distinctive color of sage in springtime. A surge of blood shot straight to his loins, so powerful it left him disoriented.
What the hell?
He blinked away the feeling.

Up close, she was even more striking than from a distance. He settled his eyes on her plump heart-shaped lips. They were parted, as if waiting for his kiss. Imagining what he could do with that mouth sent another surge south. He even felt a swell of saliva in his mouth. But this was no place for kissing, especially in the way he wanted to kiss her.

“Drake Lockhart’s my name. What’s yours?”

“Sha—” She stopped, hesitated, then looked down. “Uh, Sharon. Sharon Phillips.”

What was to stammer about
?
Was that a phony name?
A distant warning pinged inside his head.

He could see her heartbeat fluttering in the hollow of her throat. His tongue itched to touch that flutter, but he reined himself in and took his pleasure by letting his eyes move over the slope of lush female flesh between her chin and her dress’s neckline. He had no trouble visualizing it peaked into rosy pebbles waiting for his mouth. Everything about her screamed
woman
and
sex.

“You don’t look like a Sharon to me.” He pushed away from the wall, stuffed his hand into his coat pocket. “I’d peg you as Lisa or Diana.”

“Diana?” She laughed softly. “Wasn’t she a Roman goddess? Of the hunt? Or something like that?”

He joined her with a little laugh of his own. “Forgive me if my mythology is rusty, but I seem to recall that lady having a touch of brutality about her. Am I in danger here?”

She didn’t change her position. Even her smile stayed in place, teasing and flirty.
Oh, yeah.
She knew how she was affecting him. “Depends on your point of view,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve harmed anyone lately. Are Lisa and Diana your favorite names?”

“I don’t have any favorite names. But those two strike me as being especially female.” He paused, holding her eyes with his. “And that’s how
you
strike me.”

Her head tilted and a slow wise smile played across her mouth. She knew what he wanted all right, but what wasn’t quite evident yet was if she wanted the same thing.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s escape this joint.” He took her arm again and guided her toward the elevator.

“Perhaps you should tell me where we’re escaping to. I might not want to go.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Actually, I am. Except for those
hors d’oeuvres
in there, I haven’t eaten since lunch.”

“Don’t tell me you’re on a diet.”

“I don’t diet. I run.”

“Do you? So do I sometimes. When I have time, that is.”

“The restaurants around here must still be open.”

“I’m thinking of my place. I live only a few blocks from here. I’ll order something delivered.”

She stopped, lifted her arm from his hand and looked up at him. “You’re inviting me to go

home with you at this time of night?...To eat?”

“It’s quiet there. We can—”

“But you have a fiancé. Jordan said—”

“Not true.”

“And what if I said, Mr. Lockhart, as clichéd as it sounds, I’m not that kind of girl?”

“You’re the kind of girl who eats supper, aren’t you?” He gave her his best half smile. “Anything beyond that is strictly up to you.”

Chapter 8

Outside, in the hotel’s brightly lit portico, Drake summoned a valet. Shannon stood to the side shivering and clasping her jacket’s silky fox fur collar under her chin. Her thoughts were a wheel within a wheel inside her head. This was nothing more than a poorly disguised seduction. She should have declined his invitation, especially when he said supper was to be “take-out” at his home rather than at a restaurant. If all she wanted was to eat, she could buy her own late supper. For all she knew, he might call in a pizza.

But as the truth gradually centered in her thoughts, she had to ask herself, were her own intentions was any more righteous than his? She had to acknowledge that the urge to take a chance, to walk on the wild side that had dogged her in her twenties, was still a part of her makeup. And that part said,
Go with him. When will you ever meet such an interesting man again? When will you ever get another chance to do something this exciting? He doesn’t have to know who you are.

And among those disjointed musings, a question burned through:
Could this ever go anywhere?

Drake’s attention returned to her, disrupting her swirling thoughts. “On a summer night, my place would be a nice walk from here, but it’s too cold and messy tonight. My car will be here in a minute.”

Thank God he hadn’t opted for a stroll. She nodded, tightening her jaw to prevent her teeth chattering. He removed his overcoat, stepped behind her and placed it around her shoulders. It almost dragged the ground, but enveloped in heavy wool that had been warmed by his body, she shuddered with relief. “Thank you.”

His hands cupped her shoulders, his head bent and he whispered near her ear, “You’re welcome.”

Another shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature darted down her spine.
Lord, he had a devastating voice.
And she couldn’t keep from imagining hearing it across a pillow.

A sleek silver sports car stopped at the curb in front of them, a make Shannon didn’t recognize.
Oh, my God. Is it one of those really expensive ones?

The valet scooted out from behind the steering wheel, rounded the backend and opened the passenger door. She gathered Drake’s coat closer with one hand, picked up her skirt with the other and crawled inside. The interior was already warm, thank God. She relished the smell of leather and richness.

Seconds later, he ducked behind the steering wheel, adding his scent to the heady mix of smells. With his height and wide shoulders along with the black interior and mist-shrouded windows, the car became as intimate as a cocoon.

“It’s late for a heavy meal,” he said in a hushed tone as he turned his head to the left and checked traffic behind them. “Something light okay with you?”

“Of course.”

He pulled onto the street and they motored away from the brightly lit portico into the dark wet night.

Her pulse continued to drum in her ear as the reality of what she was doing crystallized.
Just be calm
, she told herself and deeply inhaled. This wasn’t the first time she had engaged in a spur-of-the-moment tryst, wasn’t the first time she had done something crazy. Not so many years ago, “impulsive” had been her middle name. She had survived, hadn’t she? Besides, would a prestigious magazine like
Texas Monthly
select an ax murderer as the year’s most eligible

bachelor?

He plucked a cell phone from his jacket pocket with his right hand. “Any objection to shrimp or possibly lobster?”

She watched as he speed-dialed with his thumb. He had wonderful masculine hands and long fingers with short, but un-manicured nails. He wore no rings, but his hands bore scars, the hands of someone who had worked at physical labor. That aroused her curiosity. Though she had heard of him in the real estate business for years, she wondered if he spent time in Drinkwell on his family’s ranch.

“Either’s fine,” she answered.

Phone pressed to his ear, he listened, she assumed, to a rundown of some restaurant’s menu. He placed a detailed order for fresh Gulf shrimp, a salad of field greens and a dessert. Though he spoke with a soft Texas drawl, she detected a ring of authority.
No one ever tells him no
, she thought.

The small space in the car and the split up the front of her skirt made covering her knees impossible. He slid his phone back into his pocket and placed his right palm on her knee. She stared at it, but made no attempt to move it. Or to move her knee. His hand moved to cup the inside of her thigh only inches below the top of her thigh-high stocking. He gently squeezed.