Free Breaking All the Rules by Kerry Connor

him. It wasn’t easy to keep from launching
herself at him now.
    She didn’t allow
any trace of that struggle to show on her face and kept her voice hard. “What
are you doing here?”
    “I saw the light
on when I was passing by and thought you might want to get something to eat
when you decided to call it a day.”
    “You just
happened to be passing by?”
    That delectable
grin deepened. “Okay, you caught me. I went by your place and saw you weren’t
home, so I came by here.”
    It took a
physical effort not to let her response to that smile show, and she almost
whimpered. “And you decided to lurk in the parking lot until I came out.”
    “I wasn’t
lurking. I was waiting. I figured whatever you were working on had to be
important to keep you here so late and I didn’t want to interrupt.”
    “That was very
considerate, but you could have saved yourself the trouble and found something
better to do with your time. I just want to go home.”
    “Come on. You
have to eat. I know this Mexican place that’ll knock your socks off.”
    Nina shot him a
pointed look. “That sounds an awful lot like a date.”
    “Or just two
friends sitting down and eating together,” he said reasonably.
    “Is that what we
are? Friends?”
    “If not, then we
could be.”
    “And then what?”
    “I don’t know.
And then we take it from there.”
    Nina sighed and
shook her head. “We already talked about this.”
    “We talked, but
no agreement was reached.”
    “It didn’t have
to be. There’s no point in starting something that has no chance of a future.”
    “You don’t
really want to have to cook for yourself or heat up some crappy microwave
dinner.” His voice was warm and smooth, flowing over her like honey. She had to
force herself not to close her eyes and let that ingratiating tone seep into
her skin and weaken her defenses.
    The way he was
looking at her, heat smoldering in his slumberous eyes, was like a blast of
pure sexual energy aimed straight at her. She felt it all the way down to her
toes. He looked so sure of himself, his expression and body language radiating
male confidence, as though there was no way she could deny him what he wanted.
    Inspiration
struck, and a delicious idea she couldn’t resist came to mind. She could play
the game just as well as he could.
    She took a step
forward, narrowing the space between them. She immediately sensed the increase
in his body tension. Just as she thought. He looked cool as could be, but he
was just as attuned to her presence as she was to his.
    “What I want to
do is go home and crawl into bed.” She tipped her head and arched a brow.
“You’re more than welcome to join me there.”
    To his credit,
he managed to keep that laconic grin in place. “I don’t know. I’m pretty
hungry.”
    She took another
step, until there was less than three feet between them. “Oh, I have plenty for
you to snack on. And plenty of places for you to snack from .”
    “Is that so?”
She might have imagined it, but the hard bulge of his adam’s apple jerked as he
swallowed sharply.
    “Yes. Doesn’t
that sound better than going to some restaurant?”
    “You haven’t
tasted their tamales.”
    One more step.
“And you haven’t tasted maraschino cherries eaten out of my belly button. Or
licked strawberry sauce off of my nipples. Do you really think your restaurant
has anything that’ll taste that good?”
    “The only way to
know for sure is to go there and ask,” he said with an admirable amount of
calm.
    Fortunately, she
had one step left, and she took it. Then there was only the barest of space
between them, their legs and thighs so close they might as well be touching.
Nina put her hands on his hips and slid even closer, bracketing her legs on
either side of his. He shifted his pelvis, and she could tell he wanted to move
his legs apart to ease the pressure gathering at his crotch. She didn’t let
him, squeezing with her knees to imprison him tighter.
    “Oh, I think