Mystery Man (Dream Man #1)(21)

Take me to lunch? We’d never even had a date and now he was casually telling me he was going to take me to lunch?

“I can’t go to lunch. I have three deadlines and I only worked for a few hours yesterday. I have to go flat out if I’m going to make them. I’m eating lunch at my desk.”

“I’ll bring something. What do you want?”

God! What was with this guy?

“I have food in my fridge.”

“Tom Yung Goong and Pad Thai, J’s Noodles,” he said and I stared.

Two of my favorites. I had many but Tom Yung Goong soup and Pad Thai noodles from J’s were very high on the top of that long list. And I usually bought them takeout to eat at my desk when I had a marathon workday going.

Then I stopped staring and I felt my eyes get squinty.

“How do you know everything about me?”

He didn’t answer my question but it was unnecessary for him to do so since evidence was suggesting he watched me like… well, a hawk.

Instead, he asked his own question. “You didn’t sleep last night?”

“My house got broken into,” I reminded him.

“Thought you went to your Dad’s to feel safe,” he replied.

“I can feel safe and still toss and turn because I’m obsessing about watching a man’s hand push open my bedroom door at the same time worrying if I’d break my happy kitty snow globe when I had to clock him.”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “That was last night, babe, this is today. You’re good. It’s over. Get it out of your head.”

Was he high? Did he seriously think I could do that? Did he seriously think any woman could do that? I had at least twenty-five years of obsessing about last night left before I could get it out of my head.

“It’s not that easy,” I informed him.

“It’s just that easy,” he informed me.

I glared up at him.

He smiled down at me, with dimples and shit, I liked those dimples.

Time to get to work.

“I need coffee and I need to fire up my computer and get to work.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, dropped his head and before I could avoid it, he brushed his lips against mine. Then, murmuring again, he said, “Later,” let me go but leaned into me to grab his shades then he prowled to his Camaro, all badass cool, on his way tipping his chin to the commandos. Then he folded into his kickass car and purred off.

I stood by my car for awhile watching the street where I’d last seen him thinking one word.

Shit.

Then I grabbed my shades, avoided busy commandos, made my way inside, set a big pot of coffee to brew and when it was done I poured out about five mugs for various hardworking commandos.

Then, finally, I went to my office to fire up my computer.

Chapter Six

To the Rescue

I’d hit my zone and was able to focus even with a bunch of commandos banging around in my house when I suddenly felt my hair shifted off one shoulder, swept across my neck and over my other shoulder.

Then I felt lips at the skin at the back of my ear.

A delicious tremble radiated from my ear going up, down and out and my eyes on the computer screen unfocused as I came crashing headlong out of my zone and careened happily into an entirely different zone. The lips left my ear and, dazedly, I saw a brown paper bag accompanied by a white plastic bag hit the desk by my keyboard. I looked at the bottom right of my computer screen to see the time was twelve forty-seven.

Lunchtime.

I swiveled in my chair and looked up to see Hawk standing there, tearing open the folded over and stapled top of the bag.

I didn’t say anything because I was too busy freaking out because this was the subject matter of a daydream. When I said that I meant I had actually daydreamed this and now I was living it.

Okay, not the Thai food but, many a time, I’d drifted off and dreamed about what it would be like if my Mystery Man showed in the light of day, coming up to me silently while I did the dishes in the kitchen and he slid his arms around me. Or while I was in the shower and he joined me.

Or while I was working and he snuck up on me and kissed my neck.

Just like I liked in the spot that I liked.

Exactly like he’d just snuck up on me and kissed my neck.

Just like I liked in the spot that I liked.

And it was better than a daydream and not only because J’s Noodles was a welcome addition but because it was real.

Damn.

He started pulling food from the bag as I struggled to pull myself together. I saw him reveal a lidded cardboard cup of soup and another container of noodles, both of which I knew, from experience with J’s takeout, were for me. Next came chopsticks in paper and then he took out another container for him. Then he picked up the bag, dropped it on the floor and rifled through the other bag that had familiar red, orange and green logo on it. He took out a bottled water which I knew was for him when he set a can of diet grape soda by my food.

I stared at the soda. Then I looked back up at him.

“What? Do you follow me?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” he answered and I felt my eyes get squinty. “Sometimes my boys do it.”

He turned away from me and went to my couch, sat down, set his water on a side table and opened the top of his food container.

“So do you have a big, fat file on me at your base?” I asked, tearing the paper off my chopsticks then picking up my soup and pulling the lid off.