Wicked Burn(14)

“Let me see here—a glass of chardonnay and the salmon for the lady, and a beer and a medium-rare steak for the gentleman. Am I right?” Louie asked, amusement and his rich Chicago South Side accent flavoring his tone.

“On the nose for me.” Niall grinned. Her eyes widened when she realized that Vic had turned and was looking at her.

“Sounds good, Louie,” Vic murmured, never taking his eyes off Niall.

“I guess neither one of us has to worry about cleaning our ovens when we’ve got Louie downstairs,” she teased. Her breath stuck painfully in her lungs when Vic reached up and grabbed a wavy tendril of her hair between his thumb and first two fingers.

“Do you like to cook?” he asked absentmindedly as he rubbed the golden curl between his fingers.

“Yes,” Niall replied. She inhaled unsteadily and caught a whiff of Vic’s clean, spicy cologne. It brought back myriad sensations and images from the night in his apartment, increasing her sense of mixed anxiety and excitement. “But not here at Riverview Towers. All of my cooking utensils are packed away. I can’t wait to get them all out for my new kitchen. What about you? Do you like to cook?”

“Nope. But I like to eat, which means that I do it. We usually take turns cooking whenever I’m on the farm.” He studied her face before he released her hair. “You’re nervous, aren’t you? There’s no need to be.”

Laughter burst out of her throat. “Easy for you to say.”

She paused when that dead-sexy grin abruptly curved his lips. Jeez, talk about an unfair advantage. A woman couldn’t think straight when Vic resorted to using that weapon. The deep lines around his mouth said that despite his typical stony expression, he did his fair share of grinning. He could probably turn a woman to sex jelly at a distance of fifty feet with that smile. Never mind what it could do to you when you sat so close to him that you could breathe his rich, male scent and he casually reached behind you to stroke your shoulder with his long fingers.

“It is pretty easy for me to say. Why should you be nervous? It’s not like we haven’t already had sex.”

Her mouth gaped open at his calm statement. Luckily, Louie chose that moment to interrupt as he set down their drinks.

“What’s wrong?” Vic asked once Louie had left. He took a sip of his beer with the hand that wasn’t stroking her shoulder. His touch on her was seemingly casual enough, but Niall felt like every fiber of her consciousness was focused on the tiny patch of her body where he gently molded and massaged her muscle. “You didn’t forget about us having sex together, did you?”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “Hardly,” she answered drolly, borrowing his habit of charged laconism.

His gray eyes locked on hers. He started to laugh, low and heartfelt. Niall found that she couldn’t remain anxious in the presence of his deep laughter. She shook her head in mock exasperation before she started to laugh right along with him.

The magic of their combined laughter seemed to melt away her nervousness, leaving only excitement and growing desire in its wake.

Niall had a wonderful time at dinner. True, she spoke three words for every one of Vic’s. He was adept at keeping her talking with just a few terse prompts. He was actually quite easy to talk to, once one got over the fact that he was not only a gorgeous hunk of man but a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Although he never gushed or rambled on any topic, he was surprisingly forthcoming about his work. She found herself truly relaxing as she listened to him describe in his succinct, spare language the challenges involved in getting his latest play ready for opening night. When he mentioned his leading lady’s first name, Niall tapped her forehead in recognition.

“Right! Eileen Moore. She used to be on that sit-com, Different Wavelengths. I thought she looked familiar when I saw her last night with you at The Art.”

Niall recalled the pointedly furious look the attractive actress had thrown her way and wondered once again if she and Vic were involved or if Eileen just wished they were.

“She’s too talented a stage actress to have been doing that crap in Hollywood,” Vic said as he set down his knife. “This is the third play of mine that she’s done.”

“Oh?”

His eyes flickered over to her face when he heard the tone of her voice. “Are you wondering if I’ve slept with her?” he asked bluntly.

For a few seconds Niall floundered for an answer. Nothing would come to her except the truth.

“Yes.”

Vic considered her for a second, his angular jaw making that increasingly familiar subtle rolling motion. “Yeah, I have,” he finally said.

Niall glanced down at her plate. She was embarrassed by how much his admission hurt. She clearly was losing her mind. Vic Savian had likely slept with hundreds of women before that moment and would sleep with hundreds more before his life was over. Niall was just one more name on a list of casual conquests. If she’d had to say whether or not he’d slept with Eileen Moore before he’d made his admission, she would have bet that he had. The flaming darts that the actress had thrown at Niall convinced her of that.

So why did hearing him say it out loud hurt so much?

She shook her head and laughed at her naïveté. “It’s really none of my business,” she said softly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Vic didn’t respond because a busboy arrived to clear the table. After the busboy left, Niall asked him about his farm in downstate Illinois, desperate to change the subject.