Midnight Man (Midnight #1)(11)

She was breathing shallowly, her breath coming light and fast. “No.” Her voice sounded husky even to her own ears. “What do you think?”

“Your skin is so fine, I can see the blood pumping through your vein here.”

His finger moved tantalizingly down, stroked her collarbone, and traced the swell of her breast. He circled her nipple.

“You’re hard here, honey. Like a little rock.”

Through the lace of her bra, through the silk of the shirt, she felt it acutely. Felt it down to her toes. And when he brushed back and forth against her nipple she felt—shockingly—her womb clench, the fluttering prelude to an orgasm.

“You want to know what I think? I think you’re…aroused.”

She looked around wildly, hoping to anchor herself with something other than John Huntington, his voice and his hands. But he eclipsed everything and all she could see was his face above her, watching her as intently as any predator ever watched its prey.

His thumb stroked her nipple, his eyes watching hers. She whimpered softly and bit her lip.

“And I—“ He took her hand tightly and—shockingly—placed it over his groin. “I’m aroused too,” he finished in a rough whisper.

His penis felt like a steel bar, only alive and warm. She realized she had tightened her grip over him only when his eyes shuttered tight and his breath came in on a hiss. His penis jumped under her hand and became, impossibly, longer and harder.

Suzanne’s hand fluttered open and she jerked it back. She folded her trembling hands on the table and stared at them. She should say something. She knew she should say something but absolutely nothing came to mind.

This was far outside the bounds of anything in her experience with men. She’d been on plenty of first dates and this was totally outside her experience, way beyond what she considered normal female-male communication.

This wasn’t even supposed to be a date. They should be having a nice business dinner while discussing the details of his lease.

They should be talking about her design for his office and his plans for a new security system. They should be talking terms and utilities. Maybe with a little low key flirting under the businesslike adult conversation.

That was allowed. He was a powerfully attractive man. A very…male man. A gentle little frisson of attraction was okay. A mild flirtatious little flurry.

Not this gale force wind that threatened to blow her over.

He was sitting so close to her she could feel his body heat. A fully aroused powerful male who somehow had the capacity to make her feel as if they were alone in a cave somewhere instead of in a crowded and civilized restaurant.

Suzanne knew that somewhere out there, past his impossibly broad shoulders, was a room full of diners having a good time, eating well, and conversing in normal tones. None of it penetrated. There was just the two of them, both aroused.

He was perfectly right.

She could still feel his touch on her breast, though he’d dropped his hand. Her nipple—both nipples, actually—ached. She ached between her thighs, and knew that she’d turned wet. She’d been less aroused than this while actually making love with other men.

And the tactile memory of his penis filling her palm, hot and iron hard, swelling even larger under her touch, lingered in her hand.

It was so unlike her. Suzanne Barron didn’t do sex. Not like this. Not hot and raw and so uncontrolled she’d basically fondled a man at a restaurant table.

She took a deep breath. “We need—“ she licked her dry lips. Don’t think about what we need. “We need to, um, talk. To talk about that new security system. And—and decorating your office, if you’d like me to take care of that.”

“Okay.” The heat in his eyes didn’t die down and his voice was still husky with arousal. “Let’s talk.”

If she’d expected him to lean back and change body language, she was mistaken. A heavy forearm lay on the table in front of her. With his other arm around the back of the settee, she was still surrounded by large, warm male.

She moved, and her breast brushed his arm. A muscle in his jaw jumped.

She froze.

He drew in a deep breath. “Okay, security. The first thing you need to do is arrange for better lighting outside the building, particularly the entrance.” He scowled at her. “I can’t believe you live in the Pearl district and haven’t taken care of any of this.”

Suzanne frowned. “The entrance is lit,” she protested. She’d designed the lights herself. Crystal and wrought iron in a tulip pattern.

He looked at her pityingly. “Hundred watt globes over the doorway are not what I’d call security lighting. That wattage is totally wasted, with the light going up and sideways. You don’t need to light up the sky. You need light where it will do you the most good. What you’ve got now is pure glare that casts shadows a street punk can hide behind and ruins your night adaptation when you walk out to put out the garbage.”

That kind of thinking had never even occurred to her. And never would. Not in a million years. She opened her mouth and closed it. Opened it again. “Oh.”

“What you need,” he continued, “is a metal halide light with no uplight and no glare. I’m going to install infrared sensor spotlights that come on only when someone walks into the viewfield of the security detectors. It’s very effective for scaring intruders away.”