Midnight Man (Midnight #1)(23)

Suzanne closed her eyes. She knew someone who had a lot of yin to her yang. Someone who whipped her juices into a froth. Someone really, really male.

“Someone tall, and dark and with shoulders out to here,” Todd’s baritone continued dreamily. “With short black hair just faintly silver at the temples, that early Gianni Agnelli look, you know? And eyes to die for. Yum.”

Suzanne’s eyes popped open at that and she glared at Todd, sitting smugly on his Sanderson cabbage rose couch. She would have thrown a pillow at him, but she might miss and tea stains were hard to get out of silk.

Todd smiled knowingly. “Food’s really good at Comme Chez Soi, isn’t it? It’s that new chef of theirs. But then how would you know? You didn’t eat a bite.”





CHAPTER SIX


The taxi left her at her gate. Suzanne paid him then looked across the street. Her car was parked right there. On an impulse, she walked over and got in, resting her hands for a moment on the steering wheel. At the first turn of the ignition key, the car started right up without that choking, grinding roar she’d grown used to. It purred gently, powerfully. She sat there, pleased, listening to her car hum, healthy and whole.

Her car was back from the dead and better than ever, thanks to her tenant. Her sinfully sexy tenant.

She’d overreacted. Yes, they’d had sex and that was at least as much her fault as his. It’s not like he’d overpowered her or anything. The instant his lips had touched hers, she’d melted. And though it had been rough it had also been exciting. Certainly more exciting than anything she’d experienced in…ever.

Suzanne had no doubt whatsoever that if, instead of bolting in panic back into her apartment, she’d asked John in, he would have followed right on her heels and they would have spent the rest of the night…what?

Making love, no doubt about it. In a bed. Instead of having sex. Against a wall. And in between bouts, they’d have talked. Maybe laughed a little, opened that bottle of Chablis she’d had in the fridge for weeks, finished the jar of contraband caviar a client had brought her.

John had flubbed it but so had she. She’d run from him like a scared rabbit.

And it wasn’t as if he’d blown her off the next day. He’d immediately acknowledged her, taken responsibility, said they needed to talk.

And the biggie—he’d dealt with Murphy for her and picked up her car. Which now purred beneath her hands. Pleased, she switched off the ignition and sat there, feeling a little foolish at her reaction to him.

A sudden vision of John Huntington formed before her eyes. His size, his strength, his intensity, his brute male power. Nope, she hadn’t overreacted. The man was formidable in every way.

She thought about what Todd had said as she opened her gate and walked to the door. That maybe the men she’d been dating had been too predictable, too bland, too…safe.

What was wrong with safe? she thought as she disconnected the alarm, opened the door, and then switched the alarm back on, just as John had made her promise to do. Safe was nice, warm, comfortable. Not words she’d ever associate with John Huntington.

He threw her for a loop.

He’d occupied most of her headspace all day. All day yesterday, too. Every second, in fact, since she’d met him, and that wasn’t good. She was a busy professional, just about to make that leap into the spheres of the very successful and she didn’t have time for obsessions. She barely had time to date, so what little time she had should be with men who would stay nicely in the background where they belonged and wouldn’t occupy her every waking moment.

Like now, walking warily into her own building. Wondering if he was in. Hoping he wasn’t. Hoping he was.

He wasn’t here. She paused for a moment in the hallway. He was a quiet man, almost eerily so, but she knew her building. It held the stillness of emptiness. And come to think of it, she hadn’t seen his Yukon parked outside.

From the sudden certainty of that, Suzanne realized that she’d been subconsciously looking out for his SUV and listening for signs of him. He’d said he’d be out of town this afternoon and would be late getting back. So she’d see him tomorrow. Which meant that she definitely needed a good night’s sleep if she wanted to face him with anything approaching equanimity.

To get that good night’s sleep she had to put Commander John Huntington right out of her head. She had to get her life back.

Tomorrow. She’d get her life back tomorrow. Today had been much too exhausting. Marissa Carson had topped herself today, changing her mind about everything that had been decided upon up until now. Most of the furnishings had already been ordered. When Suzanne pointed out that she’d lose a lot of money, Marissa had tilted her lovely head back and laughed long and hysterically, saying she was soon going to be very rich.

Marissa had been feverish, jumping out of her skin. Suzanne imagined that she was having problems with Mr. Carson, whom she’d never met. But she knew what he looked like. Pictures of him, a handsome, blond, cold-eyed man, were pasted all over the apartment. Had been pasted. Now all the photographs of him had been either taken off the walls or placed face down on the coffee table. Clearly, there was trouble in paradise. That was confirmed by the tall, blond, cold-eyed man who’d nearly knocked her over as she was exiting Marissa’s building a few hours ago. He’d looked furious and Suzanne was sure that fireworks were in the offing.