by BETH KERY
“You haven’t eaten?” she asked him.
He shook his head, his sexy lips tilted in amusement. “You?”
“No. I was going to when I got home, but then . . .”
“You made a meal out of me instead,” he muttered dryly. A flash of heat went through her at his reference and the erotic memory it evoked. “Can I take you to dinner somewhere?” he asked.
“Do you really want to get up and get dressed?”
“It depends.” She gave him a querying glance. “On whether or not you’re going to let me back in your bed after dinner. If not, I’d just as soon stay here and not forsake my claim.”
She laughed. His brows quirked and he palmed her jaw, running his fingers gently over her smiling lips.
“You have a very gentle touch when you want to,” she said, his fingertips moving along with her lips.
“Does that surprise you?”
Her smile faded as she considered him soberly.
“No,” she said at last. “It doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
• • •
They cleaned up and dressed, then went downstairs. There was a nice restaurant in her building’s lobby. When the host seated them at a cozy booth, Lin started to sit across from Kam. He grabbed her hand, however, and pulled her into the seat next to him. The host gave them a rather smug, patronizing grin, which Kam quelled immediately with a glare.
“Have you been dancing a long time?” he asked after they’d placed their orders and the waiter had left them alone.
“No. I just started it as a hobby four years ago.”
He gave her a sideways glance that made her go warm. “You look like you were born doing it.”
She smiled, flattered. “Thanks. My grandmother wouldn’t have liked my learning traditional Chinese dance. She would have hated knowing about the Kung Fu classes I took several years back. That was both traditional and inelegant—or at least Grandmamma would have thought so,” she said, and laughed. “I actually kept both hobbies from her in the last years of her life, which made me feel terrible. It was ballet Grandmamma encouraged. My mother, on the other hand, holds my Chinese dance hobby up to our family as a stellar accomplishment.” She gave Kam a wry grin. “My only one, mind you, because I botch my Chinese, I don’t work on my cooking enough, and worst of all, I’m still not married to a nice Chinese doctor.”
Kam smiled. “Your mother and grandmother sound really different.”
Lin rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.” She looked over at him when he placed his hand on her thigh. She’d pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater after they’d washed up earlier. She could feel the heat of his hand through the denim as he moved it up and down, squeezing lightly as if he was experimenting with the sensation of her flesh in jeans.
“Tell me then.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” she said. His touch was distracting. It had the paradoxical effect of both lulling her and exciting her. “My grandparents and my mother were born in Hong Kong. For my grandparents, America truly was the promised land, and they totally embraced US culture when they immigrated. My grandmother especially was a very chic, modern woman. My mother never really seemed to assimilate here, though. My grandparents couldn’t understand why she was so resentful and withdrawn. It was a constant thorn in my grandmother’s side. She couldn’t comprehend why mother felt so out of place, when Grandmamma militantly embraced it and loved the life she built for herself here.”
“So obviously your grandmother wouldn’t have condoned your participating in traditional Chinese dance or anything else Chinese.”
“Oh no. Grandmamma wanted both a very westernized daughter and grandaughter. She got her way in my case.”
“But not in your mother’s?”
“No. Not in my mother’s,” Lin said, giving him a quick, sad smile.
“What happened between your mother and grandmother?” Kam asked.
“My mother rebelled against Grandmamma. She swung in the opposite direction, coming to despise Western ways and becoming extremely traditional. It was pretty confusing for me when I was little. We all lived in the same house together. My mother started insisting I speak Chinese, for instance, which I’d never learned, having been born here. She wanted to send me to a Chinese school and only eat Chinese food. It infuriated Grandmamma. Mother and Grandmamma officially went to war.”
“And you were their battleground.”
Lin blinked at his grim intensity. “Yes. That’s a pretty apt description. Although probably misleading in one respect. I never resented my grandmother. We were always close, and had this natural connection from the very beginning. I think my mother might have felt like an outsider in that respect, which always makes me sad to consider. After my grandfather died, my parents decided to leave the States. Grandmamma saw my mother’s choice as a betrayal.” She paused as the waiter brought their drink orders. “It only made matters worse that they planned to live in Taiwan, near my father’s family instead of near either of my grandparents’ relatives. Grandmamma absolutely refused to let them take me. I was nine at the time. Grandmamma threatened to take my mother to court, although she must have been bluffing about her likelihood of winning custody.”
“And so your parents agreed to leave you behind?” Kam asked, frowning.
She laughed softly. “You didn’t know my grandmother. Ask Ian. She was a force to be reckoned with. Besides, it’s common for Asians to want their children educated in the States, and so Grandmamma had that as her trump card. Even my traditional mother and father couldn’t deny that was a desirable outcome.”
They paused in talking when their waiter brought them their salads.
“Do you see your parents often?” Kam asked when they were alone again.
“Once a year. They never return here. Maybe there are too many bad memories for my mother.” He gave her thigh a final squeeze and lifted his hand to begin eating. She sensed him studying her in the silence that followed.
“You miss them, don’t you,” he stated, rather than asked, after a moment.
“Yes,” she said quietly, picking up her fork. “To this day, I don’t think my mother understands how affected I was when they left. I don’t wish I’d gone with them necessarily. I love my life here. It’s just that my mom sort of looks at it in black-and-white terms. I’m an American, I live a similar lifestyle to Grandmamma’s, so I must be a clone of Grandmamma. In her mind, I ‘chose’ Grandmamma and everything she represents over her.” Lin sighed. “I didn’t ‘choose’ anything.”
“You were a little kid.”
“Right. But I’m an adult now, and my mother carries on seeing Grandmamma instead of me. She disapproves of my choices and automatically assumes I disapprove of her and my father’s,” she reflected. She forked her salad. “I don’t,” she said, shrugging helplessly. “I just want them to be happy. But I can’t seem to convince them—especially my mother—of that.
“Family, huh?” she said after a pause, feeling embarrassed when she realized how much she’d been going on about herself. It was strange, but even though Kam didn’t talk a lot, he was very easy to talk to. “What about you? You mentioned not going back to your residency when your mother became ill,” she said after she’d swallowed some salad. “You must have been close to her.”
“I was. She was an easy woman to love.”
She set down her salad fork slowly, studying his bold profile as he ate. “That’s a lovely thing for a son to say about his mother.”
He shrugged. “It’s true.”
“You must miss her,” she said quietly.
“We were all each other had in the world.”
“But now you have Lucien and Ian,” she said quietly after a moment.
“There’s no such thing as instant families, but yeah. I guess there’s some truth to that.” He gave her a flashing glance as he chewed.
“Ian is more family to you than he is to me,” he said before taking a swig of ice water. “Your work is your life. That’s what everyone says, anyway. Noble Enterprises became your family.”
She blushed, looking away from his gleaming gray eyes, and picked up her fork again. “Ian is my boss,” she stated unequivocally.
“He doesn’t just think of you as just an employee. He told me so.”
She felt his stare on her cheek and resisted an urge to squirm. “Really?” she asked, taking pains to keep her voice level. She took a bite of bread. “When was this?”
“Last night. When he was ever so delicately warning me I’d better tread carefully when it came to you.”
Her fork fell against the bowl. She suddenly felt queasy.
“Please don’t tell me that Ian realized what we were doing in that cloakroom,” she muttered, horrified. “Did you tell him anything?” she asked, realizing too late she’d sounded accusatory.
“Do you think I would?” he demanded, scowling.
“If you didn’t say anything to him, then why was he warning you about me?” Lin asked.
“He’s not stupid,” Kam muttered, holding her stare. “Although he can keep his holier-than-thou attitude to himself, if you ask me. You and I are grown-ups, free to do whatever we damn well please.”
It brought to mind all their recent, extremely grown-up activities. Suddenly, she couldn’t remember the topic of their conversation. His gaze sunk down over her, and as usual, she experienced that swooping sensation in her belly. Kam leaned in, his warm breath brushing across her parted lips. Their mouths touched. “If we want to spend time together, it’s none of Ian’s business.”
Ian. Right, that’s whom they were discussing.
“Spend time together?” she asked, her mouth twitching against his. “Is that a euphemism for having sex?”
“We’re not having sex now. Unless you’re interested?” he murmured, a devil’s glint in his eyes. He nipped at her lower lip, his narrow-eyed, predatory stare on her mouth making her breathless.
They were halted in their flirtation and kissing by the waiter arriving with their entrees. Kam glanced up at the interruption, his expression fierce. The waiter’s eyes widened in alarm. It seemed utterly impossible for Kam to even thinly disguise his wrath. The waiter served their food and escaped as quickly as he could.
“What?” he asked, his expression darkening even further when he saw Lin laughing under her breath.
She gave him an amused glance and patted his thigh. “Kam,” she attempted gently, her palm lingering on jean-covered, dense muscle. “You do realize you scare people half to death the way you glower constantly, don’t you? I get the impression people worry they might be knocked over by the force of your scowl.”
“What?”
“See?” She pointed to his face. “Right there. Hurricane-force glare.”
His gaze flickered down to where her fingers dug gently into his thigh. His expression went suddenly neutral, but she recognized that spark of male interest in his eyes.
“Does it scare you?” he murmured, the gruff quality of his voice making the little hairs on her nape stand on end.
“Sorry. No such luck.”
“Merde. What am I supposed to do now?” he murmured, giving her a swift grin, which she returned.
She just watched him for a few seconds when he began to cut his chicken. She resisted a strong urge to run her hands across his broad shoulders. He looked very masculine and extremely appealing in the soft cotton white shirt she’d bought him, the color highlighting his dark skin and hair. She’d been surprisingly aroused when he’d restrained her wrists earlier, making her a captive to the pleasure he evoked so masterfully. But at the moment, she wanted nothing more than to put her hands all over his strong, virile body.
“I thought you were hungry,” he said, turning toward her after he’d taken a swallow of water and noticed she wasn’t eating.
She leaned forward abruptly and pressed her mouth to his. She’d never once in her entire life kissed a man in a restaurant. And this was no peck on the cheek. She shaped and molded his lips with her own, enjoying the firm succulence of them. She moaned softly into his mouth when he raised a hand and clutched her head at the same moment he sunk his tongue between her lips, claiming her completely. Yes. This is the response she’d been coaxing from him. So bold. So possessive. So Kam-like.
His mouth was still cold from the ice water he’d just drunk. She sought his heat just beneath the chilled veneer. He penetrated her with his tongue—back and forth, back and forth, a slow, suggestive slide. She felt his languorous, sexy kiss all the way to her core. Desire stabbed at her, the strength of it shocking her. She resisted a sudden, strong urge to touch herself to dull that sharp ache. No sooner did she have the inappropriate thought than Kam’s hand was there, doing what she’d thought of doing to herself.
Doing it better.
Chapter Nine
I like you in jeans,” he said next to her lips as he rubbed her outer sex in an eye-crossing manner and examined her through heavy eyelids. “They show off your long legs and tight ass. And this”—he added, his lips rubbing against hers so seductively, his gaze sinking to where he stimulated her with strong fingers—“sweet little pussy.”
“Kam.” She’d meant it to be a remonstrance—he really shouldn’t be touching her like this in public or saying such outrageous things—but instead, it came out as a shaky invitation. Wasn’t this what she’d been asking for when she kissed him? His dirty talk in tandem with his stroking of her pussy aroused her.
A lot.
He moved his mouth and nuzzled her ear, making her shiver. “Eat some of your food,” he said quietly. “Go on. I won’t have you starving.”
She glanced uneasily around the restaurant. It wasn’t crowded, but she could see a couple dining at a table fifteen or so feet away. They seemed entirely unaware of Kam and her in the booth, but if they looked over, what would they see? Not much, probably. Just Kam nuzzling her, which wasn’t the most scandalous thing on earth. The hanging tablecloth would disguise his movements between her legs.
“Eat,” he ordered again next to her ear. She picked up her fork and took a bite. She was so focused on Kam’s fingers on her pussy—rubbing and circling and pressing on her clit—that she couldn’t have said what it was she ate. He used the thicker, stiffer material on the fly to his advantage, pressing against it, applying optimal pressure to her body. She registered none of what she saw in front of her. Every fiber of her awareness was targeted on him, and him alone.
“That’s a girl,” he murmured, nipping at the shell of her ear and making her shiver as she chewed. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you how much I appreciated your mouth. Wet and sweet and so eager. You have no idea how much I wanted to come in it.”
She flexed her hips against his ruthless fingers and bit off a moan. Who knew it could feel so good, even through her clothing?
“The first time I saw you,” he continued ruthlessly, “I thought you were too delicate to like it fast and hot and furious,” he murmured, taking her earlobe between his front teeth and scraping the sensitive flesh. “Too elegant. Too sophisticated. But you have a wild side, don’t you, mon petit chaton?” he asked in that rough, deep voice in her ear. “Would you have liked it? For me to have erupted in your mouth?”
“Yes,” she admitted; for how else was there to be with Kam but honest? She felt feverish, sitting there while he rubbed her and murmured outrageous, scintillating words into her ear. No one had ever talked dirty to her before, so she hadn’t known she’d like it so much. He shifted his hand to the small of her back. She jumped slightly, glancing guiltily over at the other couple when his long forefinger burrowed beneath her low-riding jeans and underwear. He began to slide it in and out of t
he crack of her ass while he pushed her subtly forward with his palm, giving her more friction on her clit as he rubbed it firmly. His finger dipping between her ass cheeks struck her as intensely erotic, but also forbidden. Naughty. Electric.
Especially here, in a restaurant.
“That’s what I thought,” he said next to her ear. “You’re all cool and crisp professional on the outside, but this”—he palmed her entire outer sex with his big hand in a starkly possessive gesture—“burns white hot. Keep eating,” he instructed when she dropped her fork and her eyes sprung wide at his illicit words. She picked up her fork and slid some tender whitefish into her mouth, squeezing out the juices while her entire attention was on Kam’s moving lips and the sound of his rough, accented voice. “Next time, you will swallow it,” he assured her in a whisper that sent ripples of pleasure down her spine. “Every . . . last . . . drop.”
She shuddered in excitement.
“Eat some more, or you’ll be hungry later,” he murmured. She blinked. She’d stopped eating and just stared, becoming increasingly dazed and fevered as he rubbed her. Mechanically, she took a few more bites. He slid his long finger deeper into the crack of her ass. She jumped and went still when he skimmed it against her asshole.
“Did you like being restrained while I played with you?” he murmured before kissing the opening of her ear and applying a slight suction that made her tremble uncontrollably.
“Kam . . . let’s go. Please. This is crazy,” she whispered shakily.
“Answer me,” he murmured as he rubbed her asshole with his fingertip and pressed with his palm, amplifying the pressure on her burning clit even more. Lin glanced around nervously. The couple in viewing distance were gathering their coats in preparation to leave. She bit her lip. Her clit simmered. It was exciting, having him touch her in such an intimate way.
Oh no. She was going to come. Here.
“Lin,” he prodded darkly, his warm breath on her damp skin increasing her shivers.
“Yes. Yes, I liked it,” she said brokenly.
