Instead, she held her hand out for his and they walked, together, to their balloon.
*
“We can sit here all night if we need to,” Hunter said.
Kendra, who was sitting at the table with him, stared unhappily at her plate, which featured the healthy food selections they’d forced on her but no chicken nuggets, pizza or fries, and…wait for it…rolled her eyes at him. Again. For good measure, she clicked her tongue, too.
Down on the rug, his snout resting on his paws and his mournful brown eyes reflecting hope, Willard waited in utter stillness, clearly hoping that someone would drop a morsel of some kind on the floor.
Hunter had foolishly thought that he had at least a couple more years before being confronted with this kind of withering female attitude from his little girl, but he’d been wrong. The child was in a serious snit and would, any second, commence with the finger snapping and head bobbing.
Picking up a piece of asparagus with two fingers, she hung it upside down and eyed it the way she would a dead snake. “I’m not eating this.”
After sneaking a quick peek at his watch—only 6:33, thank goodness, so he still had plenty of time to argue with the diva here and cook dinner for Livia—he shrugged.
“Suit yourself. But you’re going to have a long and hungry night with no dessert if you choose not to eat it. And Grandma made peach ice cream.”
He waited.
Folding her arms on the table (he waged an inner debate with himself but now was not the time to engage in an additional battle about elbows and manners), she regarded her plate with utmost gloom. After a shuddering sigh, she opened her mouth and took half a nip off the end of the asparagus, probably not enough for the vegetable’s flavor to reach her taste buds.
“Eww.” Scrunching her face, she stabbed a bite of salmon and let the fork hover one inch from her lips. “Why can’t Livia eat with us again tonight?”
Mom sailed in through the patio doors just then and did a poor job of suppressing her smile of glee.
“Don’t mind me,” she said, not quite meeting his eye as she set the bushel of tomatoes she was carrying on the counter. She, along with Kendra, Dad and Willard, all seemed to bitterly resent his commandeering Livia for his own tonight and were unlikely to forgive his selfishness anytime soon. Mom, in fact, was only too happy to watch him squirm on Kendra’s hot seat for a little while. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Why?” Kendra demanded again.
“Well,” he said, reaching deep for his patience and finding none, “as I’ve already explained forty or fifty times, Livia and I are having dinner alone together in a little while. So you can see her another time. And it’s not like you haven’t seen her today. Didn’t she stop by the doghouse—”
“Dragon’s den,” the girl corrected.
“—earlier?”
“But why can’t I have dinner with you?”
“Because then Livia and I wouldn’t be having dinner alone, would we?”
This logic didn’t come close to piercing Kendra’s intransigence. Lifting her head up again, brimming with the spirit of peaceful compromise, she decided to sweeten the deal.
“But I can be quiet. Really quiet.”
Hunter snorted. “What, quiet like you were at last night’s dinner? With your nonstop yakking about dinosaurs? No, thank you.”
Willard, who seemed to have grown tired of the passive approach to food acquisition, sat up on his haunches, rested the very tip of his nose on the table, one inch from Kendra’s plate, and snuffled at the salmon.
Kendra looked affronted with Hunter, her little brows flattening with the implication that her two-hour monologue on all things dinosaur had been anything less than scintillating. “Livia loves dinosaurs like I do. And I need to show her my shirt.”
She pointed to today’s model, a white one featuring a snarling tyrannosaur and the caption I’m a T. rex Trapped in a Human’s Body.
“She saw it earlier,” Hunter reminded her.
“But she really liked it. It made her laugh.”
While he understood the idea of people becoming addicted to Livia’s laughter, especially since he was confronting this issue himself, there was no way he was going to bring his six-year-old along on the romantic date night he had planned. Wouldn’t happen, not even for a million tax-free dollars.
“Sorry, Charlie.”
“But why-yyy-yyy?” Kendra whined, producing a remarkable number of syllables out of those three letters.
Grappling for the right words, which were nowhere in sight, Hunter made the mistake of looking up and catching Mom’s eye. She winked, a tiny gesture that told him she understood his turmoil even if Kendra never would.
Why couldn’t Kendra come?
One: because he was a greedy bastard and wanted Livia all to himself tonight.
Two: because he didn’t want his daughter getting too attached to a woman who’d be gone from their lives all too soon.
He was a grown man; he knew what he was getting into. Well, no, he didn’t. Not with Livia, not really. But he was a grown man and he knew about consequences and knew he’d chosen to deal with them, painful as they’d inevitably be when Livia went back to her real world and left him here in his.
But Kendra was a six-year-old who’d already lost both her mother and most of her words for a long time after. Her emotions were not in play here and never would be if he had anything to say about it, and he did.
Protecting this precious child from further heartbreak was his sacred duty as her father and he didn’t plan to fall down on this job. Wasn’t making hard decisions for the greater good in his job description? Kendra may not like it, but she didn’t get a vote on the issue any more than she got a vote about whether she needed her vaccinations or not.
Kendra could spend time with Livia, in small, controlled doses, where Livia wouldn’t have the opportunity to ingratiate herself into Kendra’s routine too much and the chances of the girl falling in love with her were remote.
His plan was to guard his daughter’s affections and he needed to stick to it, no matter how difficult it might be. And it would be very difficult because his beautiful supermodel—when had he begun thinking of Livia as his?—had a way of enchanting those around her without even trying.
So he stared into the hopeful face of a child who was starved for a mother figure and gently told her the painful truth, “We can’t expect Livia to be around here too much, okay? She’s going home soon, and we won’t be able to see her anymore after that because she lives so far away.”
Kendra stared at him in uncomprehending silence for two of the longest beats of his life. And then, her face twisting with bitter disappointment, she shoved her plate across the table and slumped her forehead on her arms.
Beside her, Willard whined in sympathy and rested his head on her knee.
Chapter 9
“Are we almost there yet? I can see lights.”
Livia and Hunter turned a corner on the stone path and she tugged his hand a little harder. They both had long-legged strides but he was moving way too slowly for her tastes right now, and she couldn’t wait to see what additional wonders this day held for them. He’d met her at the cottage just as the sun was setting, walked her down this lovely path—everything in Napa seemed to be lovely; apparently the region had received more than its fair share of beautiful spots when God was handing them out—and kept up a sphinxlike silence about his plans for their dinner.
Aaaand…he still wasn’t talking.
As though he knew it would make her explode with impatience, he laughed and shrugged with smug satisfaction rather than answer her question. Luckily for him, the trees gave way at that point, revealing a beautiful setting and sparing him from a sharp smack on the arm.
“Oh, wow, what a pretty house!” she cried. “Is that yours?”
“It’s mine.”
Mission-style, with the typical white stucco and red tiled roof, the small house sat tucked into the hillside.
Everything about it was beautiful and welcoming, from the overflowing flowerpots to the drapes fluttering in the open cloverleaf-shaped windows and the warm glow of lamps from inside. Even the air around here smelled good, like grilled steaks and vegetables or something, and, if she wasn’t mistaken, the homey crispness of wood smoke.
She headed for the front door, propelled by her unreasonable curiosity about All Things Hunter and dying to see what kind of furniture he had, but he steered her around back.
“This way,” he said, grinning.
That smile of his distracted her, the way it always did. All dimples and boyish delight, it was a thing of wonder that should be marked on tourist maps as a not-to-be-missed local sight.
“You have the sexiest smile,” she blurted. Way to throw yourself at the man, girl. Mama would be so proud. “I can’t believe I ever thought you were the world’s grumpiest man.”
He changed in an instant, the amusement vanishing in favor of dark desires and naked heat. “Is that so?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Is it working?”
“It’s working.” Leaning in, he gave her a nipping little kiss that began with the tip of his tongue and ended with a gentle tug of her bottom lip. She gasped with a sudden, twisting need that felt like a living thing inside her and fought the urge to reach for him, to bring him close. “You have no idea how well it’s working. But I promised you dinner, didn’t I? Come on.”
Dinner had just dropped to number nine-hundred-eighty-five on her to-do list, but it seemed polite to show some interest since he’d gone to a lot of trouble. So she let him lead her around the path, which was lit with white lights strung through the bushes, to the back of the house.
Where the most amazing wonderland awaited her.
“Oh.” Multisyllabic words failed her. “Wow.”
“You like?”
“I love.”
What wasn’t there to love? Beautiful potted trees and flowers—a man who grew things for a living had to have a spectacular yard, right?—wove their way down a lush green hill that ended in a wooden dock and, beyond that, a rippling pond. A trick of the moonlight—or maybe it was the glowing white Japanese lanterns he’d strung overhead that did it—made white spots shimmer on the water, creating an effect like diamonds sparkling over satin.
The dock seemed to be their ultimate destination for the night, because it was edged and illuminated by several flickering column candles and a domed fire pit that crackled merrily. Inside the ring of light was a spread blanket, a wicker basket and a champagne bucket.
And people said you had to die to reach paradise.
Who knew?
Emotion gathered in her throat, requiring her to clear it once or twice. It wasn’t that men never tried to impress her with romantic gestures; they did. All the time, in fact. It was that it was meaningless if some rapper had his personal assistant order her a ruby bracelet while also ordering emerald and sapphire ones for the other models he had his eye on.
This simple picnic meant more to her than anything had since…
Since…ever?
Was that giving him too much credit? Or had her life, and the people inhabiting it, simply become that shallow and meaningless over the years?
“Is this all for me?” She swiped at her tears, hoping he wouldn’t notice if she started bawling like Kendra probably did at bedtime.
He widened his eyes with fake shock and dismay. “Is that what you…? Oh, man, this is awkward. This is for my real date, who’s due any minute. I was just hoping you’d tell me if you thought she’d like it.”
“Stop it!” Laughing now and feeling like a complete idiot, she smacked him on the arm. “You know what I mean.”
“Of course it’s for you.”
“This is a lot of effort,” she pointed out.
“You’re worth it.”
That disarming honesty of his really did a number on her. Back in L.A., people practically gave themselves whiplash with their overenthusiastic and utterly insincere efforts to kiss her ass at every turn. All that was bull, and she knew it, but, hey, if it got her a nice table at a restaurant every now and then, well…so be it.
Hunter, on the other hand, seemed incapable of that kind of nonsense. The little bit she knew of him so far screamed that what she saw with him was what she got.
Wasn’t that a refreshing change?
Taking a step closer, she decided to lay it all on the line. “Can I tell you something?”
He studied her for a few seconds, not answering, and that sizzling hyperawareness of him and his every reaction almost made her shiver, it was that acute. What did he see in her face when he looked at her so intently? Why couldn’t she shake the certainty that he knew and understood things about her that she’d never suspected about herself? And why did that feel okay?
“You can tell me anything.”
“You scare me to death,” she said helplessly. “I’m almost shaking with it.”
The edges of his eyes crinkled with the beginnings of a smile, softening all those harsh planes and angles, making him tender but no less fierce.
“So that’s it, then? We walk away?”
She tried to take a nice, deep breath to calm herself, but that swooping sensation remained in her belly, as though her little boat was bobbing along in the waves with no way to control the tide’s sweep. If she was about to capsize and drown, she almost didn’t care.
“That’s the funny thing,” she told him. “The thought of walking away scares me more than staying.”
“Well, then.” Touching her with a vibrating restraint, as though he only trusted himself on a very short leash, he smoothed a fluttering lock of her hair away from her face. “Stay.”
*
Hunter led her to the dock, to the quilted picnic blanket, and stretched out on it, intending to lay her down with him. Livia had another, better, idea. With the light wind ruffling her hair and the firelight making her skin glow and giving her eyes a wickedly female glint, she arched her back and, in one fluid movement, pulled her sweater off over her head, dropping it to her feet. Holding his gaze, she unzipped her jeans and shimmied out of them, tossing those away, too, and revealing herself to him with a generosity and raw sensuality he could only have dreamed about.
Levering himself up on one elbow, he stared.
She was so freaking amazing in so many ways he could hardly wrap his brain around it. Long and lean, but curves—and plenty of them—everywhere that counted. She wore a lacy black bra that cradled the perfect plump ovals of her breasts and revealed every detail to his searching eyes. Nipples, aroused and jutting, perfectly centered within dark areolae.
Belly that was fit and toned but still rounded and feminine, made all the more intriguing by the winking stone in her navel. Note to self: check that out at first opportunity.
Wide hips that would give him plenty to hang on to during the thrusting he planned to do, and skimpy little panties that did nothing to hide the bare cleft he intended to taste in the next three minutes. Strong thighs that he wanted up around his shoulders and then, later, wrapped around his waist in a death grip. Shapely legs, gleaming skin, knowing eyes, as though she fully comprehended that she’d just blown his mind and wasn’t done with him yet.
Cracking open his dry mouth, he spoke in an urgent and guttural voice he barely recognized as his own. “Come here.”
A slow grin, as lazy as it was dangerous, crept across her lips, heating his skin and tightening something inside him to the snapping point. Taking way too long about the whole process, she crouched and then dropped to all fours, crawling up the length of his body with a tiger’s grace and a centerfold’s in-your-face sexuality.
Thank God she wasn’t shy; there were too many things he wanted to do to and with her, too much ground they had to cover while she was here. If he had to hold himself back long enough to bring her out of a shell, he’d suffer cardiac arrest and then spontaneous combustion.<
br />
No. This was a woman who knew how to give and, more importantly, to receive pleasure. Which was good because, while he’d planned a picnic for tonight and would’ve waited if she wasn’t ready, this was what he’d wanted.
Exactly this.
When she was almost within range of his reaching hands, she paused, her face level with his groin. Then, flashing him a smoldering look that had his blood flowing as hot and thick as boiling honey, she nuzzled him with her cheeks, laughing a soft laugh of such wanton satisfaction that he hardened as though she’d already sucked him deep into her mouth.
Right about then, his head became too heavy to hold up and he let it fall back to the blanket and gathered fistfuls of her silky hair to hold her in place. Jesus. He hadn’t known he could get this aroused from just the hint of a sex act, hadn’t known he was still capable of the kind of desperate need that clawed at him from the inside out.
A drumbeat began, thudding in time with his pulse, and it felt so powerful that he was surprised it didn’t echo all around the pond.
Livia…Livia…Livia.
Had he known her for only a few days? It felt like he’d waited a thousand lifetimes for this, and he couldn’t get her close enough to stop that rising need from driving him wild. When she laughed again, reaching around to wedge her hands beneath him to squeeze his ass, something in his head snapped.
Letting go of her hair, he grabbed her shoulders and jerked her back. After a groaned protest, she raised her defiant and disgruntled gaze to his. They stared at each other for an arrested second, long enough for him to feel her frustrated restraint shudder through her.
“I need you,” she said. “Now.”
He couldn’t control himself. Not when she played dirty like that. “You’re playing with fire,” he warned.
“Then burn me.”
There went all of his fantasies of finessing her and being a gentle and considerate lover, up in a cloud of lust-induced smoke. In a burst of movement that he really hoped didn’t scare the hell out of her, he reared up over her, grabbed her hips and unceremoniously pulled them out from under her, until she was flat on her back.
Love in the Limelight Volume Two: Seduced on the Red CarpetLovers Premiere Page 9
