And he sweet-talked her into making the salad.
He didn't say another word about love.
He asked her about work, how her business had done during the two days of rain. He put on music, kept it low, and talked through the kitchen door as the grill smoked and she chopped vegetables.
They might have been casual friends, or the most comfortable of lovers.
They ate in his pretty kitchen, by candlelight. Even the house behaved. Despite it-or perhaps because of it- she stayed on edge throughout the meal.
He took a bakery cake out of the fridge. Lena took one look, sighed. 'I can't.”
'We can save it for later.”
'I can't for forty days. I gave up chocolate for Lent. I've got a powerful taste for chocolate.”
'Oh.' He stuck it back in. 'I've probably got something else.”
'What'd you give up?”
'Wearing women's underwear. It's tough, but I think I can hold out till Easter.”
'You talk like that, I'm going to take my ashes back.' He was making her itchy, she thought. The best way to solve that was to make him itch more. She stepped behind him as he searched his refrigerator, then wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her body to his. 'You need to give something up, cher, something you've got a powerful taste for.”
'It sure as hell isn't going to be you.”
He let her spin him around, shove him back against the refrigerator.
Oh, he knew her, he thought as she used her lips to set off explosions in his bloodstream. He knew she was using sex to keep one step ahead of him. One step back from him.
If she didn't realize he could love her as much as he wanted her, it was up to him to show her.
'In your bed, you said.' Her mouth was reckless, restless as it raced over his face. 'In your bed.”
She pulled him toward the doorway. He nearly pulled her back, toward the kitchen stairs, but decided it might be interesting to take the long way around.
He pushed her against the wall in the hallway, assaulted her throat with his teeth. 'We'll get there.”
He reached down, yanked her shirt up, over her head, threw it aside. Wrapped together, they did a quick vertical roll along the wall, and finally stopped with their positions reversed. With impatient hands she pulled his shirt open so that buttons danced along the floor.
They fought with clothes on their way to the steps. Shoes landed with thumps. Her bra fluttered over the banister, his jeans plopped on the third step.
They were breathless before they reached the landing.
His hands were rough, a workingman's hands now that thrilled as they streaked over her. Her skin came alive.
'Hurry.' She sank her teeth into his shoulder as need raged through her, a firestorm of violent heat that burned away all caution. 'God, hurry.”
He nearly took her where they stood, but he wanted her under him. Bucking, arching.
With his mouth savaging hers, he wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her two inches off the floor. Something raw and primitive stabbed through him at the knowledge that there was no choice now. No choice for either of them but to mate.
Shadows cloaked them as they moved toward the bedroom.
Cold from doorways seeped out, made her shiver.
'Declan.”
'This is us. This is ours.' As he spoke, his voice a snarl, as he held her, his grip like iron, the cold curled back.
They fell on his bed, a tangle of limbs and urgency. When he plunged into her, her nails dug into his back. Pleasure, dark and desperate, drenched her, the feral glory of it drove her up so that she twined herself around him and matched the furious pace.
No control, nor the desire for it. Only the wild thirst to take and take and take. And with it, the gnawing hunger to give.
She clung to him, riding through the storm of sensation, sprinting up and up toward that jagged brink again.
Dimly, she heard a clock begin to strike in deep, heavy bongs. On the twelfth, she shattered with him.
When he started to shift away, she tightened her grip. 'Mmm. Don't move yet.”
'I'm too heavy for you.' He rubbed his lips at the curve of her throat.
'I like it. I like this.' Lazily, she angled her head so he could work his way up to her jaw.
Her body felt used and bruised and wonderfully loose. 'Even better than chocolate cake.”
He laughed and rolled over, taking her with him so she sprawled over his chest. 'There, now I don't have to worry about crushing you.”
'A gentleman to the last.' Content, she settled in. 'I've always liked a clock that chimes the hours,' she said. 'But you need to set it. It's not midnight yet.”
'I know.”
'Sounded like a big, old grandfather clock. Where'd you put it? In the parlor.”
'No.' He stroked a hand over her hair, down her back. 'I don't have a clock that chimes.”
'Cher, you absolutely ring my bells, but I heard a clock chime twelve.”
'Yeah, so did I. But I don't have a clock.”
She lifted her head, let out a slow breath. 'Oh. Well then. Does it scare you?”
'No.”
'Then it doesn't scare me, either,' she said, and laid her head back over his heart.
The best way, in Declan's opinion, to break through the obstacles and opposition to any goal, was not to ram headfirst against them and risk a skull fracture, but to chip away at them. Gradually, reasonably. Relentlessly. Whether it was a lawsuit, a sporting event or a love affair, it was imperative to keep the end in sight in order to select the correct means.
He found out which Mass Lena and her grandmother attended, and at which church. Research was essential in any strategy.
When he slipped into the pew beside them on Sunday morning, he got a long speculative look from Lena, and a conspirator's wink from Odette.
He figured God would understand and appreciate the ploy, and not hold it against him for using Sunday Mass as a means to his end.
But he wouldn't mention the brainstorm to his mother. She was, in Declan's experience, a lot less flexible than the Almighty.
Aiming the leading edge of his charm toward Odette, he talked them into brunch afterward, and got another cool stare from Lena when he gave his name to the hostess. He'd already made reservations for three.
'Sure of yourself, aren't you, cher?”
His eyes were the innocent gray of a former altar boy. 'Just prepared.”
'You ain't no Boy Scout, sugar,' she told him.
'Your granddaughter's very cynical,' Declan responded as he offered his arm to Odette.
'What she is, is smart.' Odette patted a hand on his and had her bracelets jangling. 'A woman's got to be about smooth-talking, handsome men. Man who comes into church so he can spend a Sunday morning with a woman, he's pretty smart, too.”
'I thought I'd come in and pray for a while.”
'What'd you pray for?”
'That you'd run away with me to Borneo.”
With a laugh, Odette slipped into the chair Declan held out for her. 'Aren't you the one.”
'Yeah.' He looked directly at Lena. 'I'm going to be the one.”
They settled in with mimosas and the first round from the expansive buffet. While a jazz quartet played Dixieland, Declan told them about the progress on the house.
'I'm going to stick with the outside work as long as the weather holds. Tibald's still dealing with the plastering, and I'm trying to line up a painter for the exterior. I don't want to do that myself. The guy I had paint the
