Simply Sinful

“He listened,” she said, somewhat embarrassed. “He was interested, if I’m not mistaken, but I’ve been out of the game too long to know for sure.”

Catherine shook her head. “You don’t need experience to know if he makes you feel special. This guy could be it.”

Kayla had the sense that Kane was most definitely it. “I don’t really know him,” Kayla reminded her sister.

“But you want to.” Catherine read her mind as she had so many times in the past. “And just wait until he gets a look at you tonight.” Walking back to the closet, Catherine reached inside and tossed something across the room.

Kayla stood before the full-length mirror behind the door. She spun around once more, shocked at the woman whose reflection she saw there. “I don’t even recognize myself,” she said, as she added the finishing touch, a wide headband that would provide both warmth and style for the night ahead.

“That’s because you’ve been so busy hiding behind conservative clothes and a job that involves geeks not hunks. You’ve just forgotten there’s a woman inside.”

Was Catherine right? Of course she was. Between her old accounting job and now running her aunt’s business, Kayla had stifled her sense of self. Add to that her self-imposed lack of a love life and things seemed pretty pathetic about now.

Her sister placed her hands on Kayla’s shoulders. “At least this guy has brought my sexy sister out of her shell.” Catherine grinned.

“He’s a customer,” Kayla said. As if that meant anything. As he’d said, the customer thing was an excuse to let her say yes to a date without thinking too much. It was eerie how well Kane McDermott had understood her.

“Since when do you date a customer?”

She met Catherine’s gaze in the mirror. “I don’t,” she admitted.

“I know. And that’s why I think you should go out and feel for once. Take things from there.” Catherine plucked at the headband, straightening it to look suitably stylish. “The clothes are just the trappings of freedom. The rest is up to you.”

Catherine turned her toward the door to the bedroom and steered her into the hall. “I’ll drop you off at the restaurant. It’s on my way and, besides, I want to get a look at this guy firsthand.”

“Checking him out, Mom?”

Catherine shrugged. “We’ve always looked out for each other. No sense stopping now.” She glanced at Kayla. “You think about what I said. You might live to regret it if you don’t.”

Kayla took her sister’s advice, all the way to the outside of the restaurant. He’d given her directions to it during their brief phone conversation and Catherine had given her a lift. Kane waited on the top step, his elbow resting on the brass railing. Irresistible in a black leather jacket, he could show her his charms anywhere, anyplace, anytime, she decided.

Catherine’s whistle brought Kayla back down to earth.

“I take it you approve?”

Catherine answered with a grin. Kayla finger-combed her hair and stepped out of the car. Kane was by her side in an instant. During the brief introductions and small chitchat between Kane and Catherine, Kayla could barely concentrate.

Was her sister right? Was this man, this date, a not-to-be-missed opportunity? Could he be someone in her future? Kayla wasn’t sure, but she was about to find out. And who deserved an honest chance more than Kane McDermott, the first man to excite her and impress her?

The first man to look past her appearance and who genuinely seemed to like the woman within.

WITH HIS HAND ON her back, Kane steered Kayla out of Fenway Park and into the dimly lit Boston streets. The Sox had won in extra innings and the woman beside him hadn’t uttered a single complaint about sitting through the long game or the continuing drop in temperature. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d call the date a hit, but Kayla was no ordinary woman, any more than she was his real date, a fact he had to keep reminding himself of time and again.

“Did I tell you I loved that restaurant?” she asked.

Only about ten times, he thought, wondering why the hell the notion pleased him so much. “The meal or the atmosphere?” he asked.

She laughed, the sound doing more to warm him than his heavy leather jacket. “Both. Wall-to-wall books…” She spread her arms wide, knocking into the people emptying out of the stadium along with them. “Oops.”

Her laughter was contagious, her love of something as simple as books, refreshing.

“But who would have thought of turning a library into a restaurant, and keeping the old volumes on the shelves? How have I lived here for so long and never even known about that place? Where did you find it?”

“I have my sources,” he said, deliberately vague.

“Well, tell them they were right on target.” She laughed again and this time his stomach twisted with regret. Careful research and discreet questions into her background had revealed the blond bombshell was also an intellectual, a Phi Beta Kappa who hit the library most nights after work. Reading was obviously a hobby of hers, one he’d taken advantage of tonight.

The stab of guilt took him by surprise. His job had never bothered him before and it shouldn’t now. As part of his assignment, he could just as easily clear her as convict her. Big deal if he had to dig deep and personal in order to accomplish his goal. But one glance into those trusting eyes turned him inside out. She wouldn’t appreciate the lie. If she was guilty of running a prostitution service, he shouldn’t give a good goddamn. But he did and the guilt stemmed less from sensing she wasn’t involved and more from caring what she thought of him. That in itself was a first and Kane didn’t like it a bit.

After an evening in her company, he’d learned plenty. This was a woman who cared about family, felt things deeply and had put her dreams on hold for her sister’s future and out of respect for her late aunt. The innocence she projected in both her gaze and her gestures told him more than surveillance ever could and that innocence spoke to him. Touched him in ways no one ever had, in places he never allowed anyone to reach.

His gut told him she wasn’t involved in anything more than running an inherited business. One she at times enjoyed, at others resented. Since gut instinct wasn’t admissible in a court of law, he had to rely on his other talents to clear Miss Kayla Luck. Somehow proving her not guilty had taken precedence over making a case against Charmed!’s sensual owner.

“Don’t ask me why, but I had a feeling you would like that place,” he told her.

“You were right.”

“I know.” Because he was a man who prided himself on instinct. Research may have provided the background, but an hour in her company and Kane had discovered even more. All pretense of schooling forgotten, Kayla had opened up to him. He now knew her father’s abandonment had left her hurt and wounded even if she didn’t show it, and the mother she loved had been more a child than a useful, guiding parent.

Kayla had grown up on her own…like him. She had few close ties, apart from her sister…also like him. And by the time dinner ended, he knew how to reach her. He knew when to flatter and when to back off. He even knew how to make her feel beautiful without ogling, because the slightest show of male interest in her looks led to a hasty retreat. He had the sense he knew Kayla Luck. He had connected with her apart from his assignment and the thought made him too damn nervous.

As they rounded the next corner and walked down a street nestled between a double row of buildings, a heavy breeze whipped around them and the temperature seemed to drop even further.

He rubbed his hands together. “I’d kill for a…”

“Cup of hot chocolate covered with whipped cream,” Kayla said, finishing his sentence but not the way he’d intended. Scotch or whiskey was what he’d had in mind. Something that burned like hell and shocked his system into remembering he was on assignment and not out with an intelligent, sexy woman. One he wanted to see again and not behind prison walls. And that wouldn’t be happening.

He needed solid proof to take back to Reid. Time to make his move and get out, Kane thought. They’d both be better off.

He’d gotten nowhere with his subtle questioning earlier, which meant he’d have to take a more direct, a more seductive, approach. He dreaded the idea as much as his overheated body craved it. Not even the sharp wind biting at his face and reaching into his bones numbed the burning heat she aroused inside