Beyond Seduction. Kathleen O'Reilly

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      THEY HAD DINNER AT Fisherman’s Wharf, at a seafood restaurant perched on a dock that reached out far into the bay. It was dark, warm, and intimate, much nicer than the waiting room at the television studio. This was a place a man took a date for privacy and romance. Across the way, the moon lit up the island prison of Alcatraz, giving it a ghostly glow. This was a place that Mercedes would write about in her book.

      Sam was a wonderful companion, telling her stories about his guests, making her laugh all the way through dinner. His eyes lit up as he talked, and she could see how much he loved what he did, how passionate he was about his work.

      She liked that about him, his passion. So many people punched a clock, and didn’t care, but Sam cared. It was there in his words, his face, in the intensity that radiated from him.

      It was that intensity that drew her like a magnet.

      “So what’ve you been doing for the past twelve months—besides writing a book?”

      “Not a lot. This. That.”

      “Nothing else to keep you busy? No personal obligations, huh?”

      “Are you asking if I’m involved?” she said, meeting his eyes squarely. Mercedes had never been one to tiptoe around something; she wanted people to know she was coming.

      One side of his mouth curved up, a rueful look that shouldn’t have touched her like it did. Mercedes knew her way around men, she knew her way up, down, and four-way sideways. She didn’t trust them as a rule, but that small hitch in his mouth tempted her to bend her rules. Just a little.

      “Yeah, that’s what I’m asking,” he said, surprising her with his honesty.

      “Free as a bird,” she answered easily, her tone light.

      He nodded once, only once, a supremely male nod of satisfaction, and her stomach knotted, excitement and nerves all pitching together into one tangle. She pushed the hair from her eyes with a shaking hand. It was sex.

      Just sex. The one reason she had flown across the country was because she wanted him. Even after twelve months, that ache hadn’t eased, it ate at her, pouring into her fantasies, her dreams, her writing, turning into something living, breathing inside her. Something more.

      Abruptly she pushed that thought away, needing to regain her footing. “Thank you for asking me to dinner.”

      He leaned in closer, the candlelight touching off the tawny streaks in his hair. “Don’t thank me, Mercedes. I really don’t deserve it.”

      “This bothers you, doesn’t it?”

      He laughed, a rusty sound without humor. “You have no idea how much.”

      She flashed him her best smile. “Yeah, I think I do.”

      She watched as he deftly made patterns with the last of the silverware, and was pleased to see him uncomfortable, pleased to know she wasn’t the only one whose nerves were shot to hell. Finally he raised his head, his jaw tight. “I didn’t plan to have this conversation over dinner.”

      “Is there a right time and a right place, Sam?”

      His eyes glittered, more brown than green in the dim light, his desire apparent. Mercedes shifted in her seat, trapping the pulse between her thighs. “Yes,” he said harshly, his carefully modulated television voice now gone.

      Mercedes smiled. “In bed.”

      “Preferably before then.”

      “Maybe I like to know what I’m getting into.”

      “Mercedes,” he started, then stopped. “No. Would you like some dessert?”

      “What’s on the menu?” she asked.

      He closed his eyes. “Are you going to behave?”

      “Dinner was your idea, not mine.”

      He pulled some cash from his pocket and laid it on the table. “Can we go?”

      “Now we’re in a hurry?” she asked.

      He lifted their jackets from the coat hook at the table. “Dinner was a stupid idea. In a long line of stupid ideas. But I’ve waited twelve months, and right now, every minute counts.”

      Mercedes felt a sharp pull of excitement in her stomach. He held out her jacket, and she backed against him. Closer than she should. Close enough to brush against him. Close enough to feel him jutting thickly against her bottom. Close enough to hear his indrawn breath.