Chapter 20
Twenty
His hand slid into her hair and cupped her head as his lips touched hers.
Jal’s mouth opened almost immediately, and he drank her in.
Their tongues met, danced, the tension slipping away as she practically melted into his arms. Her arms wrapped around his neck, holding him to her while she kissed him.
And kissed him, she did. Ciaran smiled against her lips and changed the angle of the kiss, tasting the red wine she’d drunk, and something else that was just her.
A moment, or a year, later, she eased back and, as she had in her apartment, rested her forehead against his for a breath, and then two.
The tenderness of the gesture, as if she wanted to extend the contact just a little longer, did funny things to his stomach.
Ciaran slowly opened his eyes and found her watchful, gazing at him through her eyelashes.
When their eyes met and locked, the shy smile that stretched her lips punched him low in the gut.
He pressed a soft, closed-lipped kiss to her lips and got to his feet. “Come along,” he said as he held a hand down to her. “You must be getting cold, much like our food, I’m sure.”
As if on cue, his stomach growled. He clapped a hand over the spot, and grinned.
She shook her head ruefully, but she was smiling as she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.
He tucked her in against his hip and put a hand around her, marveling at how soft and smooth her skin was, at how easily her body molded against him now that the air was a little clearer between them.
Jasmine filled his nose as she brushed close in front of him to pass through the glass doors and back into the warmth of the building.
The image of her sitting across the table from him that first night she’d met him at Amicetto rose to his mind as she started down the stairs. She had been so full of indignation then, her lovely, but wickedly sharp, emerald eyes shooting daggers at him.
And she’d had such an effective way of persuading him.
“So, I have to ask. If your dress that night was meant to ‘kick my ass’ as you so charmingly put it. What is this dress meant to do?”
The devilish look she shot him as they descended the stairs went straight to his groin and his foot slid off the next step. He caught himself with a hand on the railing.
Her smoky curl of laughter echoed off the wall as she continued down, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the sway of her hips was a little more exaggerated with each step. She stopped at the bottom and half-turned, her expression confirming she knew exactly what she was doing.
When he continued to stand frozen, mesmerized, she tilted her head inquisitively and held her hand up to him.
Ciaran cleared his throat and joined her.
Ciaran walked close behind her as they wove through the narrow space between the rows of tables.
The softness of her skin still lingered on Ciaran’s fingers, as he walked close behind her while they wove through the rows of tables.
The scent of her hair was still the only thing he could smell, even with the fragrant steam rising from the meals they passed.
Her friends were seated where they had left them, with their male friend taking up half of what little walking space there was between the tables.
The servers probably weren’t too happy about it, though the stir his arrival had caused told him the man was probably important enough for him to get away with it.
He looked up as they approached, but Jal’s friends had their backs to them and didn’t turn.
As they rounded the table and her friends’ eyes fell on them, Ciaran began to feel a little like something squished under a microscope.
He glanced at his watch as he pulled out Jal’s chair and was shocked to find that they had only been gone for ten minutes.
The dark haired one—Elena, he remembered—looked at Jal thoughtfully for a moment, then caught her eye and ran a thumb along the edge of her bottom lip and lifted her eyebrow slightly.
An adorable flush rose to Jal’s cheeks and she copied the gesture, straightening the slightly-smudged line of her lipstick.
Ciaran schooled his expression and fought the urge to puff out his chest, even a bit. The same couldn’t be said to the heat rising to his own face.
“We had them take the food back to the kitchen to keep warm,” Lexi said, her tone suggesting that she was trying to be helpful. Ciaran suspected that it was to keep Elena from asking just what they had been up to while they were gone.
He gave her a grateful smile at the same time as Jal turned to her and said, “Thanks, Lex. That was very thoughtful of you.”
Their male friend looked over at Ciaran then and offered a hand. “Maksim Brody,” he said by way of introduction. “Call me Maks.”
Ciaran took it and introduced himself. “Quite the hubbub when you arrived,” he remarked. “Are you a film star, or something? Broadway, maybe?”
Jal choked on her wine. The two women seated across from him had frozen, and stared at him with twin expressions of disbelief, though they couldn’t have been any more different in appearance.
“Do you even have ice hockey in Scotland?” Elena asked him. The tone of her voice was amused, but not mocking.
Ciaran smiled crookedly. “Of course we do, somewhere.”
“Ciaran’s a soccer—“ Jal patted his arm. “I mean, football fan.”
“I went to my first game with Cliff a few weeks ago, I’ll have you know.” he replied, though most of the indignant tone in his voice was forced. “The Legion were playing New Jersey if I remember correctly.”
Maks thought for a moment. “I had two assists in that game, I think.” he said, and took a sip from his drink, something clear and bubbling.
“Oh, aye?”
Lexi sat up a little straighter in her seat and gestured to the man who sat between them. “Maks is starting left defensemen for the Legion.”
Two servers arrived carrying plates and Ciaran continued speaking while Lexi directed where to place them. “Oh, aye? Quite the spectacle it was, with all the lights and the music and the food, not to mention what was happening down on the ice.”
“Well, let me know when you want to catch a game, and I’ll hook you up,” Maks offered. He sipped his drink and, seeing that they were waiting, gestured at them to start. “Oh, I ate after practice. Please, go ahead.”
The conversation died off as they dug in.
He suppressed a groan when the first forkful of paella hit his tongue with an explosion of saffron and garlic in his mouth.
The shrimp was tender, without any of the tell-tale rubberiness it normally took on when in the kitchen too long.
He reached for the basket of flatbread in the middle of the table just as Jal did the same.
Their hands brushed, sending tingles up his arm.
She glanced at him, cheeks pink, as they each selected a piece and returned to their meals.
“I’ve been back in town since June and I’ve not seen Jal out with anyone,” Maks remarked. “How long have you two been seeing each other?”
Jal reached for her wine. There was a flash of green as she glanced at him quickly and then away. A corner of her mouth twitched.
Ciaran cleared his throat and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “Not long. And you two?” He gestured between Maks and Lexi with his fork.
He was met with a ring of incredulous faces.
Chagrined, Ciaran looked slowly around the table.
He thought he saw a twinkle of amusement in Elena’s eyes, but as his gaze settled on Lexi and Maks, he was met with almost twin looks of surprise.
They exchanged a glance, eyes locking for a moment before both broke out laughing.
“No, man,” Maks leaned back and hooked an elbow over the low back of his chair. He scratched his chin, the definition of nonchalance, but Ciaran also noted that he made a point of not looking in Lexi’s direction. “We grew up together. We’re just friends.”
“My apologies.” Ciaran schooled his expression and returned to his dinner, as did everyone else.
Soon, their plates were empty, and their drinks drained. The waiter deposited the bill on the corner of the table between Ciaran and Maks. Both men made a grab for it, but Maks was faster.
Must be those hockey reflexes, Ciaran thought as he pulled his wallet from a back pocket anyway and pulled out a credit card. The women, he noted, were also reaching into their purses for cash and cards.
“I got it,” Maks said, waiving them off.
“Aye, no, don’t be ridiculous, you had only a fizzy drink,” he protested, ignoring the cards being pushed across the table or the cash coming from beside him and plucking the bill from Maks’s hand. “I’ll take it.”
Ciaran was sure the man made more playing a single game than Ciaran did in half a year, but that didn’t matter. Elena and Lexi retrieved their cards and put them away at the dismissive wave of his hand.
Jal took a bit more convincing before she took the bills he pressed back into her hands and returned them to her purse. He handed his card to the waiter to process through the handheld card machine he held.
The group rose from the table and threaded their way back toward the elevator.
Ciaran and Maks waited while the host retrieved coats for Lexi and Elena, and a length of deep copper knitted cloth for Jal.
Drawn in by the urge to touch her, Ciaran took the wrap before she could reach for it and shook it out.
Stepping behind her, he draped it around her shoulders, allowing his fingers to trail along her collarbones.
She looked up at him in silent thanks, and their eyes locked. An echo of the expression that had lit her face in the moment before she’d hauled him into her apartment returned. As if drawn by a magnet, he leaned forward, closing the distance between their lips.
A shrill whistle separated them before he could reach his goal. They turned together towards the sound. A corner of Elena’s mouth turned up as she pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the open elevator.