“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking,” she suggested, moving around the table towards him.
Her breath was ragged, Wrench realized. Could she be wanting him like he was craving her? The scent of her, the rustle of her skirt, it was like a net of feminine enticement.
“Wrench…” she said, then paused; it was a ridiculous name from her mouth. “Do you have another name?”
“Warren,” he said, and the name was as unfamiliar to his ears as it was to his mouth.
“Warren,” she tested it, and when she said it, it sounded respectable. “Warren,” she repeated, and then she was standing right before him, so close he could have bent down and kissed her if he dared.
“Do you dance?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“A shame,” she said. “I find that things are simpler when you dance.” She put a hand on Wrench’s chest. “I could teach you.”
“I doubt it,” Wrench said. Her hand felt like a brand, hot through the layers of his suit. The evening was comparatively cool, but he was sweating. She was so close, her toes almost even with his own. Even in heels, she had to look up from about the height of his shoulder.
“Warren,” she said warningly.
It didn’t feel like his name.
“You’re going to have to kiss me eventually, you know.”
He was dying to. He was ready to. Panther was panting and pacing and lashing his tail. Lydia was looking up at him with expectant eyes, her hand still on his chest, her red lips just parted. He had to know what she tasted like.
Then his phone rang.
Chapter 10
It wasn’t terribly surprising that a man named Wrench was exceedingly good at swearing.
Lydia took her hand back as he dug into his suit pocket, blistering the air with his displeasure. She grimaced as he found the offending phone and thought for a moment that he was going to throw it directly into the pool. But his eyes fell on the message on the screen and his face went from angry to grim. “Renna,” he said apologetically. “I have to take this. She wouldn’t call. Not unless…”
Lydia waved at him to take it, hoping she looked more patient than she felt. She walked back around to her seat at the table, wishing she had more of her drink left.
She watched as Wrench paced around in the shadows just out of earshot, clearly agitated. He raised such a tempest of feelings in her. She’d been wildly attracted to him when he was flexing muscles in the sun of her courtyard, but in a suit, she’d barely been able to catch her breath. He walked like he owned the very ground he passed over, like he had a place to go, and the place he had to go… was to her.
Their conversation had been deeply confusing. She didn’t know how to reconcile his rough speech with a man who could use ‘indiscriminate’ and looked that good wearing a suit. Even if it did look faintly like he had a fading black eye.
When she’d talked about her family, his face had been so hungry and full of longing behind his scowl. But when she imagined bringing him to meet her family, she balked. He was just so rough around the edges. Her sisters had brought home lawyers and doctors. She would be bringing home… a felon?
Footsteps along the pool caught her attention.
Laura’s arrival with a tray bearing a second drink for her was a welcome distraction.
“Tex says that if you need him thrown in the pool, he’s happy to oblige,” the curvy woman said with a knowing wink.
“I don’t think it will come to that,” Lydia said gratefully, taking the drink.
“He’s on the phone,” Laura pointed out. “During your date.”
“It was really important,” Lydia said swiftly, surprising even herself with her quick defense.
Laura didn’t pursue the subject. “I’ll take your empty glass,” she offered. “If you need anything, or you change your mind about having him dumped in the pool, just wave.”
“Thank you.”
Lydia watched her walk away down the long edge of the pool, and turned to find that Wrench had hung up and was dropping into the seat opposite her.