Had he said she was right? She lowered her hand and looked into his face. She had heard him correctly. Instead of thinking she was a nutcase, he’d apologized for making chauvinist assumptions. Why was this paragon of a man still single?
Jazz began at the piano across the room. Candlelight flickered in the wineglass facets and reflected off the silverware as they ate, and talked, and laughed about music and travel and food. When she imagined dancing with him, his gaze connected with hers, and he stared like he too imagined where they might go next. Just as well that the music stopped and after-dinner espressos appeared alongside their empty bottle. It was their second, wasn’t it?
A tendril of sobriety returned, enough to prod her into one more try for answers. “You promished—promised—if I came to dinner, you’d tell me the truth.”
“I promised I wouldn’t lie.”
“That’s—”
“Different.” He softened his refusal with a smile.
She rolled her eyes. Semantics. But a night of wine and music made it impossible to be annoyed about anything except how little the two bottles affected him.
“While the hemoglobin comment was a juvenile effort, and I deserved to be caught out, the rest of what I said about security breaches stands.”
“You’re so...” Next to her empty glass, her fingers clenched into a fist. “Frustrating.”
“I know.” He ran a finger down her knuckles, the first touch since she’d locked eyes with him at the Spanish Steps. He took his time circling each bump and into the dips, back and forth in an intricate tracery on her hand.
Her fist unfurled as her fingers sought his. While he limited his touch to her hand, she wanted to stretch like a cat, even wiggled her spine in her chair.
“You’re afflicted with a powerful case of curiosity, aren’t you?”
With her voice trapped in her throat, she answered by nodding. She couldn’t look away from where his hand stroked hers against the white tablecloth. Darkness had shrouded their connection at Caddie during the movie, but tonight she could see every caress as his fingers entwined with hers and his thumb circled on her palm.
“Are you curious about...” His voice deepened as if he too were affected. “Us?”
She nodded, speechless with the desire that flowed from the brush of his hands. She imagined his hands moving over her body, looking as strong and golden while unbuttoning her shirt as they did against the candlelit tablecloth. Her chest swelled with each breath as if he were already touching her breasts.
He stood and helped her to her feet. “I look forward to satisfying that curiosity.”
Her daze continued as they walked to her hotel with her hand tucked between his elbow and side, close enough to bump hips or shoulders every third or fourth step. She drifted across the lobby to the elevator. She hadn’t needed to tell him which hotel; he’d admitted his captain had asked her roommate for details under pretext of an anniversary vacation. As if that would’ve fooled Jennifer. It only guaranteed a bucket of questions she’d have to answer back at Caddie.
“Which floor?” he asked.
“Three.” Reality intruded with the ding of the elevator’s antique bell. Reality bit. “I can find my room.” She stepped over the threshold into the old-fashioned metal cage. “Alone.”
“Nevertheless, as a gentleman I shall escort you.” The metal grille rattled closed, locking them in the tiny space.
“Nevertheless?” The elevator jolted to a start, knocking her into his shoulder. “Who replaced Sergeant Wardsen with an English major?” At dinner she’d avoided using his name, but as each ding marked another floor, she had a deadline to remind him of their different ranks.
“What time shall I come tomorrow?” His arm circled her shoulders while his other hand slid the cage door open.
“You’re coming back? What are you, a con-she-, I mean, con-see-erge?” The plastic key card flexed in her grip.
“Your mood for the last five minutes hasn’t changed my mind.” As he steered her along the hall, his grip was firm but not grabby. He wouldn’t be grabby. “I like smart mouths even more than beautiful women who can’t hold their wine.”
His meaning temporarily eluded her, but he’d said beautiful and he’d smiled, so it must have been fine.
Although she didn’t care if he liked her. He couldn’t like her. She was a superior officer. She couldn’t like him. Not that way.
She tried to slip the key card in the slot but couldn’t make the pieces connect. Sounding remarkably like her roommate, a voice in her head buzzed that he’d be able to connect the right parts. When his hand wrapped around her fingers, her knees wobbled from the urge to rest against him, but instead she jerked to the side.
“Whoa, gotcha.” His forearm supported her as he eased the card out of her fingers.
The electronic lock clicked and flashed green. Enter. He couldn’t. She couldn’t.
“Shall we say oh-nine-hundred?” Pushing the door open, he shepherded her past his body. His hand, above the rise of her butt, seared through her clothes like an electrocauterization.
“I’ll bring aspirin,” he said. “Sleep well.”
She turned too slowly to see him before the door shut, but she thought he’d murmured domani ci baciare. What the...he didn’t want to...why not?
She glared, but the closed door didn’t offer an explanation.
And didn’t that Italian bit mean something about tomorrow and kissing?
Chapter Eleven
Theresa perched on the edge of the blue-velvet fainting couch and leafed through her guidebook for the third time. Two glasses of water and twenty push-ups had tied off the slight hangover threading through her head, so she could decline any aspirin Wulf might bring.
If he showed up.
Her book extolled restaurants, nighttime strolls and ideas for la dolce vita, as if every tourist had a partner. So what if these photos of the Roman Forum at night made it harder to turn Wulf away and go forth unaccompanied? To follow the rules, she had to. She’d thank him for last night’s dinner and then politely refuse today’s invitation. No waffling, no sinking in his eyes.
The knock jolted her to her feet. She settled the wide belt of her safari dress, then crossed to the door.
“Good morning.” The standard greeting covered her awkwardness as she drank in the contrast of his square shoulders against the hallway’s cream-patterned wallpaper.
“Good morning to you too.” His deep voice, not the simple words, sent tingles racing from her chest to her fingertips.
She retreated, but he mistook it as an invitation and followed. Knowing he’d pass too close, she abandoned the dim entry for safety in the middle of the well-lit room.
“You picked a good hotel.” His gaze traveled her curves.
“How can you tell?” Until he’d invaded, her room had felt spacious. Now it felt as tight as the littlest two-seat cars that roamed the city. “You haven’t looked at the room.”
He glanced past her to the bed. She’d smoothed the duvet and fluffed all six pillows, but his eyelids lowered as if he could see through her effort to the sheets where she slept.
“It has everything that matters.” His nostrils flared and he closed his eyes. When he opened them, it was as if he’d forced himself away from a ledge. “Ready?”
“Um, no.” Somehow she had to ask him to leave. At the bureau, she fiddled with a lip gloss tube and caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. You need color, her mother would chide. “You don’t really want to sightsee.”
“No.” He stalked closer as she unscrewed the plastic cap. “But I’ll sacrifice for you.”