Born to Be Wild (8 page)

“I usually call them accidents or problems. I’m not much on either of them.”

“Well, I can see you just haven’t had the right sort of surprises.” He grinned. “Dara, could I ask you just to
trust me on this? It will only take a couple of hours. Please?”

His plea was too plaintive to ignore. He looked like a little kid, all his hopes right there in his big brown eyes. “And I get to stay outside?”

Zach breathed a sigh of relief, restraining the sudden urge to kiss her. She was going to go with him. He hadn’t been sure he’d pull it off. “Yeah, this is the perfect way to enjoy a day like today.”

Her wariness visibly increased. “Enjoy? And what do you mean by ‘way’? I thought you said—”

“There isn’t a law saying all business has to be conducted in an office, or for that matter, has to be boring and dull, is there?”

She flushed. He loved that.

“My work isn’t dull and boring,” she defended. “But—”

“No buts. You’ll need to change clothes, though.” He gestured to the simple skirt and blouse she wore. Only Dara would wear office clothes to work alone on the weekend. “Do you want me to follow you home?” Dilated pupils now accompanied her flushed cheeks. “Why Dart,” he admonished. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you might prefer an indoor … meeting.” Zach easily deflected the punch she delivered to his shoulder. “Okay, I’m easy. You want to be outside, I could find a nice secluded spot.” He wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid her elbow before it jabbed into his ribs. His wince quickly changed to laughter.

After a last-ditch effort at frowning at him, she gave up and laughed too. “You are completely incorrigible, you know that?”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told. But I can usually control it better.” He leaned closer. “Something about being around you, I guess.”

Dara snorted. “Well, you certainly never worked too hard to control yourself when we were kids.”

Zach laughed. “True, true. But back then I was a jerky kid who had no idea what to do with a girl who intrigued me.”

“I intrigued you?” She smiled dryly. “You had a funny way of showing it.”

“Yeah, well, at the time, I don’t think I realized what made me do all those things to you.”

“And now you do?”

“From the moment I opened your office door and saw you standing there, I knew exactly what made me do all those stupid things as a boy.”

Dara feigned shock. “You mean it wasn’t because your parents dropped you on your head as a child?”

Zach chuckled. “No. At least not that I know of.” After a few seconds during which his body raced well ahead of his thoughts, his smile slowly faded. A moment later, hers did too. “Can I ask you something?”

She nodded.

“If you had been on a picnic today, is there someone special you would have gone with?”

He’d taken her by surprise again. Good.

“You tried to get me to answer this once before.”

He shrugged. “Incorrigible. Your word.”

“No, no one special,” she said quietly. Her smile was shy, and completely captivating.

He reached over and pushed the tousled hair from her forehead. “I’m not a boy anymore, Dart,” he said. “I
still do some stupid things every once in a while, but I’m fairly certain I can make it through the rest of the afternoon acting like an adult. I can even throw in the picnic. Will you come with me?”

She didn’t answer right away, and those few uncertain seconds sent another shot of adrenaline through his system. Just being around her, laughing with her, talking with her. Taunting her, teasing her … and Lord knew, kissing her. He never knew what to expect, like an ongoing thrill, a challenge of the sort he’d never confronted before.

“Okay. And if you want to know the truth, within seconds after I saw you again, there was no doubt in my mind you were an adult.”

Zach felt his mouth drop open. He slid his hand to the back of her neck and tugged her closer to him. “Yeah. Now, instead of a hormone-confused boy stumbling around after you, you’ve got a completely intrigued adult male on your hands. Any ideas what you want to do with him?”

He brushed his mouth against hers, waiting for her, knowing she had to be part of the decision. Wanting her fully willing or not at all. And needing her to choose him more than he could have thought possible.

She looked in his eyes, then lifted her hand to his neck. Her gaze dropped to his mouth the split instant before she closed the remaining distance.

There were no preliminaries. The kiss began hot and wild and progressed swiftly from there. Her mouth and tongue weren’t shy about finding his. She took what she wanted, and Zach willingly gave it to her. His hands dropped to her shoulders. His tongue moved deep into
her mouth as he slid his palms down across her breasts, groaning as he felt her respond against his fingertips.

His hands drifted to her waist, and he’d half pulled her across the console separating them and into his lap when she began to pull back.

“Zach,” she murmured against his mouth. “Zach.”

He pulled his mouth from hers, then traced kisses across her jaw until his face was tucked into the sweet-smelling crook of her neck. “Yeah?” he said roughly.

She leaned back until she could look at him, and brushed a tangle of his hair from her face. Zach felt his body twitch in response to the one strand that clung to her lips. Again, the evidence of him on her rode hard against the need for restraint. He reached up and tugged it loose.

“What are we doing here, Zach?”

“Is there somewhere you’d rather go?” His smile was lost in the hoarseness of his voice.

“You know what I mean,” she answered softly. “What’s happening? I’m not … I mean, I don’t usually …”

“You don’t usually jump men in your car?” The banter came naturally to him, but he had to work at the casual tone. He didn’t want to say anything serious because he might screw it up, yet he couldn’t just joke around with her. What he was feeling was no joking matter. Not this time. For the first time.

“No, I don’t,” she answered with a hint of sexy confidence he hadn’t seen before. “Well, not on Saturdays anyway.” With studied nonchalance, she blew on her fingernails then held them out in front of her for inspection. “I usually reserve car sex for alternate Tuesdays.”

Zach almost choked, then burst out laughing. “Damn, and here I was thinking I was going to be able to live out my autoerotic fantasies with you.” He pulled her close and whispered, “You busy this Tuesday? I’ll rent a limo.”

Now it was her turn to laugh, making it impossible for him to resist taking another kiss.

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” he whispered, pulling her head down to his again. He kissed her softly, gently, her responding moan followed closely by one of his. He pulled back while he still could and rested his head on the back of the seat. “Actually, I’m really enjoying what we’re doing,” he admitted. “Best business meeting I’ve ever had.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her again, wanting to drag out the moment, to keep her off balance, keep her wanting more. He tasted her lips, her chin, her throat. Her arms circled his neck, and she returned his attentions. They were quickly lost again, the teasing kisses swiftly consumed by hungry ones.

Many seconds later, Dara pulled away. Their gazes caught and held, the silence only disturbed by their deep breathing. He lifted his hand and traced her cheekbone. She let her fingers weave into the hair against his neck. The silence spun out as they continued to stare at each other.

It hit him how infrequently, if ever, he made true eye contact with a woman. And when the bond went both ways … It was an amazingly intimate act. He’d never felt quite so open and vulnerable. Going stark naked in public would have been easier.

A tentative smile crossed her lips, but faltered a bit
when she spoke. “Zach, about this … whatever it is we’re doing.” Her smile strengthened when he raised his eyebrows. “I’m serious. I think we should discuss it. I’m not sure if this is wise. Especially if I’m going to be working with you”—she raised her hand at his questioning look—“however briefly. We have to set some boundaries.”

“I don’t do real well with boundaries, Dart.”

Dara started to talk again, but Zach cupped her chin and pressed his thumb gently against her lip. It quivered at his touch. “And I think we could set all the boundaries we wanted to and it would be a wasted effort.” He rubbed his thumb back and forth. She gasped. “Be honest, Dara. Don’t you?”

She sighed, blowing warm, sweet air against the pad of his thumb that he felt all the way to his toes.

She leaned away. “I guess I just can’t figure out what it is you want from me. Besides the obvious,” she added at his incredulous look.

He wondered if she’d asked herself the same question. He was trying hard not to. “Do we have to make a list? Analyze the whys and hows? I know you’re a responsible, sensible person and, while you probably have a hard time believing it, so am I.”

Her lifted eyebrow spoke volumes about her feelings on that subject. Zach had to laugh. He’d dated his share of women, some from different countries, different cultures.
The one similarity was that most of them were as seduced by what he did for a living as by him personally. He’d never spent too much time trying to separate that perception. After all, the end result was the same, right?

But now … well, he knew Dara was turned on by him. Lord knew, the feeling was intensely mutual. But he couldn’t recall a time he’d felt this need to defend what he did, or who he was. Dara wasn’t hiding from the truth that something was happening between them. But she’d made it clear from the start that it wasn’t his occupation that intrigued her.

Well, he wasn’t going to sit there and defend himself. Besides, she’d always been more of a show-me person. He doubted that had changed. Which was fine by him. He’d always been more of a do-it person, himself.

“Come with me today.” It was neither question or command. “No more pressure. I’ll let you set the pace.”

She shifted from his lap and settled back in her seat. He let her go with more regret than he’d expected to feel.

“I said I would,” she responded finally, after adjusting the air-conditioning vents and putting on her seat belt. She looked over at him. “Lead the way.”

The tousled hair and kiss-softened lips that accompanied her all-business tone and posture were damn erotic. “I’m parked around the corner. I’ll follow you home and wait while you change.” His body was still rock-hard. The image of her undressing did little to help that. “You do own a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, right?”

The dry smile crept back. “Sure. Hip-huggers and flower-power T-shirts are still in style, right?”

Zach laughed. “Shop that often do you? I don’t care
what you wear.”
I’ll want to take them off you just the same
. “Dress for comfort.”

She nodded, and he ducked out of the car before she could change her mind. Before he hauled her back in his lap and said to hell—or heaven, actually—with the rest of the afternoon he’d planned.

Dara placed her sneakered foot on the running board and hiked herself up into the cab of Zach’s truck. George Thorogood blared from the speakers.

“Born to be wild and bad to the bone.” She shot him a tentative look. “How appropriate.”

Zach turned the volume down to a level that wouldn’t damage their hearing, pulled a U-turn in the middle of her quiet neighborhood street and headed back out to the main highway.

“Nice house,” he commented once they were heading west on Route 50. “When did you buy it?”

Dara smiled at his automatic assumption that she wasn’t a renter. “About four years ago. I shared a condo in Fairfax while I was in college.” She paused, not sure how much she wanted him to know. It was obvious Dane had never spoken of that time in her life to Zach. “Eventually I bought out the other half,” she went on carefully. “I liked the place and hadn’t really planned on moving. But mortgage rates dropped and resale values finally went up, so …”

“A sound investment.”

Dara glanced over at him, unsure if he’d meant that as a jab. “So, you never got a place of your own?” He
darted her a quick look. The shadowed memories fled as she smiled sweetly. She could still parry with the best.

He didn’t seem the least embarrassed. “Well, you probably remember that my folks were a bit older than most. Dad’s asthma and Mom’s arthritis sort of hit an all-time low when I was in college. They decided to retire to New Mexico right after I graduated, so I took over the house.”

“Dane never really said much.” She didn’t say that she’d spent a good part of that time of her life sitting beside a bed in the intensive care unit of the hospital, wondering how life could be so incredibly unfair, for once not too interested in what was happening in her brother’s life. She forced the memories back into their dark corner. “How are they doing?”

“Better than ever,” he said. “Mom finally edged Dad out of the top three at the golf club.” He glanced over at her briefly. “They started letting her play with the men when she beat the club pro. The ex-club pro.”

Dara laughed. “Now I know which half of the gene pool you came from.”

His laughter joined hers. “Yep. And damn proud of it. How about you? Your mom and stepdad still living in North Carolina?”

“Yes. Retired life seems to suit them. Mom is heavily involved in community projects, and Stan seems content to putter around the house and garage.” Yes, her mother was truly content. And who wouldn’t be with a man like Stan? Dependable, always around when you needed him. The riskiest thing he did was to climb onto the roof once a year to put up Christmas lights.

“Another dream come true,” Zach commented.

Dara stared out the window, past the fields to the blue-purple shadow of the mountains on the horizon. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “I guess you could say that.” Her thoughts skipped past the endless heartbreaking cases she dealt with on a regular basis and returned again to that hospital ward. And all those dreams she’d watched die, day after day, including hers and Daniel’s.

The bump of the tires over gravel brought her head up and thankfully gave her something else to think about. They had pulled off into the parking lot of an old boarded-up gas station. “Why are we stopping?”