Taste of Passion (Madaris Novels) (15 page)

“Just because you’re you,” he murmured huskily close to her ear.

“Oh. In that case . . .” She wrapped her arms around his neck and on tiptoe joined his mouth back with hers. And when he slid his tongue deep inside her mouth he could actually feel her body ooze into his like hot, melted solder. And like before, a shudder passed through him.

Moments later when she leaned away from him, she smiled into his eyes and whispered, “And that, Jacob, was because you are
you
.”

He gave a low laugh and pulled her into his arms, liking the feel of having her there as aways. There was a time he’d thought the ranch was all he’d ever need but she had proven him wrong.

The ring of the phone intruded and without removing his hand from around her waist he used the other hand to reach across his desk to answer it. “Hello.”

“Jake, this is Rasheed.”

A smile touched Jake’s lips. Sheik Rasheed Valdemon was someone Jake considered a friend. “Rasheed, how are you?”

“I’m doing well. Did I call at a bad time?”

Jake’s hand moved from around Diamond’s waist to glide up and down the length of her spine before returning to curve around her waist, pulling her even closer to him. He kissed one corner of her lips before saying to Rasheed, “No, in fact it’s a
good
time. What’s up?”

“I’ll be visiting your country again in a couple of weeks and was wondering if I could stay at the cabin for a few days. I need time alone to contemplate an important decision I need to make.”

Jake’s eyes scanned Diamond’s features and zeroed in on her lips before speaking into the phone. “Sounds serious.”

“It is one of the most serious decisions I’ll be making in my entire lifetime.”

Jake lifted a brow and swiftly switched his concentration to the call. “In that case, the cabin is yours for as long as you need it, my friend. I’ll make the arrangements. It will be well stocked when you get here.”

“Thanks, Jake.”

After hanging up the phone Jake pulled Diamond even closer into his arms, smiled, and said, “The sheik is coming for a visit.”

“So, what do you think?” Luke asked.

Mackenzie lifted her gaze from her plate and glanced over at him and smiled. And not for the first time, nor the second, he thought she had beautiful eyes. Ebony eyes. Deep, dark, and sexy. They were the kind a man would want to be looking into while reaching an orgasm of the most intense kind. The kind a man would want to wake up to each and every morning.

He swallowed deeply. Hell, why would he think of something like that? He wasn’t someone who contemplated a future of waking up beside a woman in the mornings.

“I think you’re wasting your time on the rodeo circuit. You’d fit perfectly in anyone’s kitchen, Luke. Evidently, you were one of your great-grandmother’s most ardent students.”

With difficulty he transferred his attention off her eyes and back to the conversation. He couldn’t stop the smile that touched his lips. “No, in fact on several occasions she almost kicked me out of the cooking classes. Blade was her most devoted student.”

He watched her lift perfectly arched brows. “Blade?”

“Yes. He figured he could use the expertise of how to whip up a good meal as a tool of seduction.”

Now it was her time to smile and the one she bestowed upon him sent sensations straight to his gut. And before
his stomach could recover she picked up her wine glass and took a sip. He couldn’t help how his gaze zeroed in on her lips and the way they touched the rim of the glass, reminding him of how those same lips had been devoured by his mouth earlier.

“And I thought it was men who loved women who could cook and not the other way around,” she said, putting the glass back in place beside her plate.

Luke grinned. “Blade figured anything was possible and wanted to cover all bases.”

She studied her plate for a moment before lifting her gaze and asking, “Do you think Blade will ever settle down and get married?”

Luke chuckled. “Well, I wouldn’t put my money on that happening any time soon. He’s determined to remain a devout bachelor and break Uncle Jake’s record as the oldest Madaris to ever marry. Some of us in the family don’t consider his first marriage as valid since it didn’t last that long.”

She nodded. “And what about you, Luke? What do you plan to do in regards to marriage?”

He met her gaze thinking that question was the perfect opening for a conversation he needed to have with her. He knew what he wanted from her and he also knew the parameters he intended to stay within to achieve his goal. “I plan to give Blade a good run for his money for that same record. In other words, I don’t plan to marry until I’m too old to sit on the back of a horse.”

There, he’d said it. Directly to her. She had heard it straight from him. There could not be any misunderstandings about expectations. No misconstrued notions or wrong assumptions. If she was a woman with marriage on her mind he had just informed her that he was not a candidate. Prime or otherwise.

She looked away from him to gaze out the window before returning her eyes to meet his. She smiled lightly and said softly, “I feel the same way, Luke. Although for
me, my ability to sit on a horse won’t be the determining factor for marriage.” She then went back to eating her meal.

He should have been overjoyed at her words since it took a lot of the pressure off. But still, he picked up his wine glass and asked, “What will be the determining factor?”

She shrugged and lifted her gaze again and he immediately felt sensual awareness skitter across his skin to the extent that it felt like a physical caress. He broke eye contact with her to glance down at his arm, just to make sure he was imagining things. Satisfied that he was, he glanced back at her and still felt that pull, that unexplained electrical charge that floated across the table between them. By the darkening of her eyes he suspected that she felt it too, but he doubted she would mention it.

She tossed her head back as if that act alone would negate what was taking place between them. For what it was worth, he believed that sexual tension was sexual tension and for them it seemed to be all over the place. “I’m not sure there’s a determining factor,” she finally responded. “I discovered five years ago that love isn’t all that it was cracked up to be.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment and then he leaned back in the chair and decided it was time to ask. “Who was he?”

“He?”

“Yes,
he
. The man responsible for making you feel that way.”

Mackenzie felt her heart lurch in response to Luke’s question.

“Why do you want to know? He doesn’t concern you.”

Luke gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I disagree. He does concern me. Even after five years, his memory . . . or his nightmare is the reason I can’t make it to first base with you.”

Mackenzie broke eye contact with him to glance out the window again. He was so wrong. He’d already made first
base, even second, and was slowly inching his way toward third. But the problem for him was the fact that she would not let him make it to home base. He would strike out before that happened.

“It’s no big deal,” she said, and regretted the words the moment she’d said them. The lifting of his brows reminded her that she had declared those words off limits to him, and so he was declaring the same for her.

“Let me be the judge of that, Mac.”

For whatever reason, she decided to let him be just that. Maybe then he would understand the depth of her reluctance . . . her refusal to let another man into her life, the way Lawrence had gotten into it and messed it up. She pushed her plate aside, took another sip of her wine, and then leaned back in her chair. To relax. Share her soul. Relive her pain.

“His name is Lawrence Dixon and we met the first day I began working for the Rivers, Salvatore, and Graham law firm in Baton Rouge, right out of law school. I felt lucky to have been chosen to work for such a prestigious firm. Lawrence was already employed there, working his way up to the top toward a partnership in a few years. I thought he was brilliant, intelligent beyond reason, debonair to a fault, and handsome as sin.”

She chuckled slightly. “He probably won cases just on his looks alone. He could walk into a courtroom and grab the attention of any woman there. And usually he did. I was young, inexperienced, and felt totally elated that I was the one to capture his interest. We dated for two years.”

Luke nodded. “What happened?”

Mackenzie sighed deeply. Even after revealing all of that history, she actually considered not telling him. Not that it was still too awfully painful, but because a part of her was somehow convinced she should have seen the signs. How could a man be involved with two women and the other not know it? “What happened is that I discovered there was another woman. The kicker is that I didn’t make that discovery until a few weeks before his wedding
to her. She lived in Dallas so she never had reason to drop into the office unexpectedly. And he knew exactly when she would be coming to town. For him it was very simple to rearrange our schedule to make it work for them. I was very flexible. And she was very rich. All I had to offer him was my heart. She could offer him a place in her father’s law firm, the possibility of a political career, and to be set financially for the rest of his life. He grabbed all that over love.”

“That was almost five years ago. I assume right before we met that night.”

“Yes. Standfield, Di Meglio, and Mahoney had only been open a few months. That bit I handled for Ashton that night in Houston at the auction had been the firm’s first official assignment.”

“And you haven’t seen or heard from the guy since?” Luke asked.

She smiled weakly. “I’ve run into him a few times at several law conferences, but I’ve managed to avoid speaking to him directly. And he calls me from time to time just to gloat whenever he wins a big case.”

“He never talked about the two of you getting back together?”

“No, that would have been impossible anyway. I can forgive and forget some things and others I can’t. Besides, he needs to show himself as a dedicated family man.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my understanding from mutual friends that he’s thinking about running for political office in Texas. He hasn’t officially announced his candidacy, but they expect him to.”

Sighing deeply, she ran a hand through her hair, pushing a bang off her forehead. “So there you have it, Luke Madaris, the story of my love life and the end of it as well.”

“I don’t think so.”

She watched his eyes light up in a challenge as he pushed his chair back and stood. “Dixon is something
that I definitely am not,” he said in a husky tone as he came around the table.

She tilted her head back to look up at him as he stood beside her chair, purposely invading her space. The depths of his dark eyes were filled with so much intensity it almost took her breath away; and the broad, muscular shoulders beneath his shirt were provoking images in her mind and she’d rather not go there. Especially since they were naked images.

“And what is he that you’re not?” she asked, forcing the words from between lips she wanted to use to kiss the underside of his jaw with instead.

“A fool.”

To Luke’s way of thinking, his statement had left Mac at a loss for words, and for a heartbeat of a moment, his dark eyes locked with her darker ones. She said she wasn’t ready to move forward into an affair with him, but he planned to continue his crusade to get her there. By the time they shared a bed, which he figured would be sooner rather than later, she would be wondering why it took them so long.

“Have you been intimate with anyone since Dixon, Mac?”

Taking a deep breath, she said in an agitated tone, “Do you think that’s any of your business?”

He smiled and thought if she only knew. It seemed that he would have to break it down to her. “Yes, I’m making it my business. So have you?”

Reluctant to admit the truth, Mackenzie didn’t say anything for a moment and then she said, “No.”

He smiled. “That’s good.”

The man was confusing her. “And just why is that good?” she asked. As soon as the question was spoken she wished there was some way she could take it back. Especially when she saw the heated desire that suddenly formed in his eyes.

“It’s good because I plan on giving you a taste of passion that’s almost five years overdue. I’m talking about real passion, Mac. The kind that will get you as ready for an involvement with me as you’d ever be.”

Mackenzie’s eyebrows rose, thinking Luke couldn’t be serious. How had they gone from building friendship instead of a relationship to tasting passion? She took a deep breath. He looked serious. Dead serious. That meant it was time for her to set him straight.

“Didn’t you hear anything I’ve said? Were you not listening to what I shared with you about Lawrence? If not, then let me spell things out for you, Luke. I don’t do casual involvements. I detest affairs. At this stage of my life I’m not even interested in happily-ever-after. I don’t need a man to sustain. I’ve gotten set in my ways. I like not having to worry about raised toilet seats, stinky socks, or dishes left in the sink—although I will admit that since being here you’ve proven that not all men are guilty of those things. But still, the fact remains that I like my life the way it is. Don’t you?”