Tori Carrington - Wicked Pleasures

Linc shifted in the booth. So she did recall their encounter. That pleased him.

“Nothing happened,” he said.

She blinked to look at him. “Pardon me?”

His gaze locked with hers and for a moment, everything seemed to stop.

He wasn’t sure what it was about this one woman, but she seemed capable of seeing him in a way he hadn’t been seen in a good long time. And it both calmed and agitated him.

“Well,” he said quietly, sure his own lips were doing a bit of quirking. “Outside the one, um, thing…”

She laughed.

The sound was a welcome and sexy surprise. It told him she wasn’t sorry about what had passed between them, while leaving the door open for perhaps something more. Still, it spoke of her relief that her memory wasn’t faulty.

“Nothing?” she asked, a decidedly suggestive glint emerging in her green eyes.

His pants grew tighter. “Yet.”

“So are you going to sit here with him or wait on him?”

Linc hadn’t heard the irritating teen waitress approach until she popped her gum and intruded on the moment with her question.

He watched Regina’s smile widen as she reached down to take off her apron and fold it on the table in front of her. “I’m hungry. How about you?” she asked him.

Suddenly he was ravenous. And not for anything on the menu, either…

THE NIGHT WAS PLEASANT enough compared to the recent heat wave they’d been experiencing lately, and the air was filled with the scent of flowers. So much unlike summers in Maine when evenings like these might require a sweater.

Regina couldn’t remember a time when she’d so thoroughly enjoyed a man’s company doing something as simple as taking a walk after a meal.

“Haven’t you been on your feet all day?” Linc asked.

They both looked down at her sensible, thick-soled shoes, reminding her she still wore her uniform. Funny, she half expected to be clad in something comfortably appealing, based on how she felt.

“Yes.”

“Would you prefer to go someplace where we can sit?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m actually enjoying a walk longer than the length of the diner. Besides, this is nice.”

Silence fell between them, something it seemed to do often. Linc didn’t appear to be a man much for talk. And she liked that about him. Liked that there could be quiet without either of them feeling the need to fill it.

And for the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt…safe somehow. As if she didn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder, waiting for the shadow dogging her heels to rise up and suffocate her.

“So, are you from Colorado Springs?” she asked.

“No. New York.”

“City or State?”

“Technically, both.”

“I can’t say as I’ve ever met anyone actually from New York City.”

“Well, you can now.”

He had a great smile. One that seemed to surprise him as much as it did her whenever he used it.

“Which part?” she asked.

He hesitated for a heartbeat. Something that might go unnoticed in mixed company, but that she made a mental note of. “The Bronx.”

“I’m from Maine,” she offered without being asked, surprising herself. The story she’d concocted to protect herself had her from Boise. Why had she just told him the truth?

“I thought you said you were from Idaho?”

“Did I?” She must have shared more than she realized last night. What else had she said? She hoped not too much. She’d been so good over the past year and a half. So why was she revealing so much about herself now? And why to him?

“Yes.”

She tried for a casual laugh. “I must have been really drunk.”

“And you told me you were from Idaho because you were afraid I’d look you up?”

“Something like that.” She moved closer to him as another couple approached from the opposite direction. Her arm brushed his, sending shivers across her skin. “So, you know I work at a diner…”

“And are studying, if the books I saw you poring over earlier are any indication.”

She’d stowed the textbooks in her car before they went for their walk. “Yes, I’m studying to become a registered nurse. I volunteer ten hours a week at Beth El.”

He didn’t look surprised.

“So what do you do?”

“Me?”

“Mmm.”

“What do you think I do?”

“If I had to guess…” She looked over his close-fitting T-shirt and jeans with an appreciative eye. “Personal trainer?”

His chuckle filled the night. “A personal trainer?”

“Yes. Why is that amusing?”

“So, I look dense?”

“What, are you saying personal trainers are stupid?”

He didn’t respond, merely shook his head and continued walking.

“So what do you do then?”

“I’m in security.”

She was a little more careful with her response this time. “Like a night watchman?”

His chuckle tickled her ear. “Slightly more advanced.”

“Oh?”

His answer was another smile.

“Okay. A mystery.”

“Hopefully one you don’t feel compelled to solve.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to do an internet search on you.” His expression sharpened. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

A heartbeat of silence and then he offered, “Maybe you should be.”

His words struck her as odd, and her footsteps slowed until she’d stopped altogether.

OKAY, ON the moron-o-meter, that comment ranked somewhere between asinine and flat-out stupid.

“I’m just saying that in this day and age, well, checking someone out may not be a bad idea. The technology’s there—it’s dumb not to take advantage of it.”

“Is that what you do? Do you perform background checks?”

“No.”

She’d resumed walking and he slowed his steps to allow her to catch up.

“I’m a partner in a private security firm. We handle various aspects of a company’s needs.”

“And before that?”

“I was a Marine.”

He kept his eyes trained forward but felt her gaze on his profile for a long moment.

“I can see that,” she said quietly.

He looked at her.

“My father was a Marine,” she said.

He hadn’t known that. Of course, her background material merely noted the basics: father deceased when she was six.

“Once a Marine, always a Marine,” he said.

The light briefly left her eyes. “Yes, well, then my dad is a Marine with wings. He was killed in combat when I was young.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” She looked down at her feet and then at him. “What about your dad?”

He shrugged.

“Would you rather not talk about it?”

“There’s really nothing to talk about. I don’t know my father outside the name on my birth certificate.”

A long silence and then she asked, “Have you thought of looking for him?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Closure, I suppose.”

“I’m not even sure he knows he has a son.”

“Don’t you think he deserves to know?”

“What?” He stared at her.

“I guess I worded that wrong—wouldn’t you want to know if you had a son out there?”

He’d never quite looked at it that way before.

The truth was, his mother had never really mentioned his father outside of saying he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him. He had been a one-night stand. And both his parents had been no more than sixteen at the time. Linc had been raised by his aunt.

He hadn’t realized he’d spoken the words out loud until Regina asked, “What happened to your mom?”

Lord. Had he ever told anyone this before? He must have at some point. But damned if he could remember. Which made it doubly interesting that he was sharing the information so easily with Regina.