Barely Breathing

Chapter Nine

Finally, Friday arrived.

Dinner was ready and so was I when I answered Kane's knock on my door.

Tonight he'd ditched the dress pants and collared shirt in favor of his usual attire–dark, worn jeans and a black t-shirt. He wore a weathered black leather jacket and what looked like steel-toed black boots.

"You look good," I said, reaching through the doorway and grabbing the two open sides of his jacket. "Really good. Get in here."

His dark eyes swept me up and down as he grabbed me around the waist. I leaned up and he kissed me softly, his hands gripping my waist firmly in a reminder of our orgasmic make-out session in his office.

"Smells good," he said, looking toward the kitchen. All I smelled was his the leather of his jacket.

"You're thinking about eating?" I looked up at him and ran a hand over his big, muscular shoulder and around to his neck.

"Fuck yeah, I am." He ran his hands down to my backside and squeezed. "You gonna let me have dessert first? Spread those legs for me again like a bad girl?"

My body warmed and I felt myself getting wet. His touch, his words...his very presence turned me on and made me bolder than I'd ever been.

"If that's bad, I don't want to be good," I said in his ear. He squeezed harder, until I moaned.

"To the bedroom, then," he said, his commanding tone inciting me further. I was hot everywhere, my arousal burning beneath the surface in a simmer that would probably boil over as soon as his mouth touched my skin.

Boil...wait.

"Do bad girls turn off the heat on dinner first to avoid fires?" I whispered.

Kane's low laugh made me smile. He relaxed his hold on me.

"Let's go have the dinner you made first. We've got all night, right?"

My stomach flipped with excitement. All night. Hell yes.

I turned toward the kitchen, giving him a coy look over my shoulder. "We have until ten. I've got another date coming then."

With a single, unamused note of laughter, he smacked my ass, making me jump.

"Not fucking funny, Viv."

"You like chicken parmesan?" I asked, smiling.

"I'll like anything you made."

Chicken parm was my standby. I'd made it many times and gotten compliments. But I still felt a twinge of nervousness as I plated it and set the dishes on the table. I passed Kane a corkscrew and he opened the bottle of wine I had chilling on the table.

He poured us each a glass of wine and we sat down. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. There was something different about him tonight. Wearing the clothes he was comfortable in, sitting casually across from me in my kitchen, he seemed more comfortable. More himself.

We both took a bite and he remarked about how good the food was. Then we ate in silence for a bit until I asked a question that had been nagging at me since the last time I saw him at Six.

"How did you know Marcus's name?"

"Marcus Anderson?"

I nodded. "You said his name but I hadn't told you his name."

"I know him. He's a client."

"Oh." I considered that for a second. "So he rents suites at the club?"