Summer Games by Elizabeth Lowell Page B

could have been because she kept being distracted by Cord. He used the chopsticks with a dexterity that fascinated her. Divided between admiration and exasperation, she watched him eat. When yet another succulent shrimp escaped her, exasperation won out.
    “Ruddy slippery beast,” she muttered.
    Deftly he picked up the shrimp in his chopsticks and held it near her lips. Without hesitation she opened her mouth and took the morsel. He looked hungrily at the white gleam of her teeth, the pink tip of her tongue, the sensual fullness of her lips as they closed for an instant around his chopsticks.
    The memory of a twilight hill and the taste of Raine on his tongue stabbed through Cord and settled deep inside, the potent heaviness and ache of male hunger. With an effort he looked away from her mouth. Tonight he wanted to prove to her that he was a gentleman as well as a man trained in violence. He wanted to seduce her in more than a merely physical way.
    He wanted her to trust him.
    Everything about Raine told him that Justin Chandler-Smith’s youngest daughter was neither worldly nor wild when it came to men.
    But she was wise. There was no trust in her.
    Anger uncurled in Cord’s gut. That kind of bone-deep distrust was learned, usually with pain. He wondered which bastard had hurt her, and why, and how deeply. Deeply enough that she shied from Cord’s admiration, his compliments, his touch.
    Bleakly he wondered if he had time to gain her trust before the Summer Olympics were over. Then he told himself it shouldn’t matter. He had no business touching her, much less wanting her with a force that grew with every breath he took. But he did want her. He ached to be the chopsticks sliding in and out of her mouth.
    With a silent inner curse, he forced himself to concentrate on food rather than her tempting, sultry lips.
    “Mmmm,” she said, neatly cleaning her chopsticks with her lips. “This shrimp sauce is magic. What’s in it?”
    “You don’t want to know.”
    She blinked. “I don’t?”
    “Nope.”
    “What if there’s curry in it?”
    “There isn’t. Trust me.”
    She smiled. “Pass the shrimp, please.”
    By the time dinner was over, Raine was thinking of ways to loosen her silk belt without getting caught at it. For the last ten minutes she had been telling herself that she would take just one more bite of crisp vegetable or one more rainbow bite of shrimp. But each bite had demanded another from a complementary dish, foods and flavors blended with such sophistication that the palate always wanted just one more taste.
    Finally she groaned and put her chopsticks on their ivory rest. “No more.”
    Cord smiled. A woman could say polite words and push food around her plate, but only someone who truly enjoyed the flavors would have eaten with Raine’s enthusiasm.
    “Are you sure?” he asked. “If you’re tired of using chopsticks, I can feed you.”
    Absently she flexed her right hand. Tiny little muscles ached with the unaccustomed strain of holding chopsticks. “You could feed me,” she agreed with a crooked smile, “but could you digest it for me?”
    Laughing, he shook his head and lifted his right hand slightly. The waiter reappeared and cleared the table with elegance and speed.
    “Dessert?” Cord asked, taking Raine’s hand again.
    “Impossible.”
    “Coffee? Liqueur?”
    “Would you believe a walk to the car? If I don’t get moving, I’m going to pop.”
    Smiling, he spoke to the waiter. A few moments later the man returned with two pieces of hand-dipped chocolate candy wrapped in gold foil. They were perched like gems on a sterling silver tray.
    The waiter also had a Styrofoam cup of coffee laced with Armagnac.
    She barely managed not to laugh out loud at the odd marriage of plastic and sterling. Laughter and pleasure fizzed through her. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the food, most likely it was the man who tucked her into the sleek sports car with hard hands and a gentle