Rachel hadn’t longed for a man, hadn’t craved a man’s touch this bad since . . . since ever. She hooked one leg around him, pushed against his erection as she pushed her breast into his hand.
Flynn moaned into her mouth, and he suddenly grabbed her by both hips, lifted her off the floor as if she weighed nothing, and pushed her back against the counter as he pushed himself between her legs so that she could feel his erection sliding up and down and around her sex.
Rachel sank her hands into his gorgeous hair and she wished to heaven he’d unhook her bra.
But Flynn lazily lifted his head, brushed a long strand of curly hair away that had been caught between their mouths. “I believe it’s yours,” he said, and kissed her forehead as he let go her hips and let her legs ease toward the floor.
“Your mobile,” he said, and she realized that the Vivaldi she was hearing in her head was actually in her bag.
Her eyes flew open—no one had ever called her on that phone, and she imagined her mother. Dad. Something had happened to Dad—she jerked around frantically fumbled for it, yanking it from her bag. She punched more than one button before she found the one that answered.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly, heard the voice on the other end, and felt her heart sink like a rock.
Chapter Nineteen
“Rachel?” Myron said, his voice full of concern.
How embarrassing. Rachel could die, right where she stood. Why was he calling her? Why, of all the times he could have called her, of the months and weeks and years, did it have to be now? “Uh . . . yeah. Hey,” she said quietly, and self-consciously yanked down her skirt.
“Jesus, where are you? I’ve been worried sick!”
“What?” she asked dumbly and stole a quick glimpse of Flynn over her shoulder. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips, looking at her. His hair, she noticed, was all messed up, and she vaguely remembered running her fingers through it.
“I said, where are you? I’ve been out of my mind worried, Rachel.”
“Since when?” she asked in a near hiss as she turned away from Flynn and walked into the other room, gaining a distance of oh, generously speaking, six feet.
“Since I came over to make a sandwich and you were gone, that’s when. You’re never out this late—it’s almost three in the morning!”
“Thanks for the time check, but I happen to be out at the moment,” she whispered harshly.
“What do you mean, out?” Myron demanded just as harshly.
“What do you think I mean?” she whispered, and glanced over her shoulder again. Now Flynn was at the sink, cleaning up. Great. Party over. Thanks, Myron!
She walked deeper into the living area for a little privacy to tell Myron what he could do with his stupid sandwich, but Flynn could still hear everything she was saying.
“You mean . . . you’re on a date?”
Myron’s voice, she couldn’t help noticing, was full of disbelief. Rachel sighed to the ceiling. “In a manner of speaking, yes I am.”
“Wow,” he said, as if trying to wrap his mind around what was obviously a hugely improbable concept. “I mean, I didn’t know—”
“Right. So really, thanks for your concern, but—”
“Who is it?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Who are you out with? Is it that guy from the bar?” God, he was so irritatingly . . . incredulous. Was it so unbelievable? Rachel Lear on a date?
“Is it?” he asked again.
“Wait . . . what are you talking about?” she asked, confused now.
“You know, the guy who was in the ladies’ room.”
“He was not in the ladies’ room, Myron!”
“It’s that dude?” he said, skipping right over the ladies’ room into incredulity again.
The whole thing was just making her really, really furious. “Yes, that dude. Look, I really have to go—”
“Hey, did you get any salami this week? I’m standing here looking, but I don’t see any.”
If she’d been in a B-movie about the chick who goes off the deep end, this would be the point Rachel would take the butcher knife and chop Myron into teeny-tiny pieces and feed him to Valicielo’s little dog. She hung up on him. And then she fussed with the phone for a moment until she had figured out how to turn it completely off, and screwed up her courage. She turned around to face Flynn with a huge smile on her face. So huge and frozen into place that it hurt her cheeks. “Friend,” she said, shrugging.
Flynn just gave her a wry smile and walked back into the kitchen to fetch her bag. “I understand if you’re with someone—”
“No! I’m not with anyone!” she insisted, and really, the irony was not lost on her that she was, for the first time in her life, desperate not to have a boyfriend. “I don’t even have a dog, Flynn. That guy is just an old—” The word dick came to mind. “He’s just an old friend, and he was worried that I wasn’t home.” She didn’t add that he was worried because she apparently had no life, but perhaps more important, that she was out of salami.