No kidding. Casey slid back into her seat. “A small village where?” On Mars?
He finally tore his gaze from the can and looked up into her eyes. Familiarity sparked again as she studied his face. What was it about him that made her feel like they’d met before?
“A small village near the Aegean.”
“The Aegean Sea?” He nodded. Well, that sort of made sense, actually. She’d known he wasn’t American. Casey went back to her soup. “So you’re Greek.”
“No, not exactly.” Just when she was sure he wasn’t going to go on, he said, “The…political arena where I’m from is ever changing.”
He had the strangest way of putting words together. Like he was trying too hard to sound normal.
“I see,” she said. Though she really didn’t. She knew the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s had changed the landscape of the Balkan region. Though she could trace her roots to the area and she was good with geography, even she wasn’t sure how countries had been divvied up after the gunfire had ceased. “So what brought you to Oregon? It’s a pretty long trip for you.”
He nodded and reached for a roll. “I was looking for a friend.”
The woman at the club.
Casey swallowed back a spurt of jealousy she didn’t understand and continued eating. But a lump of remorse settled hard in her stomach when she realized what she had to tell him next.
She set down her spoon and wiped her hands on her napkin, laying it next to her bowl on the table. “I don’t know what happened to the woman you were with. When I found you in the parking lot, she was gone.”
He didn’t look up from his food. “She’s fine.”
Just what the heck does that mean?
“How do you know? You were already hurt by the time I reached you. Where did she go?”
Almost as if he realized he’d said too much, he lowered his spoon and met her eyes. She saw knowledge and secrets in his dark gaze. Coupled with the flat-out truth he wasn’t going to explain anything to her.
She leaned back in her chair and narrowed her gaze, trying to look at him objectively and not as the sex symbol she’d been fantasizing about earlier. “You know, I’m starting to think something about you just isn’t right. What did happen to you? Someone attacked you in that parking lot, didn’t they? You weren’t hit by a car. No matter how many times I’ve tried to tell myself that’s all that happened, I know it’s not. I think it’s about time you were honest with me.”
He clasped her arm on the table before she even saw him move, turned her palm up, slid his fingers down the center of her hand and hooked his pinky around her thumb, pinning her hand with ease. Slowly, he circled his index finger over the center of her palm, down to the heel of her hand, lower, until electricity burned along her wrist. Sparks shot straight to her spine and a warm, almost liquid sensation rushed through her entire body.
Her breathing slowed. The pupils of his eyes grew until she found herself staring into pools of obsidian dark as night. And suddenly she had trouble remembering just what it was she’d gotten so worked up over only a moment before. Though she knew there was something. Some reason. Hanging on the edge of her subconscious. Why couldn’t she reach it?
But the thought was overridden by the way he was touching her. So…sinfully delicious and…oddly peaceful.
“Listen carefully,” he said slowly. “I was walking across the parking lot when you turned the corner in your car. It was dark. You were tired. You didn’t see me until it was too late. Your car hit me. You brought me here because you were worried about me and felt guilty. I’m not familiar with American hospitals and didn’t want to go to one if I didn’t have to. You helped me heal. You did a good thing.”
Yeah, that had to be the way it happened. Casey’s heart rate slowed as she relaxed further into his gentle caress. He had the softest fingers. His hands were warm and tantalizing. She couldn’t help but imagine those strokes running over her shoulders, down to her abdomen and finally up to her breasts.
“You want to continue to help me,” he said in an even softer voice. One that sounded like velvet and sandpaper all at the same time and ignited a rush of hormones deep in her body. “Anything I need.”
Of course she needed to help him. His injuries had been her fault. But…anything? Her cheeks warmed. Visions of his naked body laid out like an offering on her white comforter rushed through her mind again.
And that’s when she saw the wicked smile curling one side of his mouth, almost as if he could read her thoughts. “Yes, meli,” he whispered. “Anything I want, you will do for me.”