Beautiful Stranger

low shadows of the restaurant. He looked even more dangerous.
    I walked to his table and ignored the way he moved over to let me in beside him. His hair was cut short and left longer on top. It fell forward when he moved and I wanted to reach out, see if it was as soft as it looked beneath the cone of overhead light. Damnit.
    “I’m not here to join you,” I said, straightening my shoulders. “I just needed to get a few things straight.”
    He spread his palms out in front of him. “By all means.”
    Taking a deep breath, I said, “I had the most fun I can reasonably remember with you at the club the other night—”
    “Likewise.”
    I held up my hand. “But I moved here to start over. I wanted to do something crazy and I did, but that isn’twho I am. I love my job and my colleagues. I can’t have you walking into my office to flirt with me. I can’t ever act like that at work again.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “And I can’t believe you kept that video.”
    He had the presence of mind to look contrite. “I’m sorry. I really did intend to delete it.” Leaning forward on his elbows, he said, “The thing is, I can’t seem to stop watching it. Watching that is better than a shot of fucking whiskey for my nerves. Better than even the filthiest porn.”
    A low hum spread through my belly and between my legs.
    “And I suspect that you like hearing that. I also suspect that the wild Petal I met at the club is a much larger part of Sara Dillon than you like to think.”
    “She’s not.” I shook my head. “And I can’t do this.”
    “ This ,” he said, “is simply a meal. Sit down with me.”
    I didn’t move.
    “Come on.” He sighed quietly. “You let me fuck you on Saturday, you put my hand beneath your clothes a few minutes ago, and now you won’t join me for lunch. Do you always make a point of being so confusing?”
    “Max.”
    “Sara.”
    I hesitated for a long beat before I slid into the booth beside him, and felt the radiating warmth of his long, solid frame next to me.
    “You look beautiful,” he said.
    I looked down at the simple black dress I wore. My bare legs peeked out below the hem and just above the knees. He ran a finger from my shoulder to my wrist and my bare skin broke out in gooseflesh.
    “I won’t come to your office again like that,” he said, so quietly I had to lean a little closer to hear him. “But I do want to see you again.”
    I shook my head, staring at his long fingers on me. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
    When the waiter stopped at our table, Max’s fingers lingered on my hand, and when I was unable to think of anything to order, he chose meals for both of us.
    “I hope you like prawns,” he said, grinning.
    “I do.” His hand on mine, his leg so closely pressed to my thigh, what did I want? I didn’t want to be continually distracted by a force of energy like Max, but I remained unable to pull out of his orbit. “Sorry, I’m a little distracted.”
    His other hand crossed over his body and slipped below the table. I felt the light brush of fingers along my thigh. “Distracted by me? Or by work?”
    “At the moment, you. But I should be distracted by work.”
    “You have plenty of time for that. I’m going to wager your assistant sent you out to eat.”
    I leaned back to look at him. “Spying?”
    “No need. He looks like a busybody, and you look like you rarely remember to take lunch.” His fingers pushed the hem of my dress up higher, higher, higher to my hip bone. “This all right?” His accent dropped the last bit of his sentence into a whisper.
    It was more than all right, but my heart pounded with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Once again, I was letting him completely take my reason away, hide it in this dark corner where I couldn’t find it.
    “We’re in a restaurant.”
    “I’m aware.” He slipped beneath the soaked lace of my panties and slid his fingers over my clit, dipping down into my wetness. “Good God, Sara. I’d love to spread you on this table and have you for lunch.”
    For a brief pulse, my skin ignited. “You can’t say things like that.”
    “Why? We’re the only people in this place besides that old man in the corner, the waiter, and the cook in the back. No one can hear me.”
    “That isn’t what I meant.”
    “I can’t say things like that because of what it does to you?” he asked.
    I nodded, unable to say anything when he slipped two fingers into