Donovans 02 - Jade Island

flooding his body. “Don’t go all pale on me. I won’t really ravish you among the egg rolls.”
    “What?” Then Lianne understood, laughed, and shut out the wrangling of her half brothers and all that it implied. “How disappointing. I was having this really tasty fantasy of you, me, and lobster sauce.”
    “I’d ask you to tell me more, but I’m afraid of embarrassing myself.”
    She glanced down the length of Kyle and smiled. “Embarrass yourself? Why? There isn’t a man in the room who wouldn’t be strutting if his pants fit like yours.”
    Kyle snickered, then threw back his head and laughed without restraint, like the Westerner he was. She laughed with him and tried not to think about a time in the near future when he would ask and she would answer and his strong, warm hands would slide up the inside of her thighs.
    “I knew we should have stayed at the condo,” he said.
    Lianne’s eyes widened and laughter fled at the hunger in Kyle’s. “I don’t—we don’t know each other.”
    “You won’t be able to say that tomorrow morning.”
    “No,” she said quickly. “It’s—too much. Too soon.”
    “Then the next morning after. I’m a patient man.”
    With that, Kyle proceeded along the buffet, helping himself and her to the mostly traditional Cantonese fare. The only overtly Western foods were the desserts. They had been chosen more for their sweetness than for their elegance. Cookies crusted with cracked sugar were clear favorites.
    “The Chinese have a sweet tooth,” Lianne said, seeing the direction of Kyle’s glance.
    “I picked up on that.”
    She smiled slightly. He had “picked up on” quite a few things tonight. Yet he seemed oblivious to the glances from the Tang men as he served her. Nor was he reacting to the frankly inviting smile being lavished on him by the young woman who was waiting a few feet away with an empty blue-and-white plate in her hands.
    The girl had the kind of beauty that was both vivid and ethereal. Black hair, golden skin, full red lips, cat-slanting eyes, a waterfall of straight black hair that went just below her hips. The skirt of her tight black dress was the same length as her hair, which made for a rather startling view from the rear.
    The fact that she had Johnny’s plate in her hands did nothing to make Lianne feel more charitable.
    “Hi,” the girl said, walking up and standing close to Kyle. Very close. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
    “I’m Kyle Donovan. This is Lianne Blakely.”
    The smile the young woman gave Lianne was a lotcooler than the one she had given to Kyle. After a scant second, she fixed her big black eyes on Kyle again and reached for the plate he was holding.
    “It would be my pleasure to serve you,” she said, her voice low, erotic, “in any way.”
    “Thanks,” Kyle said casually, “but I’m in the mood to serve myself.”
    The girl ran the tip of her index finger around the edge of his plate and smiled slowly at him. “If you change your mind, just whistle.”
    “Are you a dog to be whistled to heel?” Lianne asked in curt Cantonese.
    “If whistling awakens the sleeping turtle head,” the hostess retorted in the same language, “I will be honored to find it a warm, snug refuge from a cold world.”
    Lianne grimaced. “Turtle head” was one of the less reverent Chinese names for penis. “Attend to the men who hired you,” she said.
    “You refuse to attend the handsome foreign ghost yourself, yet you send me away. Why is that, sister?”
    Lianne thought of Kyle’s universal answer and smiled thinly. “Because I can.”
    The hostess gave a very American shrug to Lianne and a smile that didn’t require translation to Kyle. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Kyle Donovan. Perhaps we can meet again. Soon.”
    As she walked away, the black waterfall of her hair stirred and shimmered in time to the lithe hips swinging invisibly beneath. The legs weren’t invisible and were well worth watching.
    “Whew,” Kyle muttered. “That’s quite a hood ornament.” He turned back to the buffet. “Do you want to drink wine, beer, or this orange stuff?”
    Lianne sent another hard look after the friendly, bilingual hostess. “Remember our earlier discussion about wine and China?”
    “Good point.” He picked two beer bottles out of thecrushed ice and opened them. “That should hold me for a few minutes. What about you?”
    She looked down at her plate. While she had been thinking about the gorgeous,