Page 67 of Lawbreaker

“I think we can find it, thanks,” Tony said, tongue in cheek. He motioned to Odalie, who followed him down the hall with her heart doing the hula.

“You like orchids?” he asked as he opened a door.

“I love them, but I killed one by not taking care of it properly, so I wasn’t going to try again. It was so beautiful!”

“What kind was it?” he asked when they were in the room with the door closed.

“It was an orchid,” she repeated.

He sighed, feasting his eyes on her unconscious beauty. “There are a lot of different types. If you don’t know how to take care of them, phalaenopsis are the safest. They do well with just light from a window and careful watering. These—” he indicated tall shelves on which many trays of orchids rested under lamps “—are more complicated. They need this sort of setup.”

“Oh, my.” She moved closer, catching her breath. There was every color in the rainbow, even spotted ones, all in glorious bloom. Shelf after shelf of them. “I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous!”

He explained the different species and how they grew in the wild and how they were propagated.

“It must take a lot of work,” she remarked, turning to look up at him. Her heart flipped as she met his soft, dark eyes.

He nodded. He moved a step closer, so that he was close enough to feel her breath at his throat. His hands went into her hair, pulling out the pins that held up her complicated hairdo. She stood very still, not protesting. The feel of his big hands was seductive. So was the silence of the room, with only the sound of her own heartbeat loud in her ears.

He put the pins on a shelf and ran his fingers through her long, wavy pale blond hair, loving its silkiness and the faint perfume that drifted up into his nostrils. His hands framed her face and tilted it up to his. “This is a still a very bad idea,” he whispered, his voice husky and deep as velvet as he bent to her mouth.

She was beyond words. Her hands flattened on his broad chest. Then, remembering what he’d said to her the day before, they hesitated.

“I lied,” he whispered. He was wearing a white silk shirt with nothing under it. Her hands sank onto the smooth surface. Under it she felt thick, curling hair like a cushion over hard, warm muscle. “It was make you mad or reach for you. I was still trying, at that point, to remain sane.”

“And...did you? Remain sane?” she whispered at his lips.

“Hell, no,” he breathed into her mouth just as his settled ever so slowly onto her soft, open lips. “Nothing of the sort.”

His arms were around her now, half lifting her into his body. It was warm and hard muscled, and she felt enveloped, safe, cherished. His hands smoothed over her back, up and down, creating little waves of feeling that made her tingle all over.

Her breasts pushed into his chest, soft and firm as her arms reached up around his neck. She’d been kissed before. But Tony was a whole new experience. Her dates had been mostly boys, and then men, her own age. Even in a sophisticated age, many of them were as innocent as she was. Tony was in a class by himself.

He cherished her mouth, as if they were kissing for the very first time, as if the earlier kiss had never happened. He’d dreaded this, because he knew she was going to become the worst addiction of his entire life.

He drew back a breath and looked down into her sultry half-closed pale blue eyes. “At this point, you should be trying to get out of the room.”

“Why?” she murmured, tugging at his neck to coax his mouth back down.

“Because it’s going to end badly.”

“Right now, you mean?” she whispered, her eyes on his firm, chiseled mouth.

“Eventually.”

“There’s only today,” she said quietly. “Yesterday is a memory. Tomorrow is a dream.”

“You should write poetry.”

She sighed. Her fingers touched his mouth with wonder. “I never used to like kissing,” she whispered.

He raised an eyebrow, suddenly jealous. “You did that a lot, did you?”

She shook her head. “I told you, I didn’t like it. Besides, I’d already decided to sing opera. I didn’t want to get involved with anybody.”

“Well, kid, you’re involved now. And you may wish you hadn’t been.”

“Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow is...” she began with a mischievous smile.