Monahan's Gamble. Elizabeth Bevarly

You get variety. You get a little taste of something exotic, something you might not normally…have. And there’s just something so tempestuous about the haste and the immediacy and the secrecy of a snack, isn’t there?” he added, dropping his voice to a level only she would be able to hear. “Snacks can be very titillating, Autumn, because they’re somehow more forbidden.

      “But lunch,” he continued, wrapping his voice around the word in the same smooth way he curled his fingers loosely around her wrist to pull her body closer still, “is much more fulfilling. It requires greater commitment, greater attention to detail.”

      He tugged her gently forward, until her body was flush with his, and waited for her to protest. But instead of protesting, she only opened one hand over his chest, splaying her fingers over his heart. And Sean could see by the way the pulse at the base of her throat leaped at the contact that her own heartbeat was every bit as rapid, as ragged, as his own.

      “One takes one’s time with lunch,” he told her even more softly, his voice a scant whisper now. “Lunch is so much more satisfying. There are so many ways to enjoy it, and there’s so much to consume.” He dipped his head to very lightly nuzzle her temple, reveling in the little gasp of shock—and dare he say delight?—that escaped her at the contact. “You have to go slowly with lunch, Autumn,” he continued, his mouth right beside her ear now. “You have to be more thorough, taste everything you have on your plate. And you know, done correctly, lunch is infinitely more…pleasurable…than snacking.”

      As much as he wanted to duck his head more and drag his open mouth along the elegant curve of her neck, somehow Sean found the strength to draw himself away. He didn’t go far, however, and he dropped one hand to the graceful curve of her hip. Again he prepared himself to be rebuffed, but Autumn offered no reaction one way or the other. When he’d pulled back far enough to gaze at her face, he saw that she was studying him with great preoccupation, even though he’d finished his dissertation on the different manners of…satisfying oneself.

      Strangely enough, though, her attention seemed to be focused almost entirely on his mouth. A tremor of something hot and volatile shook him when he realized it, then nearly exploded when he saw how her pupils had grown larger, her cheeks more rosy, and how her lips had parted softly, as if she wasn’t—quite—getting enough breath.

      She wasn’t the only one, he thought. Suddenly Sean felt a bit dizzy himself, as if the oxygen to his brain had been momentarily blocked. Then again, who needed oxygen when you had a woman like Autumn gazing at you like that? Suddenly even lunch didn’t seem like enough to satisfy him. Because over the past couple of moments, he had grown hungry to the point of being ravenous, and he wasn’t sure there was enough food on the planet to sate him.

      Of course, food was the last thing on his mind right now. Because Autumn Pulaski was looking at him as if she wanted to tuck a cherry into his mouth and flambé him. And he realized that, at that moment, there was nothing in life that would have brought him greater joy than being, well…cherry flambéed. By Autumn Pulaski. This very second.

      Oh, man.

      It was happening again, he thought. That same strange electricity that had shuddered between them in the bakery that morning had returned, charging the air between them once more. And what had begun as a well orchestrated, carefully rehearsed flirtation had been jerked completely out of Sean’s hands.

      “Um, yeah, okay,” she said softly. “Lunch sounds, uh…pretty good. I, uh…I could go for some, um, lunch. I guess.”

      Oh, she was just so cute when she was flummoxed, Sean thought. But he said nothing, just closed his fingers more snugly around her wrist and guided her to the bench, where he had strategically placed their lunches in such a fashion as to require them to sit very close to each other when they took their seats. It was a fact that Autumn duly noted, because before sitting down, she rearranged everything to construct a makeshift wall between their two designated places, perching herself primly on one side of it, nodding in silent invitation for Sean to take his seat on the other side.

      Damn.

      Squelching a sigh of defeat, he acquiesced with as much good grace as he could and reached for his own lunch. The new moon wasn’t until tomorrow, he reminded himself. That gave him another full day to woo Autumn and convince her that she should give him a chance.

      Another day, he remembered, and another night.

      How Autumn let herself get talked into things sometimes, she really would never be able to understand. Then again, Sean Monahan hadn’t given her much choice had he? Not only had he practically seduced her earlier that afternoon—right there in front of the Gertrude Hepplewhite Memorial Fountain, no less—just by explaining the differences between snacking and lunching, but he’d followed her around all day like an eager-to-be-accepted puppy.

      He had virtually haunted the Autumn’s Harvest booth all afternoon while she worked, had smiled that heart-tugging, heat-seeking smile of his, had twinkled those devastating blue eyes, had been more enchanting than any fairy-tale prince could ever hope to be. She hadn’t been able to resist him. He’d just been so…so handsome. So…charming. So…eligible. And then, before she realized what was happening…

      Autumn sighed restlessly. Before she realized what was happening, she found herself stretched out alongside him on a faded, flowered quilt beneath the stars, her entire body humming with anticipation at the prospect of the fireworks that were bound to explode any minute.

      Fortunately, those fireworks would be literal, not figurative, because a good foot of faded, flowered quilt lay between her and Sean, and very soon, the first burst of rockets would light the sky above Marigold to open the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. Literal fireworks, Autumn repeated to herself adamantly. Not figurative ones.

      At least, she thought further, reconsidering, she hoped there wouldn’t be any figurative fireworks tonight. Sean was, after all, so handsome. So charming. So eligible.

      Stop it right there, Autumn, she instructed herself firmly. There would not be any figurative fireworks tonight. Or any night, for that matter. Of that—if nothing else—she was completely certain. Because if there was one thing she had learned since leaving Chicago to come to Marigold, it was how to turn fireworks into fizzle in no time flat. She hadn’t experienced any fireworks since her arrival here, not with anybody. She hadn’t even come close to the merest spark. In fact, there hadn’t been the least little smolder of anything with any man for more than two years. And by golly, Autumn had no intention of setting fire to any wicks tonight. She didn’t care if it was the Fourth of July. Sean Monahan could just keep his sparkler to himself.