Page 91 of Firecracker

She swallowed. “Y-you do?”

“Oh yeah.”

She smiled. “What if I don’t put out after one date?”

His smile went wry. “Then I’ll be pissed at myself for going with delayed gratification instead of carrying your sweet little ass into the bedroom right now.”

He had nothing to worry about. She wanted him now, and she’d want him even more later. But she didn’t need to tell him that. Let him work for it. “All right, then. Back to work.”

Chapter Eighteen

“This place is beautiful.”

Tyler held Arden’s chair as she took her seat and gazed around the patio of Bistro Noir, then moved around the small table covered in a white cloth to his chair. He looked around too. It had been a while since he’d been there—this wasn’t the kind of place to hang with the guys and drink beer.

Old brick walls bordered the patio on two sides, and a wooden fence topped with a trellis laced with flowering vines ran along the other two sides. A couple of Japanese maples created a leafy canopy, and little white lights lined the walls and twinkled in shrubs. Pots of flowers added color and a fresh scent to the warm evening air, soft jazz music floating around them.

He turned his gaze back to Arden, and she smiled. “I love it.”

“Wait till you try the food.”

A server approached them to fill water goblets while they opened their menus. “Would you like to pick a bottle of wine?” Tyler asked her. “I think you know more than I do.”

“Sure. Would you like red or white?”

“I like red, if that’s okay.”

“Of course.” She skimmed through the selections and ordered a bottle of pinot noir. Then she turned her attention to the food menu. “Wow. How am I going to decide?”

“I think we should get an appetizer,” Tyler said.

“I want one of everything,” she murmured, eyes still on the menu.

He studied her face—she was wearing a little more makeup than usual, her eyes shadowy and lips shiny. Her hair hung long and loose, and she’d dressed up in a black dress, sheer and floaty, with multiple little straps on bare shoulders. When she’d opened her apartment door a short time ago as he arrived to pick her up for their date, he’d been rendered speechless at seeing her in such a sexy dress. His gaze had followed her bare legs from the above-the-knee hem down to the strappy black sandals with killer heels that immediately had him imagining them over his shoulders.

This whole delayed gratification thing was worth it just to sit across from her and stare at her.

Eh, maybe not. If he didn’t get her under him, if he didn’t get inside her tonight, he was probably going to cry like a baby.

He swallowed a sigh and refocused. “I thought you’d like this place because most of the food is organic, and they try to buy from local farmers at this time of year.”

She nodded. “I see that.” She looked up from the menu and tilted her head, her dark hair falling over one shoulder. “You knew that’s important to me?”

“Um, yeah, I kinda got that from when we were at the farmers’ market and Whole Foods.”

“It’s important. We have to look after this world.”

“I guess so, yeah.” Truthfully, while he knew sustainable agriculture was important, and he did enjoy buying local foods at the market, it wasn’t something he thought about a lot. “I have to admit I’m kind of surprised you feel that way.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Because I’m a princess?”

Heat rose from the open collar of his dress shirt into his face. “Hell. I guess so.”

“You must have forgotten I was on the Environment Committee in high school.”

“I don’t think I even knew therewasan Environment Committee.”

She laughed. “Princesses can be concerned about the planet too.”

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