Taste of Desire

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Hearing Jake apologize so profusely, Salina realized that she wasn’t the only one who was humiliated. In fact, judging by his expression, he might feel even worse than she did.

She offered him a small smile and joined him on the sofa. “Don’t beat yourself up,” she began. “It was an accident. I’m not the first naked woman you’ve seen,” she added good-naturedly, hoping to put his mind at ease, when in fact, humiliation was still flowing through her veins. It was a weird thing to have someone see you naked when you weren’t planning on it.

Jake groaned, the sound telling her that he would probably feel guilty about this for a long while. He didn’t meet her eyes.

“Hey,” Salina said softly. “Look at me.”

Slowly, Jake met her gaze. Salina held his eyes, silently letting him know that it was okay. It had been embarrassing, yes, but certainly she would survive. And someday she would be able to laugh about the moment.

And as she stared into Jake’s eyes, something happened. She felt a frisson of heat. She had felt it before—indeed, she had felt a spark of attraction for Jake the very first time she had met him. And seeing him yesterday, too, she had been reminded of just how gorgeous he was. Something about him spoke to her on a level she didn’t understand, but she had been prepared to ignore the feelings.

But now …

Now, she suddenly felt different. Because, looking into Jake’s eyes, she felt heat warming her body from her center, and rolling out to every other part of her. There was something smoldering in Jake’s eyes, something beyond the guilt that he had been feeling moments ago.

Jake was the one to look away. He stood abruptly and walked toward the dining room. “I see you left me some dinner. Thank you. But I’m sorry you went to the trouble. You didn’t need to.”

“Did you already eat?”

“Yes,” Jake admitted. “I ordered in at the office. I should’ve told you. It wasn’t on the schedule that you needed to prepare something for me, so …” His voice trailed off.

So he lived and died by his schedule, did he?

“Maria already knows that about me. But of course, she’s worked for me for two years. I should have been more explicit in my instructions to you.”

“It’s okay,” Salina said. “I just figured—I was making dinner anyway, why not make some for you? I’m happy to do that for you, if you like. As I told you earlier today, I really love cooking. If you call and tell me the time you’ll be getting home, then I can better judge—”

“You don’t need to go to all that trouble,” Jake told her.

“It’s no trouble.”

“All the same, I don’t want to bother you.”

He was back to not looking at her. Clearly, he still felt bad about what had happened.

Or was it something else?

“I suppose you’ve had a long day and simply want to unwind,” Salina said quickly. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

Feeling slightly discomfited, she spun around and hustled back to her bedroom.

Only when Jake was certain that Salina was out of sight did he sink into the plush leather chair at his dining room table. He buried his face in his hands.

He felt like a complete idiot. How could he have just opened the door and entered her room when he hadn’t heard a response from her? He should have figured that maybe she’d been showering. It was just that Maria had always showered in the morning.

Maria, Maria … Oh, man. It was becoming more evident with each passing moment that Salina was not Maria.

The sight of her naked … Dear God. In that first moment as he’d seen her, before common sense had kicked in and told him that what was happening was wrong, he had seen a vision more lovely than he could have ever imagined.

Salina was beautiful on the outside, on the inside, and she was sexy as hell without any clothes on.

Jake pounded his forehead with his closed fist. Did he have a right to even think that? He had seen her by accident. He had unwittingly violated her privacy, and here he was enjoying the memory of her naked body. Surely that was wrong.

But, Lord, she was a vision of loveliness. Jake may have buried himself in work after Janine’s death, telling himself that he would never love another woman, but he was still a man and couldn’t help reacting to one.

That was all too clear right now. His entire body was thrumming with sexual awareness. It was a reaction that surprised him.

He found it hard to look at her already, having felt a definite reaction to her beauty, as it was. Now that he knew what she looked like naked—how would he ever face her again?

He could only hope that Maria returned from Mexico sooner, rather than later, and that his life as he had known it would return to normal.

Jake was avoiding her.

That was completely clear to Salina. Ever since he had seen her naked, he had barely looked at her. Two more days had passed, and he had busied himself getting ready in the mornings, telling her not to worry about making breakfast for him. He came home late in the evening and went to his bedroom almost immediately. He wasn’t unpleasant. But it was clear that he was doing his best to not have to spend any meaningful time with her.

They were acting as if they had once been lovers, for goodness sake—former lovers who now had to share the same space and felt awkward with each other.

Yes, Salina got that he felt bad—but shouldn’t she be the one who felt worse? She’d been the one caught in the buff. She had gotten over it. Why hadn’t Jake?

She even suspected that he had told her she could go home on Friday night, that he would be staying at home on Saturday, simply because he didn’t want to have her around.

Salina found herself wondering if she had totally misjudged Jake. Not misjudged his honor, that wasn’t in doubt. But for a moment, as she had stared into his eyes after the incident, she thought she felt something spark between them.

A spark of mutual attraction.

Now, with the way he was avoiding her, she wondered if she had misread him completely. If she, clearly drawn to his good looks and decent nature, had been reading into things with him because she wanted something to be there that wasn’t.

She returned to Jake’s condo on Sunday evening, shortly after six. She had the concierge call up to the apartment to announce her arrival, and when she got to his door, she knocked instead of using the key. Jake opened the door, but it was Riquet who scurried past him and threw her arms around Salina’s legs. At least one of them was happy to see her.

“I’ve missed you!” the little girl exclaimed.

“I missed you, too,” Salina said, smiling. It felt good to be back. She hugged Riquet long and hard, and then released her and looked at Jake. “Hi, Jake.”

Jake smiled stiffly. “Hi.”

Salina wanted to roll her eyes. She wanted to tell him, Enough already. You saw me naked. Let’s move on. But she did no such thing.

“We just started watching a movie,” Riquet announced.

“Oh, yeah? Which one?”

“The Tale of Despereaux,” Jake answered. “You missed about fifteen minutes. Feel free to join us if you want. But it’s an animated movie, so don’t feel obligated to watch it if you don’t want to.”

“Are you kidding? I love animated movies.”

“It’s about a mouse,” Riquet explained, tugging on Salina’s hand and pulling her into the living room. “It lives in the castle.”

“Ahh,” Salina said. “I remember seeing the commercials about it. Have you seen Ratatouille? The one about the rat who wants to be a chef?” When Riquet shook her head, Salina continued. “That’s an excellent movie. We’ll have to watch that one sometime.”

Riquet plopped down onto the sofa and Salina sat beside her on the right. Jake sat on the other side of Riquet.

Salina soon realized that, while Riquet had said we, she should have said I. Jake wasn’t really paying attention to the movie. He sat with a folder on his lap, and he was going through a file, making notes. A laptop was open and on the coffee table in front of him.

A Sunday night, and still he wasn’t taking a break from work.

Before the movie was even over he got up, gathered the file and his laptop and went to the bedroom.