With His Touch

“But I’d need a new partner and everything.” A lump filled her throat, making it hard to speak. “With the franchising…”

“You could take over my work or Oliver could step up to the job. And, as far as the franchise goes…I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Look, we’re both upset, Gage. Let’s not say things we’ll both regret.”

But he looked dead serious, not flipped out, not overwrought. She was the one on the edge of hysteria. Gage seemed…resigned. He stood, as if to leave her room.

She stood, too. “Read over this stuff.” She pushed the folder at him and this time he took it.

“I don’t see the point,” he said.

“I’ll come over for dinner in an hour and we can talk it through.” Debates had always worked with them, so why not now?

When he was gone, she rested her back against the door. He just needed a little time to come to his senses, right?

Why couldn’t he leave? Sugar believed in moving on when the time was right, so why couldn’t Gage? Even Mr. Stay Put had his limits, right?

But this was totally for the wrong reasons. It was practically emotional blackmail. Be with me or I’ll break up our partnership? She should be furious.

But she wasn’t. She was scared. The idea of Gage leaving made her mind stutter and spit like a candle in a draft.

She didn’t want him to go.

3

AN HOUR LATER, Sugar stood outside Gage’s room, holding his birthday gift, determined to be positive. No way would Gage leave over something as crazy as a sudden surge of lust. It was as though they’d gotten drunk at a high-school reunion and confessed an old crush.

Gage had had time to read what she’d given him, so they’d debate the franchise through to the other side and be fine. One day soon, they’d laugh about that silly Water Bed Moment and the Amazing Washing-Machine Kiss.

She tapped on the door. For a second, she wished he would yank it open and kiss her mindless again. That kiss had been wild and free and safe and sure all at once. She’d been almost afraid to relive it in her mind. It was like too much ice cream too fast. It gave her brain freeze.

The door opened. Gage stood there. He looked…normal.

Disappointment stabbed her. What was wrong with her? Normal was good. Normal was her only hope.

“Come in,” he said and backed up.

Inside, she smelled dinner. Something sweet, orange, garlic with an under note of…what?

Roses. On the rolling dinner table in a vase surrounded by white tea-light candles, their gold tongues turning the transparent vase into a dancing prism of colors.

“You got roses?” She bent to the flowers. The cool petals brushed her cheek, the fresh musk filled her nose.

“So you would stop and smell them,” he said, smiling sadly.

“Saying it with flowers, huh?” Esmeralda had urged that, too. To avoid his eyes, Sugar ran her finger down the curve of the vase, which suggested a sleek woman’s body.

“The shape reminded me of you,” Gage said.

She started to joke about her waist being thicker and her hips broader, but she didn’t feel like laughing and he didn’t seem to, either.

She saw two packages on one of the beds—one small and hand-wrapped, the other large in fancy gold paper with a huge bow bearing the hotel’s gift shop sticker. He’d bought that since they arrived. Probably where he’d been headed when she’d seen him from the bar. A gift to go with his blurt of love.

Her heart pinched. If only she were a different person, the kind of person who could say yes to Gage and mean forever. “Gage, about what happened—”

“Let’s forget it for tonight,” he said. “We both have things to think about and decisions to make.”

“Did you read my stuff?” She nodded at the far bed, where her folder lay, hoping against hope that would solve everything.

He shook his head. “Let’s just celebrate our birthdays, okay?” He sounded weary.

“Sure. That’s smart.” The tradition of celebrating birthdays together had started the year they met in a psych research class at Arizona State. She had asked Gage to be her study partner—he took great notes—and she’d invited him to her small birthday party, where, with some probing, she learned his birthday was within days of hers. It was so like him to keep that private. All his emotions roiled under the surface.

Except for tonight, evidently.

She held out her present. It was a Global Positioning Unit, which held satellite maps of practically the entire planet. Gage was into orienting himself in the world and she’d seen him studying GPS models on a Web site.

When he accepted the box, their fingers brushed and Sugar’s knees gave way. Again. That was weird. They touched each other all the time at work, brushing bodies, bumping arms, playfully hip checking each other. Gage often led her with a hand to her back and she would link arms with him as they walked together.

But just now, the brush of his fingers made her breathless.

Which told her she’d been ignoring her reaction. Just as Gage had blocked his feelings about her, she’d numbed out whenever they touched.

That no longer seemed an option.

And, damn, he smelled good. Of cologne and soap and just him. And he looked taller…broader…more there.

It was as though she’d been happily wandering around in the dark and someone had flipped on the light, forcing her to notice new and lovely details about the man—his warm, smart eyes, those delicious laugh lines around his firm mouth, the way his thick hair curled a little against the back of his neck, the way he carried himself with quiet assurance and easy strength.

She needed the lights off—now—if things were ever to be normal again.

She put her gift beside the ones for her on the bed.

The bed. In his room. Where they were alone.

She suddenly lost all strength in her legs and practically fell onto the chair behind the linen-covered table. The water glasses sloshed and the warmers rattled on the two dinner plates. Gage caught the wine bottle, which jiggled in its low holder, and sat across from her.

“So, what’s for dinner?” She smiled cheerfully, determined to enjoy the meal, put everything else on hold.

Gage uncovered the plates to reveal gorgeous entrées—golden-brown duck displayed over a small-grained pasta patty, with an exotic-looking salad. “Low-carb duck à l’orange. It’s sweetened with Splenda. I worked out the meal with the chef. That’s a soy polenta, which is lower in carbs. Plus, hearts-of-palm salad—”

“Hearts of palm?”

“There’s that jar in the fridge, so I figured it was on the diet.”

She used it to spiff up her tuna salads at work. “You don’t miss much, do you, Gage?”

“Not about you, no.” He said it so matter-of-factly, as though it was as basic as breathing and her heart filled up tight as a balloon about to burst. She felt cared for.