A Taste Of Fantasy

P.S. I’ll let you know details tomorrow.

She clicked the send button, shoved her chair back and stood, grabbing her briefcase. She wasn’t usually this spontaneous, but then her life hadn’t been usual in a while. It would be great to be out, surrounded by her fellow Chicagoans, noise, energy and life.

Chances she’d find someone and then actually go for it tonight were slim, but the fantasy of being with someone deliberately unsuitable was delicious. Men to Do Before Saying I Do. After a bad marriage, divorce, and all the angst that went with them, a fun-only fling was exactly what she needed. To indulge attractions for types of men she could no more get serious about than enjoy shopping for feminine protection.

And speaking of protection, she still had the condoms she’d bought on a particularly rebellious day last spring after the divorce, when she thought she was ready for a wild night.

Not.

She’d met a guy, a sweet, overly earnest type, well over six foot and solid. At the time she’d been so angry and grieving that she’d practically thrown herself at him. After two hours of beer and innuendo they’d gone outside together, ostensibly to drive to his apartment. She’d kissed him twice, burst into tears, sobbed violently for half an hour and completely freaked the poor guy out.

Okay, so divorce did not leave her at her most rational.

But that wouldn’t happen this time. She was ready now. She felt peaceful and stable, rather than manic and confused. She was acting out of genuine need this time, making a strong deliberate choice, not reacting to pain and fear.

She closed her office door and strode through the building to the underground garage, calling good night to a few fellow employees. The Blazer started up; she backed it out of her reserved space and headed into the still-blazing day. She was in the mood for a fun place with a bar, but also decent food, not the packed-to-the-gills meat-market type places. P.J. Clarke’s in the Gold Coast would do it.

She found a parking place in an adjacent lot and walked toward the restaurant entrance, wishing she’d gone home to change out of her business suit and into something more casual, maybe a little funky. Maybe even a little sexy. Except if nothing happened when she was in her suit, it was easier to look like she was out for a nice lone-woman dinner and to heck with everyone else. There was something sad about sitting at a bar decked out in hot-to-trot finery and striking out. A situation that would have her imagining all the other bar patrons whispering and shaking their heads.

Poor thing. Out to get some and no one biting.

She swung open the door, letting cool confidence take over her body, though she was shaky inside, half nerves, half excitement. No problem. Move forward and chant the mantra: Samantha Tyler does this kind of thing all the time. Take me or leave me. I’m here.

She squared her shoulders and walked with deliberate indifference toward the bar, avoiding eye contact. Her senses registered the buzz of conversation and the stink of cigarettes, the measuring eyes of guys turning to see who had walked in. The row of round-topped wooden stools mostly, but thank God not all occupied, beckoned. Her mind raced as she calculated which seat would be best. Not next to the creepy middle-aged guy. Not next to the ponytailed artsy-looking guy. Not next to the twenty-something sexpot girls. That comparison she could do without.

There. Three people leaving. She could sit in the middle seat and avoid choosing someone to be next to.

She ordered a draft ale and concentrated on gazing at the bottles behind the counter, keeping her expression neutral. Someone was watching her. She could feel it. A shiver of excitement went through her for no apparent reason. What was that? For some equally unapparent reason, a vision of tall, dark and hunky rose in her mind, when the eyes on her could just as easily belong to a transvestite admiring her outfit.

Who? She turned her head slightly; no one on that side. She scanned with peripheral vision behind her. Nope. But the feeling was increasing, a shivery dangerous sexual sensation. Someone was coming up to her, about to speak. She’d never sensed anyone’s presence as powerfully as she did this person’s.

Who?

She turned the other way.

Oh. My. God.

He was sitting two seats from her on her left; she hadn’t noticed him arriving. She certainly would have noticed if he’d been there when she walked in. Talk dark and hunky, uh huh. And with this sort of bad-boy Jimmy Dean quality about him, as if he’d been orphaned as a young boy and fought his way through to adulthood on grit, determination and muscle.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit much to deduce after one glance. But oh, my, he was someone she’d be happy to talk to. The only strange thing was that after meeting his eyes, that strong sense of being approached by something exciting and dangerous had faded. She felt safe again. Still excited and…very excited. But safe.

“Hi.” One side of his mouth twisted up in a crooked smile, while the other side stayed emotionally neutral and seriously sexy.

She studied him, her head tilted to look as if she was deciding whether he was worth responding to, while her heartbeat was telling her in rapid and certain terms that he was.

“Hi.”

He kept that sly smile on, leaned toward her and extended his hand. “I’m Jack.”

She looked down at his hand, then up into his eyes before she took it. “Samantha.”

His grin widened to include the other side of his mouth and he chuckled.

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s funny?”

He shook his head, still smiling.

She tightened her lips, not really annoyed. The same old joke had gone beyond annoying. “I know, I know, Samantha on Bewitched, and am I a witch, and if I wiggle my nose can I make you disappear?”

“Nope.”

“No?” She smiled, curious, and frankly unable to keep from smiling back at him. Something about the way he looked at her made her feel strangely happy. Maybe it was just that he seemed interested, but plenty of men had been interested, and she didn’t recall it necessarily involved this kind of…uplift, for lack of a better term.

His eyes were brown, lighter than dark deep endless brown, but full of life, full of male confidence and messages that he knew that she knew and that if they both wanted it to, something could happen.

This could be a really, really outstanding evening.

“I was thinking of another Samantha.”

“Okay, let me guess. The character on Sex and the City who falls into bed with every man she meets.”

He laughed and gestured forward to the seat next to her. “Is this taken?”

Samantha swung her legs back under the bar and shrugged. “Nope.”

He slid off the stool and moved closer. She hadn’t realized how tall he was—well over six feet—nor how imposing. And boy, did he smell good. Male and sophisticated—what was that scent? She hadn’t a clue but she wanted to roll in it like a dog and smell it on her own body later.

He settled himself onto the stool next to her and smiled. “That’s better.”

Close up he was even more magnificent. His hair was thick and slightly wavy, cut short so the muscles in his neck were visible when he bent his head forward. The back of men’s necks and their shoulders, that powerful broad expanse, was a turn-on to her.

“Samantha.”

He said her name as if he was contemplating the taste of it, sliding it around his tongue and mouth before he swallowed it and made it part of him. The sound did shivery schoolgirl things to her insides, so she kept her face rigid, since it was silly at her age to be feeling this light-headed over the sound of her name.

“Samantha was the name of a very, very special…female.” He took a sip of his beer and turned to look full into her eyes, his softening as if the memory was taking him over.

Samantha narrowed hers. Something lurked in the back of those eyes. Something extremely mischievous. A very, very special…female?

She shook her head and turned back to her beer. “Your dog.”

He burst out laughing and slapped his hand on the bar. “Damn, you’re good.”

She bit off the obvious line. A bit too soon to be agreeing, even playfully. She knew where that would lead. And even if she ended up wanting it to lead there, now was too soon to start in with the serious flirting.

He angled his body toward her and leaned one elbow on the bar. “So what do you do, Samantha?”

“I’m a lawyer.”