Dinner With a Bad Boy (5 page)

Mandy looked up and blinked as if she hadn't been listening the whole time. Then she gave her grandmother a brilliant smile. "I'll figure it out," she said. "Thank you for quizzing me on the vocabulary. You helped a lot."

Su Ling arched an eyebrow at her niece. Geez, the kid learned fast. She didn't know whether to be impressed or appalled by how easily Amanda buttered up her grandmother. "Hmmm," returned Ma Ma, clearly softening. "Your aunt should help."

"We're going to work on my math now. She's so good at that." Then the girl leaned down and pulled out a math book, dropping the encyclopedia-sized text on the counter. Now,
that
would send Ma Ma scurrying for the hills. Hell, it was enough to send Su Ling running, and she was an accountant.

"Well, then," Ma Ma said as she grabbed her coat. "You should study. Su Ling, I put lunch in the refrigerator. Amanda doesn't like the school's food."

Su Ling canted a glance at her niece, who suddenly took great interest in her math text.

"Make sure she practices her violin," continued Ma Ma.

"No problem." Su Ling began counting as she held open the front door. She figured four steps until her mother made the hallway.

"She'll have to practice her piano at school."

Three steps.

"I could drive her to your sister's home. They have a piano," Ma Ma continued.

Two steps. "No, thanks. We've got it covered."

"Make sure to check her homework every night."

One step. "I know."

"Okay, then. You two study." Ma Ma hovered in the doorway. Su Ling didn't think she could hold her smile much longer. Fortunately all Ma Ma wanted was to kiss her daughter good-bye. "School lunch. Piano practice," she muttered. "You still need me, Su Ling."

"Of course we need you," she answered automatically.

Ma Ma nodded and slipped away while Su Ling finally, blessedly closed the door. Except she didn't quite get it shut. Just before the latch clicked, Ma Ma added her last comment: "We will have the new dragon for dinner on Sunday. Dress nice."

Su Ling sighed, wondering how she'd escape that, toying with the idea of buying a motorcycle and riding off into the sunset with her dragon. But before she could fully enjoy that fantasy, Amanda interrupted her thoughts.

"Did you really kiss Mr. Kurtz?"

Su Ling turned, rapidly pulling her thoughts out of the gutter. "Not answering," she responded quickly. She needed a lot more time to sort through her feelings for Dragon—Mitch—Mr. Kurtz—before she discussed them with her young niece. "Besides," she continued, "we need to set a few ground rules between us. I love having you here, but we can't have any more pity-me calls to your grandmother."

Amanda straightened defensively. "She called me!"

Su Ling folded her arms. "Tell me you didn't sound pathetic. 'Oh, I'm all alone,'" she mocked, " 'studying so hard, and I've only got leftovers to eat after an awful lunch.'"

Her niece had the grace to blush.

"Look, kiddo, all that good home cooking comes with a price: sharing every intimate detail of your life. Right now I don't want my life broadcast to the entire clan. So if you're set on home cooking, then you can stay with your grandparents."

Mandy's eyes widened with horror. "No, Auntie Ling, I'd much rather be here."

"Thought so." Then, keeping Mitch's suggestion in mind about easing up on her niece, Su Ling settled down beside Mandy. "Get Mr. Kurtz's extra-credit paper done; then we'll have some fun. Deal?"

Mandy grinned. "Deal." Then she pushed some math papers forward. "Do you want to check my homework now?"

Su Ling laughed. "Not really. I was thinking of ice cream with chocolate sauce."

Mandy suddenly brightened. "Great. I'm starved."

It wasn't until much later—after two hours of girl talk and chocolate sauce—that Mandy added her last comment. "I think you and Mr. Kurtz would be great together." Then she disappeared into her bedroom for the night.

Su Ling didn't argue. She was too busy fantasizing about just what they'd be great at.

* * *

She was here.

Mitch had barely tasted his double espresso mocha when he felt Sue enter his gym. His skin tingled, and he smelled that strange mixture of ginger and lily, sort of an Asian sweet-and-spicy smell. Turning around, he saw her looking aloof in another dark navy suit as she watched Mandy begin her warmup laps. She even wore her hair pulled up in a proper swirl that crested at the top of her head. But he remembered how she'd gone wild in his arms last night. Beneath Sue Ling's prim veneer pulsed the soul of a wildcat.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus. The volleyball season had just begun, and he already felt behind. Especially with half the team out with the flu, they were losing ground fast. Unfortunately, after a night spent fantasizing about what he'd started with Sue Ling in her parking lot, he wasn't thinking about volleyball. He was planning how he could catch some time with Mandy's very proper seductress of an aunt. And now she appeared in his gym, not just dropping her niece off, but finding a spot on the bleachers to watch while her sensuous lips dipped into the swirling depths of her morning coffee. God, how long could a man keep an erection before his brain completely dried up?

He needed to stay away from Sue. At least while he was coaching he had to keep her far from his thoughts. Yet seconds later he found himself settling onto the bleachers beside her.

"Good morning," he said, gratified that his voice wasn't completely thick with lust.

"Morning," she returned, her lips forming a rich red curve.

"Mandy looks a little tired this morning." He didn't know why he said that. His thoughts were someplace else entirely. On Sue's cleavage, to be specific. The top buttons of her blouse gaped open, and from his angle they allowed a silent peekaboo with her lacy bra.

"Girl talk with our friends Ben and Jerry." She paused as she pressed her lips to her coffee mug for a long sip.

He nodded, unable to resist touching her arm, slipping his thumb beneath the cuff of her blouse to stroke the satiny skin underneath. "Ice cream. The bonding tool of women." She shivered. He was sure of it. "You're distracting me," he said on a low growl.

He watched as a fire kindled in her dark almond eyes. "I'm just watching my niece play volleyball."

"You're making me think about stripping you naked beneath the bleachers. And that's the only part I can say aloud."

Her skin flushed a dusky rose. "Not one for subtlety, are you?"

"You're the hottest woman this side of a lava flow. No, Sue, I am not subtle. I'm going to take you into my bedroom, strip you naked, and eat you up one side and down the other." He leaned in, watching her eyes widen with excitement. "Then I'll really get started."

She swallowed convulsively, then suddenly straightened, her expression cooling to glacial in the blink of an eye. "You must have me mistaken for someone else," she said primly. "Have I mentioned that I'm an accountant? I wear conservative clothing and put my hair in a bun. A librarian in 1812 couldn't be more old-fashioned than I am. What makes you think I'll respond to talk like that?"

"Because yesterday, when I put my hands on your perfect breasts, you made a sound that makes men's teeth sweat."

Her breath caught, and she licked her lips before pressing them tightly together. "You're a social studies teacher," she said, her voice strained.

"And you're an accountant. Come over tonight."

She shook her head, flashes of panic lighting her eyes. "I can't. Mandy's staying with me, remember?" But she wanted to. He read hunger in the way she bit her lower lip, moistening it with her tongue.

"Find a baby-sitter," he urged. "Pick me tonight, not them."

She hesitated, her body echoing the same trembling desire he felt. Then suddenly she stood up, scrambling away from him. "No. My family comes first." Then she sailed away, her heels making hard chips of sound on the floor before the fire doors clanged shut behind her.

Mitch didn't move. He sat on the bleachers, staring at the dark gray doors, knowing he'd just erred badly. He hadn't lied when he'd called her the hottest woman this side of a lava flow. Sexy, smart, and funny, she fascinated him. And worse yet, she came from a good, wholesome family. When she'd first approached him at the restaurant, he had thought her an exotic Chinese fantasy come to life. Last night she'd shown him so much more, and now he was more intrigued than ever.

Except he'd just led with his groin, pressing the sexuality button as if her body held the only attraction. She fascinated him on so many different levels, but he'd never get her to believe that now.

He needed to step back, get some perspective. Great men in history had either succeeded or failed based on their ability to clearly see themselves and how they fit into their situation. Now was his turn. Unfortunately, logical clarity had never been his strong suit. He tended to feel a situation and then proceed exactly as his gut dictated. But right now his gut told him to point grappling guns at Su Ling and reel her in.

But why? One week ago the thought of dating a traditional Chinese girl would have given him hysterics. He didn't go for silent, repressed types, and certainly not good girls who wanted permanence with a husband and a family. The thought of a mini-van and a lawn mower gave him the chills. His oldest possession was a hunk of moldy cheese in the back of his refrigerator.

Except that wasn't true anymore. His apartment was filled with stuff he'd had for a couple years now. He'd signed a two-year teaching contract. And last week his best friend's new baby had brought out unexpected fatherly urges in him. So much for the freewheeling, no-strings-attached lifestyle he'd originally planned. Now he was suddenly thinking about his own picket fence surrounding a huge backyard filled with dark-haired girls giggling over Barbie dolls and mischievous boys tossing a football around with him. And at the center of it all stood Su Ling, looking all proper while beneath her lurked a wanton.

Except he'd just come on as the type of sex-starved bad boy his father hated and her mother feared. When had that persona become a habit? Especially here, a long way away from his dour parents? Sure, he'd been primed at the restaurant, having just escaped their suffocating home at the holidays, but here, in his real life, he'd long since thrown adolescent rebellion away.

Or had he? He didn't know, but he sure as hell needed to find out. He didn't even know when it became so important to him, just that Su Ling seemed key in this vital search. As if she held a secret he needed to ferret out. And if that meant pursuing her slowly, quietly, but with the gentle persistence of a steady stream of water, then that was what he'd do.

Even if he had to be a gentleman to do it.

Chapter 3

Su Ling was being stalked. Not literally, but she definitely sensed a focused mind at work. The pattern began the very day she'd entered the Franklin gym, her body pinging and zinging like a live pinball machine. Mitch did that to her with his slumbery eyes and his cocky swagger that made her toes curl. He'd pressed her that day, obviously wanting to pursue these terrifying feelings, and she'd bolted. She'd acted like an uptight prude and made an exit that would do an Ice Queen proud.

She'd blown it. But maybe that was for the best, she told herself. Mitch made her think and do things so unusual for her unobtrusive life. Motorcycles and wet T-shirt contests. When had she even thought these things, much less done them or said them to her mother? Never. And probably never again. Which meant that when she reverted to her more typical, dull identity, Mitch would dump her as boring. In short, they didn't have a future together, she told herself. Which meant she needed to stop obsessing about Mitch, stop replaying his every word, every nuance until she nearly jumped out of her skin.

But she kept running into him. He'd happened to be nearby when Su Ling picked up Mandy after school. His manner remained courteous and friendly without any sexual overtures, and this new conventional Mitch was so respectful, she didn't know how to stop their conversation. He politely inquired about her job. She responded equally politely before turning to leave. But then her matchmaker niece piped up with the truth.

"She hates it, but doesn't know what to do about it. Maybe you can help her, Mr. Kurtz."