AMatterofLust Read Online Free PDF Page B

needing to distract
herself from her hot thoughts. She wasn’t going to make it through dinner if
she kept that up.
    “I do.” He pointed to the north. “Just on the other side of
Atlantic.”
    Rena pictured the area. That meant he lived in Brooklyn
Heights. Probably at one of the nicer addresses judging from the black jacket
he wore, the pants so perfectly tailored there was no way they came off any
rack. “Have you been there long?”
    “Not long,” he said.
    Rena waited for him to add more, but he didn’t. Not that she
was surprised. She was certain her sexy Darkman had a lot of secrets. She
wondered if she would ever learn any of them. She wanted to. They were probably
pretty damn interesting.
    “I grew up here,” she continued, filling the comfortable
silence between them. “My dad owned Lucid before me.” She smiled. “Well, it
wasn’t Lucid then, it was Grant’s and it was just your typical local watering
hole for the guys after work.” She laughed, taking in all the new construction
around her, the hipster couples, the people who would have been too afraid to
explore one of New York’s outer boroughs not so long ago. It was completely
different from the working-class place in which she had grown up. “This
neighborhood has changed, but I still love it. I don’t think I’ll ever leave.”
    “Really?” Trask said. He seemed to become aware of their
surroundings, looking all around with sudden interest. “I don’t know that I
could stay in one place for that long.”
    “Oh no?” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her
voice and chastised herself for allowing it to be there at all. That kind of
pointless sentiment was only going to get her in trouble. “Why not?”
    He shrugged, gave her a grin. “I get bored.” He dropped her
hand and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her tightly against him. “I do
like Brooklyn though.”
    Rena rolled her eyes. Why did men always have to do things
like that? In one breath he was telling her how he easily he gets bored, and in
the next, he was all in love or something. Did he think she needed the empty
reassurances in order to get laid? It was such a stupid, unnecessary game. “Right,”
she said, drawing out the word for effect, “because Brooklyn has everything you
need, doesn’t it?”
    He blinked as though he was surprised and looked over at her
curiously. “Brooklyn does have everything I need.”
    Rena groaned good-naturedly. “Whatever you say.”
    Trask’s eyebrows knitted together and he contemplated her
for a long time before answering. “You doubt me.” He shook his head in what
seemed like amazement. “Why do you doubt me?”
    “It’s not that I doubt you exactly,” she said with a shrug.
“It’s more that I don’t need the sappiness.”
    “Sappiness, is it?” he said quietly. He met her eyes. “And
what if I told you straight out that you are everything I want? Would you
believe me then?”
    Rena snorted out a laugh. “Absolutely not.” Still, his
insistence was nice and it lit a small, brilliant light way back in the
recesses of her heart. “Though it is nice to hear.”
    “But I do want you,” he said, emphasizing each word.
    “I know you do,” she said, and her heart hurt a little. It
was too bad he didn’t mean it the way she wished he could.
    Trask shook his head, laughing even as confusion wrinkled
his brow. “If you know, then why do you doubt?”
    Rena laughed along with him. “Okay, okay,” she consented.
“You have a point.” She grinned over at him. “Please, Trask, constantly tell me
how much you want me. How does that sound?”
    “That sounds like something I can do,” he said, gathering
her closer.
    She leaned into him, enjoying his heat, the comfort of his
arm around her. “So, what do you do?” she asked, changing the subject to more
neutral territory. She ran her hand up and down his side, loving the feel of
all that hard muscle under her palm.
    He tilted his head from side to