Tease Me (One Night with Sole Regret #7)(26)
Author: Olivia Cunning

Adam shrugged. “It is strange. I wish you’d allow me to have a little chat with her.”

“I think I’ll try talking to her again,” Madison said. “I was so stunned when she fired me, I didn’t plead my case very well. Now that I’ve had a little time to digest the situation, I might be able to get my job back.”

Adam reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “If that’s what you want. If you change your mind about needing me, just say the word and I’m there.”

She turned her hand over and laced her fingers through his. “I do need you,” she said. “I just think this situation requires a little finesse.”

He licked the sugar off the fingertips of his free hand. “You don’t think I’m capable of finesse?”

Uh, no. She knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain his composure if her boss talked to him the way she had talked to Madison. “She basically called me a slut and said I should have kept my legs closed.”

Adam slammed a fist on the table, sloshing coffee from their cups. “That fucking bitch. She better not talk to you like that in front of me unless she wants a fist in her mouth.”

She smiled, knowing he was mostly talk, but also knowing his attitude wouldn’t help her cause. “Exactly the finesse I was talking about, sweetie.”

She took a sip of her coffee, surprised by the rich, somewhat spicy flavor of the brew. “This is really good,” she said, taking another sip.

“It’s the chicory.”

“No idea what chicory is, but I approve.”

The beignets were fantastic as well and now that Adam was near, her thoughts turned away from her problems and focused once again on him. Maybe it wasn’t practical to center her world around him, but she much preferred it to sulking about her reality. Even though her eyes were on the fascinating people strolling by and her ears were treated to the practiced horn of the nearby musician, she was aware of Adam on a level she’d never experienced with another person. It was similar to how she knew her twin sister was near, but the awareness tugged at her from a different place. Only part of the reaction was sexual; she didn’t have a name for the rest of it.

“Madison?”

She turned her head to meet his gaze, and was instantly drowning in his smoky gray eyes.

“You have a little something . . .” He leaned across the table and kissed her, his tongue trailing lightly over her lips.

Completely under his spell, she leaned forward, groaning in protest when he drew away.

“Sugar lips,” he said with a grin that showed off the deep dimple near one corner of his sensual mouth. “Even sweeter than usual.”

Sugar lips. That guy, Chris, had called her that earlier. She’d completely forgotten about his unexpected reappearance. Should she mention him to Adam? No. There wasn’t really anything to tell. It wasn’t like the guy had harassed her. And seeing him had just been a coincidence. Half the tourists in New Orleans were probably in the French Quarter at any given moment.

Having already devoured her first beignet, she picked up another and rubbed powdered sugar all over her mouth. “Oh,” she said, “I seem to have a little something . . .”

Adam chuckled and leaned in for another kiss. She melted beneath his attention, kissing him back with as much passion as he showed her. Beneath her skirt, his hand moved to the bare skin of her knee. She was already so fired up that the simple touch of his fingertips against her skin sent waves of tingling pleasure up her thigh to pulse deep within her pussy.

“Is it time to go to that club yet?” she asked breathlessly when he tugged his lips from hers.

“Not yet.”

Damn.

“So any luck with your writer’s block?” Madison asked, hoping to distract herself from the very definition of distraction seated across from her.

“It will come,” he said, picking at the corner off her spare beignet and popping a piece into his mouth. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was intentionally avoiding her eyes. “Today I just want to focus on you.”

“I’m okay with that.”

After brunch he took her hand and they headed across the street. Artists and fortune-tellers were set up along the sidewalk outside Jackson Park, which Adam said was named after Andrew Jackson. The park featured a statue of Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, at its center.

They stopped short when a tall and lanky man, who reminded Madison of a clean-shaven Abraham Lincoln, stepped into their path. He touched Madison’s shoulder and examined her face.

“What the hell?” Adam said, shoving the guy’s hand away from her.

“I have to draw you,” the guy said.

“You don’t have to draw shit,” Adam grumbled.

While Madison was fascinated by the motley bunch of street vendors, Adam seemed annoyed by them. But then this wasn’t his first time in New Orleans, so every nuance wasn’t necessarily a grand adventure for him. Madison examined the artist’s caricatures and giggled at his interpretation of Morgan Freeman’s freckles and Nicole Kidman’s forehead.

“I want him to draw me,” Madison said and promptly sat on the stool next to the artist’s easel.

“He’s a caricaturist,” Adam said, as if the vocation was synonymous with roadkill.

“I know.”

The artist took a seat and began to sketch.

“If you want someone to draw you, I’ll do it,” Adam said.

And she’d love to see what he came up with. “Get to work then,” she said. “We’ll see who does a better job.”

Adam turned to the street artist. “How much for a blank sheet of paper and a charcoal pencil?”

“Uh . . . twenty bucks?”

Adam’s glare indicated he knew he was being robbed, but he paid the man, collected his supplies, including a clipboard, and sat on the sidewalk near a wall. He didn’t even look at Madison as he worked, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Nor was she interested in Mr. Lincoln’s small talk. The caricaturist refused to give Madison a peek at his finished work while they waited for Adam to complete his drawing. Madison fanned herself with her hands. Even in the shade, she was growing uncomfortably warm. Adam must be dying in his jeans if she was this hot in a skirt. She was admiring Adam in those jeans when he looked up at her unexpectedly. He added a small touch to his drawing and held it at arm’s length to examine it. After a few more scratches with his pencil, he climbed to his feet.