“Anywhere but here,” Carmen finished.
Dirk cast Val a hard glance. “What about you? I don’t hear you chiming in.”
Meg bit back a laugh at Val’s falsely innocent expression. “We wouldn’t give you any trouble, Dirk. We promise. We’d do whatever you told us.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll just bet.” He flicked a glance at Meg, who batted her eyelashes and tried to look seductive. One thing Dirk didn’t try to hide: He wanted her. Unfortunately, Meg also wanted him.
“Just lunch, right?” Dirk said.
Sensing victory, Meg smiled. “That’s all we have time for. We don’t even have time to shop.”
Dirk looked relieved at the news. “Where do you want to go?”
The girls glanced around. “Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek?” Izzy suggested. “I was there a few years ago with my sister.”
“A mansion . . .” Carmen said thoughtfully. “Sí,that sounds like the perfect spot for lunch.”
When Val and Meg grinned and nodded their agreement, Dirk blew out a breath. “Fine. I’ll call down and arrange for a limo to pick us up. We can wait for the car in the lobby. Let’s go.”
Carmen’s black brows shot up. “Dios mío,what are you talking about?” She planted her hands on her hips. “We cannot go dressed like this.” She looked down at her khaki Capri pants and flat brown sandals. “We must all go and change.”
“Jesus, I knew this was a bad idea.”
“You said we could go.” Isabel pouted, her full red lips curling down in a way that made her look even sexier than usual.
“Please, Dirk,” Meg pleaded. “It won’t take us long to get ready.”
Dirk grunted. “I’ll believe that when I see it.” Izzy and Carmen both opened their mouths to argue, but he held up a hand. “Okay, fine. I’ll have the limo pick us up in thirty minutes. Will that work?”
“I’ll make a lunch reservation for twelve thirty,” Val said, smiling, clearly eager to go along with the plan.
“Fine.” Dirk walked to the door and pulled it open, walked out into the hall to talk to the guard. Izzy’s suite was on Meg’s floor, Val’s two floors up. Carmen’s suite was on the floor below.
Leaving Meg in her room under the protective eye of the security guard, Dirk walked the other three women to their rooms, alerted the guards on each floor, then came back up to Meg’s.
Thirty minutes later, they were all together in the lobby, ready to go to lunch. Meg ended up sitting next to Dirk in the long black stretch limo that comfortably seated nine. She told herself to ignore the way her heart was racing, ignore the hard shoulder and sinewy thigh pressing into hers. But she couldn’t ignore the look of burning intensity in Dirk’s hazel eyes.
The girls were chatting, laughing, excited to be out of what felt more like a prison than a luxury hotel. All Meg could think of was the man on the seat beside her.
“I wish it was just you and me in here,” Dirk said, low enough so no one else could hear. “I’d close the privacy panel, strip you naked, and tell the driver not to stop all night. I’d have you every way I could think of and start all over again.”
Oh, dear God!Meg could hardly breathe and her insides had gone completely liquid. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Dirk Reynolds. You’re supposed to be thinking about keeping us safe.”
“I think of that, Meg. No way would I let anyone hurt you.”
“Except you.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you, honey. I’d never do that.”
Her eyes stung. She couldn’t remember a man affecting her so strongly. “Not on purpose, but in the end that’s what would happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
Across the way, Val laughed at something Izzy said, and Dirk bent to whisper in her ear. “No more sleeping on the sofa. Tonight when I come to your room, I want to sleep in your bed.”
For too many reasons to count, that wasn’t going to happen.
Meg flashed him a teasing smile. “We’ll flip for it, macho man. Winner gets the bed. Loser sleeps on the sofa.”
