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fingers caught hers, and all at once the rowdy humor went out of him. He searched her gray eyes. His fingers smoothed over her skin, feeling its texture, and her heart went wild.
    â€œSoft,” he murmured. “Soft, like your mouth.” He stared at her lower lip for a long moment. “I’d like to kiss you when I was sober,” he said under his breath, “just to see how it would feel.”
    Her fingers trembled, and he felt it. His hand contracted and brought hers to his mouth. “You smell of perfume,” he breathed huskily. “And you go to my head like whiskey when you look at me that way.”
    She tried to draw her hand back, but he wouldn’t let go of it.
    â€œYou said you’d teach me,” he reminded her with a slow smile. “I’m just getting in some practice.”
    â€œI said I’d teach you manners,” she replied in a high-pitched tone. “You don’t threaten maître d’s and waiters and yell across classy restaurants, Carson.”
    â€œOkay,” he said, smoothing the backs of her fingers against his hard cheek. “What else shouldn’t I do?”
    â€œWhat you’re doing right now,” she whispered.
    â€œI’m only holding your hand,” he said reasonably.
    But it didn’t feel that way. It felt as if he were reaching over the table and taking possession of her, total and absolute possession of her mind and her heart and even her body.
    â€œMandelyn,” he whispered, as if he were savoring the very sound of her name, and she realized with a start that he’d hardly ever said it. It was usually some casual endearment when he spoke to her. He made her name sound new and sweet.
    She watched his dark head bend over her hand with wonder, watched his chiseled lips touch it, brush it with a tenderness she hadn’t imagined him capable of. Her breath caught in her throat and tremors like the harbingers of an earthquake began deep in her body.
    â€œCarson?” she whispered back.
    His eyes lifted, as if he’d heard something in her voice that he wasn’t expecting.
    But before he could say anything, the waiter was back with the coffee.
    â€œWhere are my crepes?” Carson asked curtly.
    â€œIt will be only a minute, monsieur, just a minute,” Henri promised with a worried smile and a fervent glance toward the kitchen.
    Carson stared after him. “It had better be,” he said.
    Henri retreated, and Mandelyn had to smother a grin. “You do come on strong, don’t you?” she managed with a straight face.
    â€œI learned early that it was the only way to come out on top,” he returned. “I don’t like being put down. Never did.”
    â€œThey aren’t trying to put you down,” she began.
    â€œLike hell,” he said, smiling coldly.
    She moved restlessly in her chair. “Lifestyles among the well-to-do are different.”
    â€œYou and I are pretty far apart, aren’t we?” he asked quietly.
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” she murmured. “I used to think I’d enjoy going fishing once in a while, in a pair of old dungarees and a worn-out shirt.”
    â€œDid you? I could take you fishing sometime, if you like.”
    She looked up, half amused, and it dawned on her that she hadn’t ever seen him smile as much as he had this one day. “Could you?”
    He let his eyes run slowly over her. “I could loan you some old jeans and a shirt, too.” He leaned back and lit a cigarette. “After all, you ought to get something out of this deal. You teach me what I need to know. And then I’ll teach you a few things.” He was looking straight at her when he said it, and she tingled all over.
    Henri came back with the crepes seconds later, and Mandelyn was able to damp down her suddenly intense awareness of Carson while she instructed him in the use of flatware.
    â€œWhy don’t they just give you a fork