Victoria carried her orchid to her desk and took a moment to pick a place for it to sit. “I’ll have to read up on how to take care of her,” she said, placing it on one corner before changing her mind, and moving it to the other side of her desk. “My mom is the one with the green thumb.”

He watched her move it one more time, closer to her computer. “Is that a fact?”

“Oh yeah, my mom can bring anything back from the brink. When she’s not planning military events, she spends a lot of time with her gardening society,” she explained, planting her hands on her hips. “Should I put this near the window?”

“I honestly don’t know,” John said, holding back his laughter.

“I like the way it looks here,” she twisted the pot so the blossom faced her. “But I wonder if it needs a lot of sunlight.”

“The Tanzanian Orchids didn’t appear to be quite as exposed...as we were,” he said with a chuckle.

She shot him a cross look before she rolled her eyes. “Okay, funny guy. Let’s go on this first date.”

John opened the door as she scooped up her jacket. “After you, Dr. Reese.”

They took John’s pickup downtown and parked on the street, in the heart of Farmingdale’s Restaurant Row. Mid-October swirled the leaves with a light wind and hid the sun behind dreary gray clouds, but John felt a bright radiance from the passenger’s side. Victoria sat with her hands on her lap and knees pressed together. She was the perfect picture of primness. As he turned the ignition off and sat back in his seat, John reached out and set his hand on her thigh.

“Are you hungry?”

She looked down at his hand and then to him, before smiling. “I am.”

John squeezed her thigh. After their week of unfettered access to one another’s bodies, John was finding it difficult to keep his hands off her. Even while he drove, he’d resisted the urge to run his fingers along her jawline, down the length of her slender neck. Jesus... “I was going to take you to Bordeaux, but you tell me where you’d like to eat.”

Her lips parted and a pink tongue darted to the corner of her mouth. John swallowed the impulse to lean over and lick the same spot. First date manners, John. “That sounds great,” she said in an airy voice. “I haven’t had a chance to go there.”

Their conversation was too light for the heavy sexual tension crowding the small cab of his truck. Victoria’s eyes caught his and flickered with renewed interest. Her nut-brown skin flushed slightly, causing John to tighten his grip on the steering wheel. “Victoria...”

“No, I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m having a hard time thinking too. I feel very distracted right now.”