Playing With Fire. Carrie Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ by the hollows of her eyes. Frustrating—he couldn’t gauge her reactions except in her voice. But she was holding on to him, forestalling his pivot.

      “Lollipops.” The husky contralto hummed in his ear. “Sweet little suckers that last an hour, tops.”

      “What makes you think I have a sweet tooth?”

      Her grip tightened in concert with her voice. “Men like you…” She didn’t finish.

      He let that one go. For now. Even though she was dead wrong. “And what is it you want?”

      “Is this a negotiation instead of a dare?” She smoothed her right hand along his shoulder, switched her head over and said silkily in his other ear, “Shall we set up a list of rules, then? Would that suit your nature?”

      His Adam’s apple bobbed when she reached past his shoulder and tugged playfully at his tie. Her fingertip followed the motion, flicking the bump above his collar as if chiding him for his hesitation. If only she knew. He was getting hard—so hard he had to shove a hand into his pocket and make a little room so his arousal wasn’t readily apparent. He swallowed again.

      She said, drawing away, “I suppose you always follow the rules.”

      “Not always.” He couldn’t turn.

      “No?” She became playful. “By day, a by-the-books businessman. By night—” in the window, her head cocked “—a lawless scalawag.”

      His lips compressed, withholding a laugh. “Scalawag?”

      “Scoundrel, then.”

      He chuckled.

      “Libertine?” she suggested, stepping to his side, her eyes searching for his. “Lady-killer?”

      “You’re way off base.”

      She pretended to pout. “How disappointing. I was counting on your lawless streak to show me a good time.”

      He turned quickly and took her by the elbows. A fleeting look of alarm passed over her face before her expression settled into an unblinking, wide-eyed stare. “You have no idea,” he said, startled by his own ferocity. His desire for her was quickly becoming rapacious. “What do you know about me? Not even my name.”

      “It’s Daniel.” She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, another small signal of uncertainty. “I heard your wife say it.”

      “Tamar is my executive assistant.”

      “Your assistant?” A spark lit the feline eyes. “Aha. A substitute wife. Of course. I get it now.” She placed her palms on his chest and pressed lightly as her upper body swayed toward his. “You’re one of those driven Wall Street types. No time for a family, but you’ve been with your secretary for ages. She knows your likes and dislikes better than you do. She manages both your professional and personal life with an efficiency that’s frightening. She fusses over you like a wife.”

      “Tamar doesn’t fuss.” He moved his thumbs against the soft skin of her inner elbows. “Otherwise, your assessment is accurate enough to be unsettling. I wasn’t aware that I’d become such a cliché.”

      She studied his face, her lips puckering ever so slightly. A half smile. “There’s more to you?”

      He said “Yes” with some intensity.

      Her eyes were wide, bright; they reached into his, asking a question he couldn’t decipher. Suddenly she turned away, disengaging their linked arms with a shudder so small he might have missed it if they weren’t so attuned.

      “What do you think of the restaurant’s decor?” she asked in a social make-nice voice. Pressing her knuckles to the hollow of her throat, she tilted her head to study the panel of stained glass that hung above them like a misplaced church window.

      Distracted by the loose tendrils that coiled against her neck, he barely glanced at the piece. He wanted to blow aside her hair and run his fingertips over the bumps of her vertebrae until he reached the hollow of her back. Her dress was so open, so provocative, he might reach inside and cup—

      “Daniel?”

      “Belongs in a church, not a restaurant,” he said without thought.

      Her chin lowered. “Really.”

      Damn. He’d said the wrong thing. Aside from a casual interest in photography, understanding Art-with-a-capital-A was a challenge he hadn’t yet set his sights on. Probably he was supposed to have used words like stunning agony or fascinating dichotomy.

      But it was only a piece of stained glass.

      He looked up at it. Yeah, sure, it was a nice piece of stained glass. The wood-framed panel was large, roughly five feet by three. It contained thousands of tiny pieces of glass—green, gold, orangy-brown and red predominately, with flecks of white, silvery blue and a stark, clear lapis lazuli. No rhyme or reason to the placement, that he could tell. Thinking modern art with a certain derision, he stepped back to better view the piece. The shards of colored glass coalesced into a whole.

      “A forest,” he said, surprisingly moved by its beauty. “Sunlight shining through the leaves. Autumn leaves.”

      It wasn’t Art Speak, but the lioness seemed pleased. “You like?”

      She’d been testing him, he thought, not sure why. Although, he remembered belatedly, she had been at the center of a group of people who’d studied the piece like connoiseurs, all of them narrowing their eyes and nodding sagely. Except her. She’d looked highly skeptical.

      “Yes, I do like it,” he said, his curiosity renewed.

      She spoke directly in his ear once more, the sultry resonance of her voice overriding his newfound appreciation of art. “Let’s go.”

      He stared into her face. “By all means.”

      She threw back her head, her eyes slitted. “Perhaps not all means. Can we start with the usual one?”

      Missionary? he wondered, then tried to banish the mental picture he’d conjured when it made heat surge lavishly toward his lower body.

      “Walking,” she said, smiling just enough to further tease his senses.

      He nodded and gestured for her to proceed. They’d negotiated the crowd and were nearly out the door when a tall man of indeterminate age broke away from a cluster of guests and hurried over to stop them. “A moment, my dear,” he called, and Daniel’s companion winced as if she’d touched a fingertip to a red-hot stove burner. By the time she turned, a pleasant expression had been plastered across her features. But he saw the grit of her teeth.

      “You mustn’t leave so soon.” The other man was several inches taller than Daniel’s six feet, suited in double-breasted charcoal-black with a glossy onyx tie. His face was patrician and immobile, except for the eyes, which were avid. Freshly clipped platinum hair lay close to his skull.

      “The Peytons have arrived,” he continued, with the faintest trace of exasperation. He reached for her elbow. “They are important.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ