Page 25 of A Man for Amanda
“You didn’t have to say it. Obviously I can’t make you talk about it, but—”
“Maybe that’s because I’d rather talk about us.” Casually he set both hands on the banister behind her, caging her between.
“There is no us.”
“Sure there is. There’s you and there’s me. That makes us. That’s real basic grammar.”
“If you’re trying to change the subject—”
“You’re getting that line between your eyebrows again.” He lifted a thumb to rub at it. “That Calhoun line. How come you never smile at me the way you smiled at Trent?”
“Because I like Trent.”
“It’s funny, most people figure I’m an amiable sort of guy.”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
“Why don’t you stand a little closer?”
She had to laugh. If there had been a contest for persistence, Sloan O’Riley would have won hands down. “This is close enough, thanks.” More than close enough, she added silently when she had to fight back an urge to run her fingers through that untidy mane of reddish-blond hair. “Amiableisn’t the word I would use. Now,cocky, annoying, tenacious, those might suit.”
“I kind of like tenacious.” He leaned closer to breathe in her scent. “A man doesn’t get very far if he caves in every time he runs into a wall. You climb over, tunnel under, or just knock the whole damn thing down.”
She put a hand to his chest before he could close that last inch of distance. “Or he keeps beating his head against it until he has a concussion.”
“That’s a calculated risk, and worth it if there’s a woman behind the wall looking at him the way you look at me.”
“I don’t look at you any particular way.”
“When you forget that you want to be professional, you look at me with those big blue eyes of yours all soft, and a little scared. A lot curious. Makes me want to scoop you up right there and carry you off to someplace real quiet so I can satisfy that curiosity.”
She could imagine it all too clearly, feel it all too sharply. There was only one solution. Escape. “Well, this has been fun, but I’ve got to go change.”
“Are you going back to work?”
“No.” Agile, she swooped under his arm and swung up the steps. “I’ve got a date.”
“A date?” he repeated, but she was already racing across the second floor.
He told himself he wasn’t waiting for her, though he’d been pacing the foyer for a good twenty minutes. He wasn’t going to hang around like an idiot and watch her go strolling off with some other man—after she’d tied him into knots by just standing there and looking at him. There was plenty for him to do, including enjoying the dinner Coco had invited him to, talking over old times and new plans with Trent, even sitting down at his drawing board. He wasn’t about to spend the evening mooning over the fact that some obstinate woman preferred someone else’s company to his.
After all, Sloan reminded himself as he paced the foyer, she was free to come and go as she pleased. The same as he was. Neither one of them was branded. Just because he had a hankering for her didn’t mean he was going to get riled up when she spent a couple of hours with another man.
The hell it didn’t.
Turning, he took the steps two at a time.
“Calhoun?” He strode down the corridor, banging on doors. “Damn it, Calhoun, I want to talk to you.” He was at the far end of the hall and starting back when Amanda opened her door.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
He stared a moment as she stood in the stream of light that spilled out of the room behind her. She’d done something fancy to her hair, he noted, so that it looked sexily rumpled. Played with her face, too, in that damnably sultry way some women have a talent for. Her dress was a pale icy blue, full at the skirt, nipped at the waist with two skinny straps slinking over her shoulders. Chunky stones in a deeper blue glittered at her ears and throat.
She didn’t look efficient, he thought furiously. She didn’t look competent. She looked as delectable as a pretty white cake on a fancy tray. And he was damned if any other man was going to take even one small nibble.
Her foot was already tapping when he started toward her.
Amiable? she thought, and had to resist the urge to bolt back into her room and lock the door. No one would call him amiable now. He looked as though he’d just finished chewing a mountain of glass and was raring for the second course.
