Page 12 of Silver-Tongued Devil
“You really think so?” she said with a wry smile. “They make salad dressing. Maybe that’s why I moved to Seattle and went into wills and trusts. That’s not necessarily interesting either, but at least it’s my kind of boring.” Her voice was slightly breathy, which was sexy, and so was her sleeveless blue sheath dress, in a conservative sort of way. She had great legs, too. Everything was there except a spark.
“So you’re just visiting,” he pushed on. Nobody’d ever called him a quitter. She didn’t live here, no, which wasn’t ideal from the courtship standpoint. But then, he didn’t live here, either. He was in Seattle as often as he was anywhere else except Portland, and a long-distance romance would be good. Keep it on the slow track, keep things from getting out of hand. “It sounded like your folks would love to have you back for good. Not even tempted? Your dad must be doing something right. It’s got to be rare in packaged goods for a company to be so successful selling only one product line, as dominant as the multinationals are.” He was putting himself to sleep here, and he didn’t think he was doing Beth any favors, either.
Her eyes strayed from his face, and her hand stilled on her fork. Not that she’d been eating much. She was slim to the point of thinness, and it was easy to see why. She’d barely touched her salad plate, and she wasn’t doing much better on her fish. It was a safe bet that the dessert menu would be passing them by.
When she kept looking away, he twisted in his chair to see… not much. A couple threading their way between tables behind the hostess, that was all. One of them was a guy with the build of a linebacker, and the other was a woman who had him taking a second glance. A whole lot of artfully tousled dark brown hair falling around her face like she’d just gotten out of bed, a pair of low-slung skinny jeans ripped strategically down the thighs, and platform sandals that made her legs look a hundred miles long. All of her looking like a red-flag warning of the very best kind.
When he recognized her, it was with a leap of excitement and—call it annoyance, neither of which he managed to suppress well enough. His swimming partner. Out with somebody else.
He turned his attention hastily back to Beth. How long had he been staring? “Pardon? You were saying?”
“Oh,” she said, shifting her own gaze back to him. “Nothing. You were asking about the business.”
“More wine?” he asked, picking up the bottle.
“Oh, no, thanks. I’m good.”
Wonderful.
He kept talking to Beth as well as he could manage, but her mind didn’t seem to be on the job, either, and it was hard going. If she’d been reserved before—now, she was stilted. His own attention might have divided, too, because there Dakota was in his peripheral vision. Shoving her hair back over one tanned shoulder, revealing a little more of a filmy white top that draped just low enough, plus a delicate silver necklace on a chain that caught the candlelight. Her hair was loose and wild in the very best way, and her eyes lit up with animation as she laughed and gestured at the guy with her.
“. . . Now we’re into this case, and it’s pretty hectic,” Beth was saying. She went on, but Blake wasn’t listening. Opposite him, Dakota had pushed her chair back, stood up, and touched her date lightly on the arm as she bent to tell him something, her blouse dipping with the movement and revealing a flash of cleavage, her wonderful mouth curving into a sassy smile. And then she was walking toward Blake, and right past him. And totally ignoring him.
Her hips didn’t sway, exactly. That wasn’t it. It was the confidence. And that little bit of a blouse she had on. It fell asymmetrically over the waistband of her low-slung jeans, and she was showing a tiny bit of bare brown skin down there. When she got close, he could see that the jeans had a button fly. They sat so low on her hips that there was only room for three buttons, though. Those buttons were silver, and they were absolutely magnetic. Because above them was something else silver, he saw as she shifted her purse on her shoulder and her blouse rode up. The wink of a curved stud in the dimple of her belly button.
Lord have mercy. If there was one thing he was a sucker for, it was an innie belly button on a toned stomach. And if she pierced it… well, he was a dead man. His tongue wanted to go right there, and it wanted to stay there awhile before heading on south.
That honey-colored skin. That little curved barbell.Damn.
Some men loved breasts, and some loved legs. Those things were absolutely great, don’t get him wrong, but let’s just say he enjoyed a woman he could appreciate coming and going, and a girl with gorgeous skin made him stupid. He loved to look at it, he loved to touch it, and he loved to kiss it. And the softer and smoother it was, the more he wanted to do it.
He’d bet that chain was still in her ear, too. The problem was, there was so much there that needed to be kissed and licked and taken care of, and he wasn’t the guy who’d be doing it.
It felt like forever, but it was over in a couple seconds. She was past him, leaving behind the barest whiff of her perfume. Spicy and warm, dangerously potent and seriously sexy. It wasn’t the light, ladylike floral scent Beth was wearing. It was a whole lot more addictive than that.
Beth.Whoops. His manners had taken a hike, and she’d obviously noticed, because she’d stopped talking and was just looking at him.
He said, “Sorry. Long day,” smiled at her, and thought,Dial it back, horn dog.
“They can be that way,” she said, that dry note back in her voice.
“Would you like a coffee?” he asked. “Dessert?”
“No, thank you. In fact, it’s been a bit of a long day for me, too. Maybe we should get out of here.”
In another woman, it might have been a discreet come-on. In her, it wasn’t. He paid the check as Dakota walked by him again, and hedidn’tlook up, because he was with another woman who deserved his attention, and Dakota’s efforts were for the other guy anyway.
She wasn’t even the one who’d invited him to come swimming, he reminded himself when his mind tried to go straight to “jealous.” If she’d flirted with him… well, he’d flirted with her, too. Before she’d told him she didn’t want any part of him.
That was the old you anyway,he told himself.New life plan, remember? No more wild side. No more wild rides.
Fifteen minutes later, he was turning down the Schaefers’ driveway, with its discreet lighting buried in the greenery on either side, and ending up at the guest house beside the enormous pile of her parents’ place. He hopped out and walked Beth to her door. Despite all evidence to the contrary, hehadbeen raised right.
He wouldn’t have had to be nearly as good at body language as he was to interpret the stiffness of her shoulders, though, and it didn’t take any skill at all to hear the undercurrents when she said, “Thank you very much for dinner. I had a nice time.”
He grinned at her ruefully and scratched his nose. “Well…”
She laughed, showing more animation than she had all night. “Yeah. You’re right. That wasn’t either of our best effort. But we can tell my mom I tried.”
