Page 31 of Taken With You
“Think we could get away with it?”
He smelled the green-leaf perfume a second before her voice drifted above the murmur of the crowd. She’d approached without a click of heels, and now she stood beside him, head tilted toward the dance floor.
His gut kicked. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“We wouldn’t be the only partners dancing,” she said. “Mrs. Duchamp is currently dancing with her master vintner.”
His gaze flickered to the hostess of the event, squired around by a much younger man. “There’s a twenty-year age gap there.”
“Good for Mrs. Duchamp,” Amanda teased, before sobering a fraction. “It’ll be expected, you know. Colleagues taking a turn on the dance floor. We’re already attracting attention with our delay.”
His gaze skimmed over her fair hair, pulled back in a twist but for one errant strand he yearned to push behind her ear. “They’re all fixated on you, Amanda. I’m just a piece of furniture.”
“Nonsense.” She placed a hand on his arm, pale against the black Armani suit. “We can use the time to catch up on connections we’re making. Let’s just keep the dance casual, and everyone will soon be bored of the gossip.”
“So we’re leaving room for the Holy Ghost?”
She blinked, shaking her head.
“Not Catholic, huh?” He slid his hand over hers. “It’s what the nuns used to say while monitoring the St. Catherine eighth-grade dances.”
She laughed, a spontaneous sound that made her wrinkle her nose. “I knew you were up to the challenge.”
He strode with her through the crowd toward the dance floor, whispers rising in their wake. He swung her around to face him amid the other couples on the parquet floor and laid his palm on the center of her bare, warm back.
“So who was that guy you were speaking with a moment ago?” he said through a narrowing throat.
“The owner of the Windsor Winery, my former employer.” Her silver earrings gleamed against her neck. “I thanked him for taking on a young winemaker right after college and expressed how difficult it was to leave his fine establishment.”
He fixed his attention on the top of her head, and not any lower, nowhere near the sweet curve of her breasts. “What a diplomat you are.”
“He was gracious. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember me. I hadn’t made it high enough in the ranks,” she responded as he urged her into a sway. “Only a moment ago, I saw you in deep conversation with that East Coast distribution rep—”
“He’s a Yankee fan. We were bewailing the loss of our best pitcher in the latest trade.”
Her laugh rippled through him. “You were having a serious business conversation, I see.”
“My job is to be affable. You’re working the room like a champ.”
“I’m doing my best. Though a forensic chemist would have a field day dusting my back for fingerprints.”
“I apologize for the entire male gender.” He flexed his own fingers against that back, drawing on a fraying will not to draw her closer. “Beauty is difficult to ignore.”
“There you go with the flattery,” she teased.
“It’s the Neanderthal in me.” He forced an indifferent expression, though he couldn’t control his mind, which was wondering what kind of sexy, next-to-nothing lingerie she wore beneath the dress. “You’re a master at many things, Amanda, as I’m coming to learn.”
She didn’t respond, which was good, because he was one teasing remark away from burying his lips against her throat. He wanted to pull every pin out of that French twist. He wanted to unhitch the fastening of the halter neck and watch the silky fabric slide off those spectacular breasts. If only the crowd would disappear and leave him alone with her and the music. All it would take was one nudge to bring their bodies closer.
“We’re tempting fate.” Her voice was reedy. “One last circuit around the dance floor, and we’d best split up.”
He swayed her a little longer to the urgings of the music, holding the leash on his control tight.
CHAPTER TEN
Amanda leaned back in the purring elegance of Garrick’s Maserati as the car zoomed up the curving road toward Cedar Ridge. A full moon hung in the sky, casting a silvery sheen on the vineyards. The music and the perfume and the wine had left her languid and electrically charged, powerful in an intimately dangerous way.
Garrick drove into the wide area abutting the crush pad that had served as an unloading area for the harvest. She turned against the soft leather. Her French twist bumped against the headrest. “No need to stop by the caves.” Was that her voice, all throaty? “We can go straight to the cabin.”
