Macy barely
had time to decide what she was going to ask from Leo before she
was pulled to a stop, turned to the right, then back to a stumbling,
feet tangling left.
A
deep breath and . . . it was time.
She lifted
her chin, ran her fingers into her hair, her tongue over her lips.
Then, with her imagination wearing the under things she'd failed
to wash in time for her body to wear, she looked Leo Redding in the
eye.
Big mistake.
Big, big mistake.
She'd forgotten
about his eyes. How he seemed to see more than any near stranger
should see. How what he saw was intimate, private, not at all what
she wanted to reveal.
With each
step she took toward him, her pulse quickened.
At every
bluesy note, her heart beat.
From the
roots of her hair to the tip of her toes, her blood ran hot, raising
a flush on her skin. Leo never looked away, stirring her further.
Macy swore she felt her nostrils flare.
And then
she knew what she wanted. To see him smile. To make him smile. As
much to prove that she could, that she possessed the stronger will
and the necessary feminine wiles, as to add fuel to the fire of her
fantasy.
Having drawn
even with his wide-spread knees, she wedged her legs between, leaned
forward and planted both hands on the flat arms of the chair. The
tips of her fingers brushed the insides of his elbows. His only move
was to reach up and remove his wire rims.
She angled
in closer, lifted one hand and touched a finger to his cheek. "I
want you to do something for me."
Leo raised
a brow. In the background, an anonymous hand clapped to Eric's mouth
muffled a smart remark. Macy gathered her wits and her courage and
climbed into Leo's long-legged lap.
"I want you
to smile. Can you do that? Can you smile for me, Leo Redding?"
Moving even
nearer, she twisted around and settled her seat in the natural dip
of his thighs, draped her legs over the arm of the chair, her elbow
around his shoulders.
He smelled
wonderfully warm and male and she snuggled up to his body that felt
. . . oh, he felt like nothing she'd known.
< His legs
beneath her bottom were hard. His belly at her hip was hard. The
muscles across his shoulders were solid and hard beneath her forearm.
Even the hand, the very large hand resting long fingers on her shins,
was a study in masculine strength.
Lips parted
in seductive invitation, she stroked an index finger over Leo's cheek
and shivered at the bristle of evening beard on her skin. She trailed
the same finger down a path to his collar, worked loose the knot
on his tie.
"C'mon, Leo.
I know you can smile. You've got all the right muscles." She toyed
with the top button of his shirt, poking the bare tip of her finger
beneath the placket to his collarbone.
Still, no
response. Nada. Nothing. Ignoring the murmurs of the audience, she
whispered directly into his ear. "I'll make it easy on you. A quick
grin and we'll call it a night."
She pulled
back to look at his face, expecting a gradual capitulation. But no,
he was stoic to the core. It was time to get down and dirty.
Pouting
always worked for Chloe, so Macy gave it a try at the same time she
lightly touched her thumb to the edge of Leo's mouth, drawing the
one corner upward.
No reaction.
Macy ground back a scream.
She plied
her final weapon, running her fingertips in feathery movements over
his tightly drawn lips, begging with her mouth only inches away. "One
smile. Please?"
And then
she felt it. A shift. A change. A flare and flash in Leo's eyes,
and a new sense of his body hardening beneath hers.
A part of
her wanted to extricate herself from both his lap and a situation
as awkward as any she could recall sharing with a man. A part of
her wanted to wiggle, to experience and explore this private intimacy.
She managed,
instead, to sit very still and avoid disclosing to the rest of the
room what was now so impressively, so solidly pressed to the back
of her thighs. Leo reached for her wrist, removed her motionless
fingers from his lips. She blinked slowly and smiled, a smile meant
for Leo only, Leo alone. She wanted him to know that, between the
two of them, they'd get out of this with no bloodshed, they'd go
on to live another day.
And then
the man blew the wind from her sails.
He smiled.
Not a humorless
grin. Not a slight curl of his lip. Not a sneer or a snarl, but an
ear to ear, start-my-heart-beating smile. Yet that wasn't the worst
part. The best part. The worst. Because once he'd released her wrist
and she'd made ready to hop up from the chair, he cupped the back
of her head.
And he kissed
her. |
