her close? Would everyone else in the room see the brush of their bodies as an innocent hug, or as the carnal invitation he knew he would be extending?
“I should thank that waitress, you know. She helped me confirm just how stupid this is,” she said, any hint of a smile disappearing.
Her tone chased away his sensual mood. He couldn’t believe she had truly been jealous about the ridiculous cocktail waitress, whose overblown charms had nothing on the more understated ones of this woman. “She was rude to you, but it’s cute that you’re jealous.”
The way she tilted her head to one side—puzzled—told him he’d misread her. Now he realized she hadn’t been jealous. In fact, she looked almost…deflated. Morose. “That’s not it. I mean this whole situation is stupid. I give up. Nobody’s going to buy us as a couple.”
Ignoring the obvious question—why anyone would have to—he asked the more interesting one. “Why not?”
Frowning, she gestured toward him—his face, his shoulders, his tux—then glanced down at herself. “We’re not what I’d call a match made in heaven.”
“We are a match made at an auction,” he pointed out. “And that’s all that matters.”
“No, it’s not,” she murmured, those amazingly expressive eyes shifting away again, as if she had something she didn’t yet want to tell him.
“What exactly is it you’re worried about?”
“Somebody meeting us would take me for your secretary.”
He snorted at the thought of him having a secretary. What? To keep track of his…appointments?
She ignored him. “Or your dental hygienist. Not your girlfriend.”
Girlfriend? He didn’t have those. Ever.
This auction was strictly for a one-date relationship, which was about Sean’s max when it came to his personal life, anyway. Or, at least, it had been for the past several years, since he’d told his old man to shove his estate and his plans for Sean’s future—including an appropriate marriage—and had hit the road, determined to find his mother and the other side of his history.
But he didn’t argue, still wanting to get to whatever point she was trying to make. “Or they might take me for your mechanic. Who gives a damn what anybody else thinks?”
At that, a rumble of soft laughter escaped from her mouth, sounding so genuinely merry, he couldn’t prevent himself from echoing it with a chuckle of his own.
“Yeah, right. Remington Steel showing up to fix my minivan. That’s exactly what people will see.”
A minivan…horrendous. “Who is Remington Steel?”
“He was a character on a TV show. My mom’s favorite when I was a kid.” Her brow scrunched in concentration. “Wait, Pierce Brosnan is Irish, right?”
“Oh, that show,” he replied. “Yes, he is.”
Sounding triumphant, she said, “And he’s Bond, too! So I wasn’t so far off.”
He nodded to concede the point. “But Connery’s still the best.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, duh.” She looked away. “My mother would be easy to win over,” Annie whispered, as if working things out in her own head. “She wouldn’t question the details once she saw your face and heard that voice.”
“Are we getting closer to the subject now?”
She shook her head, realizing she’d been overheard. “No. Not really. It’s still crazy and would never work, no way would anybody look at us and see what they expect to see, given the way I’ve been talking about you.”
“Me?”
“Him,” she said, her face flushing again. “Sorry.” Then, under her breath, she added, “I can’t believe I spent all that money. At least it’s tax deductible.” Nibbling her lip, she added, “I hope.”
“I wish I had some idea what the bloody hell you’re talkin’ about.”
“Come on,” she snapped. “Not only would you never fit in my world, but anybody looking at us would realize we are absolutely nothing alike. We have no common interests, no emotional connection.” She swallowed visibly. “Zero chemistry.”
There she was wrong. Very wrong. He knew it, instinctively, just as he knew he’d be replaying their unusual conversation over in his mind long after they parted company this evening. And that he’d be remembering the echo of that joyous, uninhibited laugh tonight as he tried to fall asleep.
They had chemistry. So much chemistry he could feel it pulsing between their bodies, like brightly colored fireworks, flashing red and gold in bursts of heat and light. When he wasn’t trying his damndest to decipher what the hell she was saying, he was forcing himself not to grab her and kiss the prattle right off her lips.
“Annie,” he murmured, lifting a hand so he could touch a strand of that golden hair, “we most definitely do have chemistry. I suspect we could set off an explosion without ever going near a laboratory, you and I.”
There hadn’t been many such explosions in Sean’s life. Physical gratification? Oh, to be sure, on occasion. But it had been years since he’d met a woman and wanted her on sight, for no other reason than the pleasure they would both gain from their physical connection. Especially one who had no idea who she was dealing with.
As Annie most assuredly did not. He knew that as well as he knew his own recent history. Which was much better than he knew his future.
I’ll get around to figuring that out.
“You’re still teasing…”
“No, I’m not. You feel it, too. Admit it.”
The friction rolling off her body and reverberating back off his underscored his claim and gave her no chance to deny it. They were close enough to share the same inch of airspace, to feel the light rasp of cloth on cloth as their bodies brushed against each other, sending the tension, the awareness, into the stratosphere.
For the first time since he’d arrived here tonight, he began to wonder if he was going to be inside this building until the sun came up tomorrow. They were in a beautiful hotel. Upstairs were hundreds of rooms waiting to be filled with lovers hungry to spend the hot summer night in a heated, carnal embrace.
What would she say if he made such a suggestion? Would he scare her off, or finally pierce through that self-deprecating wall of chatter she’d been using to keep him at bay?
“I feel it,” she finally admitted, dropping all pretenses. She said nothing else, just watched him, trying, as he was, to figure out what was happening here.
Something, that was for sure.
Annie’s lips trembled and her pulse fluttered rapidly in her throat. Ravenous for a taste of her, for a sample of that smooth skin, he settled for a kiss—just a brief one—on her pink lips.
“Sweet
