turned on him for a little while.
“I still have what you need,” he went on. “We haven’t gotten around to that interview yet. Who do you write for?”
She put away the little unit in an evening bag that, from what he could see, didn’t have room for much more than the recorder, a credit card and a lipstick. As she concentrated on the mundane task, her hair tumbled forward and hid most of her face. “I’m a freelancer. Anyone who will pay me, basically.”
“I know how that goes,” he said with sympathy. In his view, it wasn’t important that he owned a thirty-three percent interest in the magazine. What mattered was the writing. He’d been submitting stories on spec since he’d been in high school, and his progress toward acceptances by Left Coast put him, in his opinion, at the top of his game. “Some months I could barely come up with the rent, much less pay the bills.”
She shook her hair back. “Are you a journalist, too? I thought you might have been in the movie business.”
He made a face. “Not me. The closest I get to movies is interviewing the odd producer or actor, which is why I knew Kit Maddox. No, I write for Left Coast.”
Something flashed in her eyes before her lashes came down and veiled them. “Lucky you. I’m not sure Left Coast is in the market for a piece on key parties.”
“You wouldn’t think so,” he said easily. “Depends on the slant.”
“Oh, come on. They only buy the kind of stuff that wins prizes. And I hardly think the Pulitzer panel would consider something like this.”
From her tone, he couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing or a bad one. “Well, I don’t write my stuff with the Pulitzer committee’s opinions in mind. Talk about a way to shut down your creativity.”
To his relief, she smiled and the light came back into her face. For a moment suspended in time, he gazed at her. Her skin was smooth and tinted with color, her eyes the color of tea in the warm light from the lamp. Hair like spun taffy cascaded around her shoulders in an uncontrolled way that gave him an involuntary picture of how it would look tumbled on a pillow.
His pillow.
Tonight.
The band launched into the sensual, minor chords of an old blues song. At the same moment Lauren raised her gaze from where it had settled on his lips and met his eyes. He’d wanted that look turned on him. Oh, yes. Josh felt a shower of heat.
“Why did you run away from me?” he heard himself say.
The music wrapped around them, insinuating itself into his heartbeat, pulling them together. “Because you’re a menace,” she said softly.
A menace? Had he misheard her? He leaned in, close enough to hear. Close enough to smell her perfume. “How can that be?”
“The way chocolate is. The way it’s so bad…and tastes so good.” Her voice was low, her gaze locked on his mouth in a way that excited him past bearing.
“Would you like to dance?” His words came out involuntarily, a knee-jerk reaction to physical stimulus instead of the result of actual thought.
In response, she rose and held out her hand. He took it and led her onto the dance floor, feeling her fingers, cool and slender, in his. A pianist’s hands. Or a journalist’s, made for keyboarding. Touch typing.
Touching.
Would you relax? It’s just a dance. Keep this up and she’ll have you arrested.
She was too tall to fit under his chin, but she fit pretty nicely everywhere else. Her cheek brushed his as she settled into the rhythm of the music, their feet sliding into a lazy rhumba step.
“You’ve had some experience at this,” he murmured into her hair, trying to make small talk while he got his equilibrium back.
“You like the way I move, do you?”
So much for small talk. In the space of eight words she turned the dance inside out so that all he sensed was the feel of her, the scent of her hair that combined something herbal with lemon, and the way her thighs brushed his with every step. He was pretty much in sensory overload, with no cycles left to initiate speech, so he settled for a noise in his throat that meant he agreed.
Yes, sir. His whole body agreed.
“I never thought of dancing as a social activity,” she murmured. “Everyone should just admit that it’s the opening act to something much more fun.”
“Like what?” he managed to ask.
“I’ll give you one guess.” Her smile told him he wouldn’t need more than that. But that smile, up close and personal, scrambled his brain.
Get a grip. Maybe you’re misreading her. “An interview?”
She giggled against his shoulder and he closed his eyes in sheer pleasure at the movement of her breasts against his chest. So much for getting a grip. Try again.
“I’m still working on my original list. I’ve got the dance. We can have a drink afterward. And then it’s up to you.”
He hoped that she opted for “full speed ahead.” His body, her body, the gypsy-blues music—all three combined in a heady mix that was going to set off fireworks any minute now.
Hell with it—maybe he should just think about getting Lauren out of here.
“About that interview,” she murmured in his ear. Her lips moved against his earlobe and made desire spike through him. “I’m trying to think how I might describe you.”
“Hardworking writer? Owns his own condo, paid off his car, definitely interested in the author of this piece. How’s that?”
“Mmm, I was thinking of something more descriptive. Like a dark chocolate truffle. Sinful and rich and everything I know I shouldn’t want, but that I crave.”
She craved him? Josh gave up on trying to talk his body out of doing what it wanted to do when hers obviously wanted to do it, too. He glanced over the heads of the crowd. Where the hell was the door?
“I’m not sure I want you to think of me as food,” he murmured. “Teeth are scary to a guy.”
Again, her breasts bumped his chest gently as she muffled a laugh in his shoulder. And again, sparks of heat flared to life in his blood.
“I never use teeth on a truffle. I like to lick them on the outside until they melt. Then explore their lovely rich centers with my tongue.”
Breathe, before your lungs collapse. “Suck them dry, do you?”
“Oh, yes,” she purred in his ear. “And they love every minute of it.”
Need sang through every vein and he forgot dance steps, propriety, everything but getting her alone. Then he remembered the private dining rooms, big enough for half a dozen—or two. With any luck, one of them would be empty. He slid his arm closer around her waist so that her hips ground against his and danced her over to the dark side of the room.
THE
