Anna batted her lashes flirtatiously at him. “You didn’t tell him about me?” What she wouldn’t give to have heard that conversation. Jane knew everything about their relationship, most of it before Anna did. How would things look to Jay’s friend?
“No.” Jay’s unusually firm, serious tone took her by surprise.
“No?”
“No. Have some champagne.” He busily poured for her and then was saved from more questions by the convenient arrival of their waiter.
Anna eyed him as he threw himself into ordering dinner and then sipping his champagne. Like a man trying to change or at least avoid the subject.
Then it occurred to her that he wouldn’t be likely to tell his friends about her because he didn’t know where he stood. She stroked the plush petals thoughtfully once more, then laid the rose down to pick up her flute and touch the rim to Jay’s before they drank in unison.
“Thank you for the rose, however it got its color,” Anna said with a smile. “And maybe I can thank your friend someday.”
Jay looked distinctly uncomfortable and unsettled at that. “You’re welcome,” he finally answered. Then he straightened his tie and turned the conversation to her recent success.
She wasn’t going to let him get away with it. She was going to get him to talk about himself, not spend the time they had talking about her life.
But it was just possible that in this particular case the best way to get what she wanted was to give him exactly what he asked for.
In depth. And detail. At length.
Anna grinned inwardly and proceeded to launch into a discussion of velocity stress, solid-propellant grains that did or did not retain structural integrity while burning, the fact that powdered titanium caused the familiar booming sound in fireworks while potassium benzoate caused the whistling sound and the various substances used for colors.
His wonderful eyes were glazing over beautifully when she wrapped up with a brief history of pyrotechnics.
“It was an old Chinese custom to light a firecracker in the morning to scare away evil spirits,” Anna intoned in her best monotone lecture voice.
He’d finally had enough, she noted gleefully.
He roused himself from his stupor enough to interject a question. But unbelievably, he wanted to ask her about yet another work-related subject.
“What exactly is Greek Fire?”
Anna was amazed. He wasn’t normal. His ears should be bleeding. His brain should be melting slush. He should be begging her to stop. He should be ready to sing like a canary and tell her everything she wanted to know about himself.
Anything to get off the subject.
And instead he wanted to hear about her pet project.
“Greek Fire,” she repeated faintly. She gave him an odd look. “Nobody knows, that’s the problem. We know it wasn’t black powder, known more familiarly as gunpowder. It was something else and it was lost.” She sipped her champagne with a distinct frown at the thought. “It’s a mystery. That’s the trouble with military secrets, the wrong people die, their side loses and their knowledge dies with them.”
“Lyle tells me you’re likely to rediscover it.”
Anna smiled in mingled surprise and pleasure at that telling remark. “Lyle said that?”
Jay nodded. “He has great faith in your abilities.”
Well, that was quite a vote of confidence. It warmed her. “It’s a pet project of mine,” Anna admitted. “I love a mystery and knowing it was discovered once, it has to be possible to stumble across it again. It has more possibilities than just military applications, you know. But Jay, why do you want to talk about all this?”
To her surprise, he suddenly looked a little hurt. Also a little angry. “I’m not too dumb to follow along, Anna. I can understand enough to get a rough idea of what it is that you do. You can talk to me about your work.”
She stared back at him in silence, trying to sort that reaction out. “I didn’t think you were, well—”
“Interested?” Suddenly his black eyes burned. “I’m interested in you. I care about whatever you’re interested in.”
He saw how much that impassioned outburst surprised her and he softened. Jay reached out to take her hand and twine his fingers through hers. “Honey, it doesn’t bother me if you’re the biggest brain of the century. We’re different but it isn’t a matter of better or worse. You’re brilliant at what you do. I’m a whiz at marketing. And we’d both be serious failures if we traded jobs. You don’t have to worry about me not being able to follow you, okay?”
Anna blinked back sudden tears. He was doing it again.
“You’re doing it again,” she informed him in frustration.
“Doing what?”
“Doing everything. Being nice, understanding, supportive. How am I supposed to meet you halfway if you insist on doing everything all the way?” she demanded.
Now it was Jay’s turn to look surprised.
“I want to talk about you and you keep wanting to talk about me. All we’ve ever done is talk about me. I’m not completely selfish and uncaring, you know,” Anna pointed out indignantly. “Just because you have all the experience at being a lover doesn’t mean I can’t learn. I’m not stupid either, you know.”
Ebony eyes sparkled with humor. “Precious, are we having our first fight?”
Anna fought a smile in return. “I don’t know. Don’t the other three or four fights count?”
Jay gave her a sexy smile. “Nah, those were just little sparring matches. Warm-ups.” He leaned back and lazily toyed with her feet under the table before sliding one foot suggestively up and down her calf. “Let’s take this opportunity to further your communication skills. You seem a bit perturbed with me. Why?” In spite of his teasing look, his voice was serious.
Amethyst eyes darkened with ire. “That’s a perfect example right there. Because you keep doing it all. I don’t get a chance to do anything for you. Before I can, you’re already pouring me champagne and playing footsies.”
Jay eyed her in undisguised surprise. Just like that? She was ready to take the lead already? He hadn’t even had time to romance her on the dance floor, feed her chocolate raspberry torte in between passionate kisses or bring her champagne and strawberries in bed. He’d planned to deposit the berries in convenient spots and nibble to both their hearts’ content. In fact, he had a whole list of seductive plans to woo her with. And now, just like that, she wanted to turn the tables on him before he’d even gotten started?
He was even better than he’d thought.
The happy realization warmed him all the way through. Anna loved him and she was ready to demand that he do the right thing, any time now.
Damn, but he was amazing, Jay mused, congratulating himself with hidden glee. She’d be proposing to him in no time. Now he just had to let her seduce him.
“Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to make you feel left out,” he assured her. “I love meeting you anywhere. Halfway, all the way, anyway, as long as it ends up with you and me in the same place.”
She blinked. “Oh.”
Had any woman, anywhere, ever looked more adorable? Jay didn’t think so. Love welled up in his heart until he could barely contain it.
He went on, “Honey, let me be romantic for you tonight.” She’d be well and truly tied up in knots by the time he was done with her, he gloated. “I planned tonight. I was looking forward to it and I want to sweep you off your feet with blue roses, candlelight and dancing. Please?”
For good measure, he gave her his best melting look and hoped he wasn’t too out of practice with it.
She looked suspicious. “You want to do all that?”
He loved her, he really did, Jay thought. He knew she was a big brain. But she really wasn’t too bright sometimes.
“Yes, honey. I’m a manly man, remember? I love to make you swoon with passion, it makes me feel so powerful.” He wiggled his brows at her suggestively and succeeded in making her laugh.
�
�Oh.” Anna still looked adorably confused. “But when do I get to make you swoon?”
“We’ll take turns,” Jay assured her with dancing eyes. “It’s my turn now and then it’ll be your turn tomorrow. We have lots of time, right?”
Well, yes, they did, Anna conceded inwardly. But she was feeling distinctly impatient, wanting to get on with showing and telling him that she really did love him back.
Or was that exactly what he was asking for? He wanted her to let him take the lead. That could be part of leaning on him like he’d asked her to, couldn’t it? A part of intimacy, letting him be involved in her life?
Yes, that had to be exactly what he was doing, Anna concluded. Talking to her about her work because he wanted to share what was important to her and wanted to be involved in what her life revolved around.
Had revolved around, she corrected herself sharply.
Now, her life revolved around something far more beautiful, more fascinating and complex, more dangerously explosive.
Love.
As a focus for life, it was much, much better than work and infinitely more satisfying.
She loved him. It was that simple. And if he wanted to make her swoon, then she’d swoon like no other woman ever before or since, Anna vowed. She’d be the swooningest lover in the history of the world. She’d follow his lead anyplace it went. And knowing his boundless enthusiasm for nocturnal gymnastics, she had a fair idea of just where it would lead. Something worth swooning over, she was pleasantly sure.
Maybe they could finally try some of those things with food. The whipped cream idea, for instance, she reflected in warm anticipation. And whatever they didn’t get around to tonight, she’d make him swoon with tomorrow when it was her turn.
“Lead me,” Anna invited Jay breathily and touched her champagne flute to his eagerly.
He looked distinctly pleased at her response. Good.
She’d get the hang of swooning in no time. She was a quick study.
It proved to be incredibly easy to do, too. He fed her bites from his plate, kept refilling her wine glass and giving her longing, lustful looks while he toyed with her deliciously under the table. Even a fool could learn to swoon with that kind of encouragement.
And she was no fool.
Dinner passed in a sensual haze of anticipation and delight. Anna savored every moment of his flair for romance that evidently matched his flair for drama.
For dessert, Jay fed her ripe strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. Between the hot looks he gave her, the rich flavors melting on her tongue and the wicked wanderings of his foot snuggled beneath the hem of her dress, Anna was thinking of going into swooning professionally.
“I think I’ve changed my mind,” Jay informed her gravely as he watched her lick the last trace of chocolate from the corner of her mouth.
“Oh?”
“Yes.” Heat and the promise of pleasure glittered in the depths of his ebony eyes. “I don’t want to dance with you anywhere public. I want to take you home, light candles and put on some soft music. I want to feel you melting in my arms like warm honey. Then I want to undress you, piece by piece, until you’re wearing nothing but the shoes and stockings you started out in.”
Anna didn’t have to work at swooning at all by the time he finished that stunning description. No wonder he liked naughty nothings. The explicit words packed an erotic punch that dazed her and sent a flood of heat to all his favorite erogenous zones in preparation for him to carry out the delicious threat. She felt flushed and tingling in mere anticipation of his private version of dirty dancing.
“What do you say, Anna?” Sensual promise made Jay’s voice husky.
“Yes.” Her normally smooth voice was uneven.
He rubbed one hard thumb over the velvet softness of her full lower lip. “You’re going to say ‘yes’ again,” he promised knowingly. “And again, and again. I’m going to love you tonight until you can’t speak or breathe.”
She couldn’t speak now. She could hardly wait for the rest.
On the ride home, Jay slipped in a tape of sultry jazz and traced his way from the curve of her cheek to the shadowed valley above the plunging neckline with the soft petals of the rose.
The light, teasing caresses were a titillating prelude of things to come that sent shivers of delight down Anna’s spine.
“Do you like that, sweetheart?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“Oh, yes,” she responded with feeling.
The flower slowly trailed over the curves outlined in red satin, circling the peaks teasingly before gliding down to trace lazy patterns over her inner thighs.
“I’m going to touch you all over, just like this,” he informed her in a voice dark with desire. “Soft and slow, until you can’t take anymore.”
Anna sighed mockingly. “Promises, promises.”
Jay laughed at her impatience. “Just wait, sweet. I’ll keep every promise and it’ll be so good, you’ll cry. You’ll see stars. I don’t have to be a rocket scientist to put you in orbit.”
She believed him. He moved her to feel everything with an intensity she’d never imagined, to respond with a passion she didn’t know she had and to want more.
Once they reached their destination, Jay led her by the hand to his den. Tall white candles gave away the fact that he was carrying out more of his planned seduction and had never intended to do anything else. The kind of dancing he preferred would have gotten them both arrested in any public place.
“Changed your mind, hmm?” Anna slanted him a teasing look from beneath thick lashes as he lit the candles with a ready taper.
He grinned back unabashedly. “I did tell you I’d planned this in advance,” he reminded her.
“Yes, you did,” she had to agree. It was still sneaky, however.
“But I have to admit that I didn’t really know what you’d had on under that dress before.” As the music started, Jay took her hands and drew her against his hard length. “If I had, you would never have escaped me that first night.”
Anna flashed him a disdainful look. “I was armed. Well, heeled,” she corrected. “What makes you think you could have stopped me from going anywhere?”
“This.”
In explanation, he claimed her mouth in soft, clinging kisses.
“And this.”
His hands ran over the delicate fabric in a feathery caress before closing over her rounded hips and pulling her against his thrusting member.
Heat settled in the pit of her stomach and she melted, molded herself against him, unconsciously seeking to get closer in response to his readiness, her hunger answering his.
Jay made a hoarse sound of encouragement against her lips and drew one hand up her side until it slipped between their torsos to cradle the aching weight of one full breast.
“Jay,” Anna whispered. Her whole body responded to his touch. Waves of heat gathered wherever their bodies met. She could feel her breast swelling and hardening into his palm.
“More?” he asked, slipping the tip of his tongue along the corner of her mouth.
She nodded. In response, he cupped the sensitive undersides of both breasts and slowly rubbed the hardened tips with the pads of his thumbs. His erotic, rhythmic touch moved in time to the music and he used the sensual hold to lead her as they danced.
Warm kisses covered her lips and his tongue brushed lightly against hers in tiny strokes. When his hands came around to her back and pulled her more fully against him, she didn’t register the zipper sliding down until her dress fell in a flaming puddle around her feet.
Jay lifted her clear of it, sliding her up his torso and then letting her slip back to the ground when her shoes were free of the entangling folds of fabric.
“I love this,” he informed her with a low groan. “You, dressed like that, in those shoes. My Miss Firecracker.”
The possessive note didn’t grate on her. She liked the sound of it. She liked the pride he took in her beauty, the hunger in his eyes when he look
ed at her in the candlelight.
“Your skin glows like pearls against the fire in your hair,” Jay continued. “And this makes you look wickedly wild.” His hands roamed over the carnelian merry widow as he demonstrated his meaning.
“It makes me look like a very expensive plaything?” Anna couldn’t resist teasing.
“Is that one of those trick questions that a smart man wouldn’t answer?”
She gave him an innocent look then licked his lips in a tormenting caress. “Would I try to trip you up?”
He laughed softly then trapped her tongue with his for a moment before he answered. “In that case, angel, you should know you look like a woman any man would want anytime, anywhere, on any terms.”
Now that was a good answer. She had to admit it excited her to think of herself as an irresistible object of desire. Maybe there was a fantasy there to play out with Jay sometime.
“And now I want you to take this off.” Jay tugged at her thin ribbon straps demandingly then ran his fingers under the edge of the fabric to stroke her soft skin.
Anna smiled at him in answer and reached behind to unfasten the tight corset-style garment and let it slide down to reveal her full breasts by inches.
Jay reached for her as the merry widow fell to the floor and dragged her into his arms. The fabric of his jacket and the cold buttons on his dress shirt teased her bare skin in conflicting sensations.
He buried his face in her hair as they swayed together, their feet barely moving, the dance forgotten as they started an immeasurably older one.
“I want you,” he whispered and Anna thrilled at the naked need in his urgent voice. “I want you, honey, so much that once I start I won’t be able to stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.” Anna pressed closer to him and tilted her head to offer her mouth to his again.
“Oh, honey.” Jay kissed her with a fierce desire in startling contrast to the soft persuasion he’d started with. Anna responded to the wild passion in his kiss, molding her body against his sinuously. She melted in his arms and offered herself to him to in total surrender.
“Anna.” Her name was a raw whisper of sound. “Anna.”
When Sparks Fly: Love and Rockets Page 17
