Читать книгу Wickedly Hot - Leslie Kelly - Страница 10

FOR THE NEXT HOUR, Jade concentrated on the plan. She put herself as a barrier between Ryan and any of the other women at the party who’d been giving him the eye. Tally, for some reason, seemed to want to help. She ran interference once or twice, including saying something to Mamie Brandywine that made the woman’s face turn as red as her long, fake fingernails.

While standing in a shadowy corner, nibbling on canapés and sipping her drink, she leaned forward and touched him as often as she could. Laughed at the appropriate moments. Batted her eyelashes like a stupid twit and all in all did whatever one did to try to attract a man. It had been a long time since she’d wanted to.

She didn’t want to consider whether or not she’d have been trying to attract Ryan Stoddard if she didn’t have to bring him down. Because the answer would probably be yes.

“So how do you like our town?” She pursed her lips a bit, inviting him to stare and remember their kiss. “And its people?”

He tilted his head and arched his brow, staring at her mouth for a long moment—as he was meant to. Finally, he shook his head and tightened his jaw before coming up with a reply. “How do you know I’m not from here?”

“I know,” she replied, certain she’d affected him. Men—they were all so utterly predictable. She gave him a warm laugh, inviting him to join in a gentle jibe at her hometown. “This is a small town for a modern city.”

She didn’t bother going into detail about how long her family had lived here, how many local families had ties to hers, and how her great-aunt was the local voodoo priestess who could name nearly every pureblooded Savannah resident.

“It’s interesting,” he said. “Different from New York.”

“Are you from there?” she asked, wanting to know more of his background, in case she needed to use it against him. She knew he’d met Jenny in New York City, but wasn’t entirely sure that was where he lived.

“Yep. Born and raised. Now I live in Manhattan.”

Manhattan. So he probably had money. He carried himself like a man completely comfortable with his finances.

She’d been to New York last month on one of her treasure-hunting trips, when she’d recovered an Impressionist painting from a very nice elderly couple who lived upstate. The painting had already been returned to the original plantation from which it had been stolen during the Civil War. The place now operated as a tourist destination outside the city and they were utterly thrilled to have the portrait back where it belonged.

For a second, she wondered if perhaps she’d spotted Ryan during her trip, and if that was why he’d seemed familiar to her when she’d first seen him tonight. Maybe her subconscious remembered him.

The picture, stupid.

Yeah, the picture of him with Jenny. No, it hadn’t been a great one, and she’d only seen it briefly. But it’d obviously made an impression. As did the man.

“Let me know when you decide you want that glass of wine, okay?” he said, eyeing her empty soda cup.

She knew what he meant. It had already been more than half an hour. No wonder he was getting confident. There’d been no hesitation, no doubt in his voice. He thought he had her. Hell, maybe he did. At least for an hour or so.

Until she could get him naked.

“All right,” she replied. “But for now, maybe we should just dance again.”

“Suits me fine.”

Suited her fine, too. Especially because, when they returned to the dance floor, he moved his cheek close to her hair and inhaled. She knew his head was filled with the special orange-blossom-and-almond conditioner Aunt Lula Mae made for her. His murmur of appreciation told her he liked it. He liked all of it.

Good. The man was making it incredibly easy. He’d sought her out—she hadn’t even had to make a move on him. When he looked back on things later, he’d have to remember that much, at least.

“You truly seem to fit in here,” he murmured as the music continued and they moved as carefully as possible amid the crush of people.

“You don’t.”

He chuckled. “Why not?”

“Blue suit. Genuine smile. Interested look.”

“That makes me stand out?”

“Like a June bug in a bowl of rice.”

He laughed again, looking down at her, eyes sparkling with interest. Dark green. Long lashed. Crinkled at the corners, probably from casting his wicked smile at any woman old enough to be affected by it.

He’s a heart-breaking reprobate! She struggled to remember that as he continued to smile down at her.

“I like Southerners.”

“We don’t particularly care for you-all.”

That made him laugh out loud.

She nibbled her lip, forcing her eyes to focus somewhere over his right shoulder so she wouldn’t get caught up again in his good humor, wouldn’t lose herself in his twinkling eyes and irresistible grin. Maybe dancing hadn’t been such a good idea. Hard to remember silly things like family honor and vengeance when being held closely by a man as fine as this one.

“Honesty. I like that in a woman.”

Well, darlin’, you’re not gonna like me very much, then.

“So tell me, how can I make myself fit in?”

“Got a few million dollars lying around?”

He shook his head.

“Genteel impoverished, but able to trace your lineage back to before the war?”

“Which war?”

She raised a brow and gave him a wounded look. “Whichever do you think?”

Their eyes met and she saw the laughter in his. He’d been teasing her, just as she’d been teasing him.

“I’m afraid I’m an Irish-English-German mutt,” he replied with a mournful-sounding sigh. “Can’t trace my roots further back than Ellis Island, for the most part.”

“But I bet you have good taste in beer. Irish, English, German?”

He nodded, still looking amused.

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t get you in with this crowd.”

“How about with you?”

“Are you offering to buy me a beer?” she asked, leaping on the opening he’d provided. The time had come to get him alone. Now—before her defenses dropped even further and she forgot she wasn’t allowed to like this man. “I doubt they serve it here.”

“I have some in the fridge up in my room.”

Ooh, cutting right to the chase. Trying to get her up to his room. How incredibly easy he was making this. And his smooth way of trying to get her alone reinforced her certainty that he was the creep her sister made him out to be, even though he’d been nothing but charming and friendly—if a bit flirtatious—all evening.

“I could meet you on the back patio for a cold one.”

Okay, so he wasn’t trying to get her to his room. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

She’d thought through several scenarios. The original one had involved his hotel room, a bedpost, her long red scarf and a wide-open door. Because he’d moved to the Medford House, she’d have to modify things a bit.

But the scarf was still included.

“How do you know I’m the beer-drinking type?” she asked as he waited for her answer.

His expression screamed confidence, as if he knew all there was to know about her after an hour of conversation.

“Let me tell you what I’ve figured out about you.”

She smirked, daring him to be accurate.

“You’ve been nursing ginger ale all evening. Before I rescued you, you’d done nothing but look at the paintings, the furniture and that old necklace. You didn’t return one glance at one of the rich guys who’d probably love to invite you to bathe in champagne back at their pampered palaces.”

“Champagne bath? Sounds ticklish,” she retorted, though the mental image created a surge of warmth low in her body.

He ignored her. “Your foot was tapping with suppressed energy and your fingers clenched and released about thirty times a minute.”

“You were watching me that long, hmm?”

He didn’t try to deny it. “You had my complete attention the moment I became aware of your existence.”

There was a note of intensity, almost a growl in his voice, which surprised her. Again she wondered, briefly, if she’d ever met him before, perhaps on one of her trips to track down and retrieve artifacts stolen from local families during the war.

But she knew she hadn’t. This was one man she would never have been able to forget.

“Your face, your mouth, your eyes, your body, they were all saying one thing,” he continued, uncaring of the open ears surrounding them on the dance floor.

Take me?

“Bored.”

That, too.

“Bored enough to want to do something different.” His voice lowered, and there was an unmistakably suggestive tone in it. “Maybe something crazy. Which is why I decided to shock you out of your boredom during our initial conversation.”

Oh, yeah, their initial conversation. The one that had included mention of her nipples and breasts, both of which were still aching as their bodies brushed against each other.

“I’m still not sure I’ve forgiven you.”

“I don’t think I asked for forgiveness.”

Again that confidence. That suggestive—not salacious—tone. He was a self-assured man who’d noted their instant attraction and was acting on it without games, without the typical steps of flirtation. She liked that about him. Damn, she liked him more and more the longer she remained in his arms.

“Are you sure you’re not a P.I. or something? You’re pretty good at watching people,” she said.

Her tone was teasing, though she was a teensy bit worried. If she didn’t know for certain he was an architect, she might have thought the P.I. thing was nearer to the truth. The man was incredibly observant!

“You’re very interesting to watch,” he said, his voice low and only for her ears. “Fascinating.” Then he lightened up. “Besides, it beats watching the white-haired guy with the ruffled shirt trying to look down the blouse of every cocktail server here.”

She followed his glance. “Mr. Sherman. Disgusting, but harmless, especially since his wife tried to castrate him back in the seventies.”

He stopped dancing, nearly stumbling on his own feet. His eyes were wide and she merely shrugged. The story was an old one.

“You’re serious?”

“Why do you think none of the servers have slapped his face? Everyone feels sorry for the limp old thing.”

He shook his head, drawing her close again to continue the dance. “What about the couple over by the buffet table? He looks thirty years too young to be her husband. I thought she was his mother until I saw them kiss on the dance floor.”

Jade glanced over, unable to hide a frown of disgust when she saw the couple. “The latest divorced matron with her rebound boy toy.”

“That kind of thing happens in the rich crowd even in the South?” He sounded truly surprised.

“Obviously you haven’t seen or read The Book.”

“The Book?”

“The tell-all novel that changed the image of Savannah in print and on film.”

He nodded. “Ahh. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

“Here, we just call it The Book.”

“Okay. And actually, I have seen the movie. I assumed it was fiction.”

“Some was. But not the eccentricities of the city’s residents.”

He shrugged, looking neither surprised nor disappointed. “It fits. Eccentricities, beautiful homes, fine things.” He stared into her face, studying her eyes, her hair, her cheekbones. Jade resisted the urge to lick her lips, wondering if they were still as glossy red as they’d been when she’d touched up her lipstick earlier.

“I like looking at fine things,” he murmured.

She sucked in a breath. The way he said the word fine made her shiver deep inside, as if he’d examined her, studied her, and declared her as lovely and desirable as a perfect piece of art.

God, what deceptive things come in pretty packages. Because she wasn’t fine. She wasn’t being honest. She wasn’t anything he thought her to be.

For a brief moment, she wished they’d met under different circumstances. If Jenny had never mentioned Ryan Stoddard. If she’d never seen the man’s picture—which had enraged Jade even more, considering how irresistible he’d be to a vulnerable twenty-one-year-old. If only…

If only there’d been a big mistake and he wasn’t the man she’d sworn revenge on.

But he was. And it was time to get on with it.

“Okay, Ryan. I’ll have that beer with you.”

RYAN LEFT THE BALLROOM of the old mansion, telling Jade he’d meet her outside in fifteen minutes. She gave him a measured look, then nodded her agreement and stepped out of his arms. He’d had to stand there on the dance floor for a moment, to calm his pulse, to evaluate what he was doing, to make sure he wasn’t about to make a mistake.

There was something so intriguing about the woman. Her strength, her charm. The way she stood her ground when surrounded by catty women whose dislike probably stemmed from jealousy more than anything else.

She seemed above it, somehow, not rising to it except for that one moment with Mamie. But even then, she’d regained her cool head pretty quickly.

He didn’t know why, but he had a strong sense of misgiving about how the evening was progressing. He was supposed to be the hunter. So why was he suddenly feeling hunted?

“You’re imagining things,” he told himself. Things were going perfectly. It was only his overactive imagination—and overheated sex drive—that needed to be brought under control.

Unfortunately, someone else overheard. “Imagining things? No, you’re not.”

Ryan looked up and saw the woman in the hoop-skirted ball gown who’d been talking to Jade earlier. She should have looked ridiculous, but somehow, her innate grace made the silly dress work. At least in this setting.