It Must Have Been the Mistletoe(37)
She wasn’t going to touch that comment with a ten-foot pole. “Rita has calmed down a bit,” she said instead. “She’s still looking for Mr. Right though.”
“What about you?” he asked, studying her from beneath a sweep of lashes that would make a supermodel envious. “Is Mr. Right going to help you build your house?”
He was fishing, Layla realized, and resisted the urge to preen. “No,” she admitted. “But I’m willing to accept all of the help I can get, so that would include Mr. Right, Mr. Wrong, Mr. Right Now and Mr. Maybe.” She laughed. “I can hook every one of them up with a hammer.”
His laugh echoed between them, warm and strangely soothing. “Any able-bodied man then?”
She took a sip of her soda. “That’s about the size of it, yes.”
He shot her a speculative look. “Maybe I’ll give you a hand.”
A bubble of anticipation rose to the top of her belly and popped. “You know your way around a nail gun?”
His gaze met hers and something wicked lingered there, making the tops of her thighs catch fire. “I’m good with my hands.”
Oy. She’d just bet he was.
He leaned forward. “Can I be straight with you, Layla?”
What was she supposed to say to that? No, please lie? She was absolutely certain this conversation was about to take a turn that was going to lead her straight into his bed.
As if she hadn’t been destined to wind up there at some point or another since the second she’d laid eyes on him. She’d been carrying a sexual torch for him that had made every flicker or flame she’d felt for other men pale in comparison.
She swallowed, nodded. “Sure,” she said, hoping she sounded offhand. “Go ahead.”
He leaned forward, his gaze intense. “Something about you just trips my trigger, you know? Just sets me off. I feel you even when I’m not touching you and when I do touch you…” His gaze skimmed over her face, settled hotly on her mouth. “It’s like sexual crack. Tomorrow night after the show, we’re both going to go our separate ways, but I was really hoping that you’d spend a little time with me tonight.”
Wow. She’d never had a guy lay it on the line quite so…explicitly. Without the let’s-go-to-dinner-and-see-what-happens dance. In a nutshell, he wanted her and was willing to tell her that without the so-called traditional dating prelude. It was exhilarating. Refreshing. Disconcerting, too, if she were honest.
“I don’t need distracting tonight, Bryant.”
A wicked smile crossed his lips. “You might not need it, but I can make you want it.”
Blood boiled beneath her skin at the blatant sexual bravado in that simple sentence. Her hoo-hah caught fire and she resisted the urge to make sure that steam wasn’t seeping out of her panties.
“What do you say, Layla? You up for a little mutual enjoyment?”
Mutual enjoyment with a guy who’d likened her to sexual crack? Oh, yeah. She was up for that. Because it was him. Because, against all reason, something about him made her feel…safe.
And he hadn’t played her. A girl always knew where she stood with Bryant Bishop.
Or maybe where she lay was a better analogy.
JUST BECAUSE HE’D BASICALLY alerted Layla to his sexual intention didn’t mean that he didn’t know how to treat a lady. While his father hadn’t been very good at keeping a woman around, he’d been stellar at attracting them in the first place. This meant being courteous—opening doors, pulling back chairs, a light touch at the small of her back.
Though he could have said something like he wanted to feed her because she was going to need her strength later in the evening, Bryant kept dinner conversation on an even keel and devoid of much sexual innuendo. The hotel restaurant was decked out in its Christmas finery with lots of tinsel and candlelight, and the waitresses all wore flashing pins that read “Ho Ho Ho.”
The truth was, he simply enjoyed Layla’s company. More than was strictly advisable, if he were honest with himself.
He liked listening to the sound of her voice—a strange combination of husky and smooth—watching the way her eyes moved. Sweeping glances, lowered lashes, a twinkling.
Every emotion was telegraphed by those amazingly expressive eyes.
Her hair was equally vibrant. Long, loose, buttery curls framed her elfin face, trailed over her small shoulders and settled just above the back of her bra. She had the most amazing complexion, too. Creamy, like a porcelain doll, with an underlying wash of pink. Her upper lip was slightly off center, adding enough imperfection to make her interesting. For reasons he couldn’t explain, there was something fundamentally sexy about that flaw.