She smiled self-consciously. “You’re staring.”
“You’re beautiful.”
Her eyes glittered and a becoming rose spread over her cheeks. “That’s not necessary, you know. You had me at ‘sexual crack.’”
He shook his head. “It’s the damnedest thing, Layla. I’ve been jonesing for you since the first time I saw you. If I hadn’t dawdled in making my move at Jeb’s party, your sister would have never hit on me—or at least, I hope not—and I would have made a play for you then.”
She studied him thoughtfully. “What about a couple of years ago, at Chris and Maggie’s New Year’s Eve party? What stopped you then?”
He laughed. “That death ray glare you gave me.”
Her mouth gaped. “I didn’t give you a death ray glare.”
“Bullshit. My skin should have melted off.” He tipped his longneck up. “You’d already decided you didn’t like me by then.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But it didn’t keep me from thinking you were hot.”
Masculine pride made his chest puff and he felt his lips twitch with pleasure. “Ah. So you liked it when I distracted you?”
“It could easily become one of my favorite pastimes.”
Bryant had been in a state of semi-arousal since they’d entered the hotel restaurant, but with that little admission he went painfully hard.
She wanted him.
She gazed at his chest and quirked a brow. “I like that pendent,” she told him. “It caught my eye yesterday, but I was too stressed over my impending performance to comment on it. It’s a tree, right? Like the one on your bracelet.”
“It is, thanks.”
She reached across the table and inspected the little charm, her cool fingers brushing against his too-warm skin. The merest touch of her fingers made something in his chest flutter and expand. “It’s lovely. Silver?”
“Pewter,” he corrected. He swallowed. “I cast it myself.”
Her eyes widened with obvious delight. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Wow. That’s cool. Do you do a lot of this?”
“Only when the mood strikes.”
Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “It’s so detailed. You’re very good. Just men’s jewelry then?”
“For the most part,” he told her. “I don’t use a lot of stones—prefer to work with metal.” He grinned. “Women tend to like more sparkly things.”
“I like amethysts,” she said, pointing to the pendent around her neck.
He’d noticed. “That’s nice. Where’d you get it?”
“Sedona.”
Bryant inclined his head. “Vacation?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It’s lovely. And the energy is just…amazing.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You’ve never been?” she asked.
“Driven through on the way to somewhere else, but didn’t stop.” He grinned. “I don’t suppose that counts?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, no. You should go sometime. You’d like it. Lots of artists there. You’d fit right in.”
He cocked his head. “You trying to run me out of Davidson County?”
“You’re still there?” she asked.
He nodded, unwilling to elaborate on exactly where he lived. Why not? Who knew? But he hung on to that little tidbit all the same.
She hesitated and he felt the impending shift in the conversation. “My sister isn’t going to appreciate this,” she said, and he interpreted this to be the fabulous sex they were about to have.
He covered the check with a sizable bill, took her hand and pulled her from the booth. “Then I guess it’s a good thing she isn’t here.”
Time to get her out of his system once and for all, Bryant thought. If Layla was the disease, then sex was the cure.
It had to be…because anything else was unthinkable.
6
IN THE PART OF HER BRAIN that wasn’t consumed with getting naked with Bryant, Layla realized that this part-time security agent/jewelry maker/metal sculptor who was wearing a pendent of a tree was the closest thing to an artist’s soul with a farmer’s body she was ever going to get.
And he had “temporary” tattooed all over him. He’d even alluded to the fact that they would go their separate ways tomorrow night after the final concert, that they wouldn’t see each other again.
She knew this, and yet part of her hoped for something more. Part of her knew that Bryant Bishop was the yin to her yang, the peg for her hole (no sexual pun intended), the refrain for her melody. She knew it, but would not dwell on it.