Living the Charade(5)

'What does "Lives: everywhere" mean?' she asked, glancing at the questionnaire.                       
       
           



       

'I travel a lot.'

'Backpacking?'

That got a hoot of laughter. 'Sunshine, I'm thirty-three-a bit old to be a backpacker.'

He threw her a smile and Miller found her eyes riveted to his beautiful even white teeth.

'I travel for work.'

She blinked back the disturbing effect he had on her and once again  scanned the questionnaire. 'Driving?' She couldn't keep the scepticism  out of her voice as she read out the answer under 'Occupation'. 'Driving  what?'

He threw her a quick look. 'Cars. What else?'

'I don't know. Buses? Trains?' She tried not to let her annoyance show.  'Trucks?' God, don't let him be a taxi driver; Dexter would never let  her hear the end of it.

'Don't tell me you're one of those stuck-up females who only go for rich guys with white collar jobs.'

Miller sniffed. She'd been so busy working and establishing her career  the last time she'd gone for any man was back at university. Not that  she would be telling him that. 'Of course not.'

But she did like a man in a suit.

He snorted as if he didn't believe her, but he didn't elaborate on his answer.

Sensing he might be embarrassed about his job, she decided to let it  drop for now. Maybe he wouldn't mind pretending to be an introverted  actuary for the weekend. No one really knew what they did except that it  involved mathematics, and not even Dexter was likely to try and engage  him in that topic of conversation.

She flipped the page in front of her and found her eyes drawn to his commanding scrawl near the bottom.

Her nose wrinkled. 'I don't need to know what type of underwear you  wear.' And she didn't want to imagine him in sexy boxer briefs.

'According to your little summary we've been dating for two months. I  think you'd know what type of underwear I wear, wouldn't you?'

'Of course I would. But it's not relevant because I'll never need to use that information.'

He glanced at her again. 'You don't know that.'

'I could have just made something up had the need arisen.'

'Are you always this dishonest?'

Miller exhaled noisily. She was never dishonest. 'No. I loathe  dishonesty. And I hate this situation. And what's more I'm sick of  having men think that just because I'm single I'm available.'

'It's not just because of that?'

'No,' she agreed, thinking of TJ. 'My client isn't really attracted to me at all. He's attracted to the word no.'

'You think?'

'I know. It's what has made him his fortune. He's bullish, arrogant and pompous.'

'Not having met the man, I'll have to trust your judgement. But if you  want my opinion your client is probably more turned on by your glossy  hair, killer mouth and hourglass figure than your negative response.'

'Wha-? Hey!' Miller braced her hands on the dashboard as the car  swerved around a bus like a bullet, nearly fainting before Valentino  swung back into the left-hand lane two seconds before hitting a  mini-van.

'Relax. I do this for a living.'

'Kill your passengers?' she said weakly.

He laughed. 'Drive.'

Miller forgot all about the near miss with an oncoming vehicle as his comments about her looks replayed in her head.

Did he really think she had a killer mouth? And why was her heart beating like a tiny trapped bird?

'I don't think we can say we met at yoga,' he said.

'Why not?' She didn't believe for a minute that he could be interested  in her, but if he thought he would be getting easy sex this weekend he  had another thing coming.

His amused eyes connected with hers. 'Because I don't do yoga.'

Miller felt her lips pinch together as she realised he was toying with her. 'You're enjoying this, aren't you?'

'More than I thought I would,' he agreed.

Miller released a frustrated breath. No one was going to believe she  was serious about this guy. Her mother had always warned her not to lie,  and she mostly lived by that creed. Yesterday, she'd let blind ambition  get in the way of sound judgement.

Okay, maybe not blind ambition. Possibly she was a little peeved that  she'd felt so professionally hamstrung in telling TJ Lyons what she  thought of his lack of business ethics.

'Maybe we just shouldn't talk,' she muttered, half to herself. 'I know  enough.' And she was afraid if he said any more she'd ask him to pull  over so she could get out and run away as fast as she could.                       
       
           



       

'I don't.'

She looked at him warily. 'Everything you need to know is in my dossier. Presuming you read it?'

'Oh, it was riveting. You enjoy running, Mexican cuisine, strawberry  ice cream, and cross-stitching. Tell me, is that anything like  cross-dressing?'

Miller willed herself not to blow up at him. 'No.'

'That's a relief. You also like reading and visiting art galleries. No mention of what type of underwear you prefer, though.'

Miller channelled the monks of wherever. 'Because it's irrelevant.'

'You know mine.'

'Not by choice.' And she was trying very hard not to think about those sexy boxers under his snug-fitting jeans.

'So what do you prefer?'

'Sorry?'

'Are you a plain cotton or more of a lace girl?'

Miller stifled a cough. 'That's none of your business.'

'Believe me, it is. I'm not getting caught up in a conversation with your client not knowing my G-strings from my boy-legs.'

'Potential client. And I thought all men talked about was sport?'

'We've been known to deviate on occasion.' He threw her a mischievous  grin. 'Since you won't tell me, I'll have to use my imagination.'

'Imagine away,' she said blithely, and then wished she hadn't when his eyes settled on her breasts.

'Now, there's an invitation a man doesn't get every day.'

Miller shot him a fulminating glare, alarmed to feel her nipples tightening inside her lace bra.

Striving to steady her nerves, she made the mistake of reading out the  next item he'd added to the questionnaire. '"Favourite sexual  position."'

'I haven't finished imagining your lingerie,' he complained. 'Though  I'm heading towards sheer little lacy numbers over cotton. Am I right?'

Miller faked a yawn, wondering how on earth he had guessed her little  secret and determined that he wouldn't know that he was getting to her.  'You've written down "all".'

He threw her a wolfish grin. 'I might have exaggerated slightly. It was  getting late when I wrote that. Probably if I had to name one... Nope. I  pretty much like them all equally.'

'I wasn't asking.'

'Although on top is always fun,' he continued as if she hadn't spoken.  'And there's something wicked about taking a woman from behind.'

His voice had dropped and the throaty purr slid over Miller's skin like a silken caress.

'Don't you think?'

Miller released a pent-up breath. She'd had one sexual partner so far  and it hadn't been nearly exciting enough for them to try variations on  the missionary theme. She hated that now all she could visualise was her  on top of the sublime male next to her and how it would feel to have  him behind her. Inside her.

Her heart thudded heavily in her chest and she suddenly found her  attention riveted by the way his long fingers flexed around the steering  wheel. Imagining them on her body.

'What I think is that you should concentrate on driving this beast of a  car so we don't run into one of those semis you're so determined to fly  past.'

'Nervous, Miller?'

He said her name as if he was tasting it and Miller's stomach clenched.  Oh, this man was a master at sexual repartee, and she'd do well to  remember that.

Miller shook her head. 'Are you ever serious about anything?'

He threw her a bemused look. 'Plenty. Are you ever not serious about anything?'

'Plenty.' Which was so blatantly untrue she half expected her nose to start growing.

He passed another car and Miller absently noted that after her earlier  panicked response he was driving marginally less like a racing car  driver. That thought triggered something in her mind and her brow  furrowed.

Determined to ignore him for the rest of the trip, she pulled her laptop out of her computer bag.

'What happened to the getting-to-know-you part of our trip?'

He threw her a sexy smile that shot the hazy memory she'd been trying  to grab on to out of her head and replaced it with an image of the way  he had insolently leant against the bar last night.

'I know you run, swim, work out, and that you take your coffee black.  Your favourite colour is blue and you have four siblings-'

'I also don't mind a cuddle after sex.'

'And you don't have a serious bone in your body. I, on the other hand,  take my life very seriously and I am not interested in whether you like  sex straight up or hanging from a chandelier. It's not relevant. What  I'm looking for this weekend is someone to melt into the background and  say very little. Starting right now.'