Ooh. Any time, hmm? Her gaze drifted down over those hard, cotton-veiled abs, quite a cruel temptation. In fact, those abs might very well be the most fantastic excuse for not working on her album that a songwriter could ever come up with.
He took a hasty step back. “Any time we’re in private. Not when all my family’s watching!”
She grinned. “You know, I have an advantage over you.”
He made an incredulous sound. “Only one?”
Wait, how many advantages did he think she had over him? And what were they? “I’m used to having people watching.”
He blinked and shook his head. “You’re what?”
“So I don’t get too intimidated by having eyes on me. I actually, I think, feel a little cockier and more outrageous.”
He took another, much longer step back. And it was hilarious. She loved having the power to make a big, strong, go-for-what-he-wanted man back up. “You behave.” His voice was a grumble of warning. Or a plea for mercy?
She grinned. “It’s okay. I understand. I have a shy side, too.”
“I’m not shy,” he said, outraged.
“Of course not.” She actually reached out to pat him soothingly on the arm. If he’d been a little closer, she would have managed it, too. As it was, her hand moved in the air and then had to drop, disappointed, to her side.
“I’m not.” A stomp of his voice into the earth.
No, of course not. That’s why you blush so easily.
“I just don’t believe in letting my family or my workers see a weak spot, which is not the same thing.”
“No,” she said soothingly. And maybe it wasn’t the same thing. Maybe it wasn’t that he was insecure—it was just that he refused to show the chink in his armor to the world around him.
It must take a lot of growling to hide a heart tender enough to make roses.
She wished she knew how to growl. Maybe she should have gone into heavy metal. “What advantages do you think I have over you?”
An incredulous rake of his gaze over her, head-to-toe, that left her tingling everywhere. “All advantages.”
Oh, come on, be more specific. “You’re this much bigger than I am.” She stretched her hands apart to encompass the notion of twice her size.
“Yeah, well, while that would come in very handy if you were a guy I was trying to beat up, it’s not real useful in this situation, is it?”
She considered, and a smile softened her mouth. “I kind of like it,” she murmured.
“I can’t do anything with it,” he said, frustrated. His hands flexed in the air in this way that charged excitement all through her body, as if he had a whole host of visions of things his size would make it possible for him to do with her that he wouldn’t let himself do.
So much energy sparkled over her skin that she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. “That’s part of the fun,” she admitted. Testing and teasing all that strength of his and knowing he would hold it in check for her. That he wouldn’t, for all his grumbling, wannabe aggressiveness, use it to do anything she didn’t want.
“I’m glad to know I’m entertaining,” he growled and turned abruptly to the rose bush to start clearing it of roses. He had half of it done before she could even pull her gaze away from the long, blunt fingers deftly cupping rose after rose, the thumb pressing firmly, the way the soft pink petals disappeared for a moment completely in that big, callused hand as he collected five or six at once and dropped them in the pouch.
He slid a glance sideways at her. “You didn’t explain how you’re used to people watching you pull off a man’s T-shirt.”
“Well, I used to do this number in a sex shop where I—”
He jerked away from her.
“I’m kidding! I’m a musician. I perform on stage. I only meant I was used to being in front of a crowd of people and not letting them intimidate me. An audience probably exacerbates my tendencies to over-express myself.”
He cleared a few more roses, deft, firm fingers moving amidst soft pink. “But you are expressing your self,” he said finally.
“What?”
“Right now. You’re not acting or pretending. You’re letting too much of yourself out into the open. Of what you really think and feel.”
Well, well…she started to flush, unexpectedly, and even though he was ostensibly gazing at the roses he was picking and not at her, a little smile started to curve his mouth, releasing that sensual lower lip.
“I’m just being me,” she said hastily. “Don’t worry about it. I already promised not to ask you to marry me and have my babies.” I’m a free spirit. A rolling stone.