She knew this line of thought, knew it well. In some relationships, you paid with your heart or your soul or your self-esteem or your self-respect. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Not your fault,” he said. He finished the bottle of beer, and by the time he set the empty bottle on the cement steps, the rakish charmer was back. “I never really paid attention to lingerie before. It was something I took off as quickly as possible.”
A common mistake. She smiled. “I don’t really design with an eye toward the sexuality of an outfit. I design so the woman experiences her own sexuality. If you were with a woman who wore it for herself, you’d know.”
He let that linger in the summer air, drift with the traffic noise, the hum of air conditioners in the windows overhead. “Confidence is the sexiest thing ever,” he finally said. His voice was low and rough, barely audible over the traffic on the distant avenues.
She stopped breathing. For a moment the city swamped her, the scent of tires and engine oil, the heat rising from the city’s infrastructure running underneath the streets, the ever-present faint hum of jackhammers, the taste of the beer warm and rich in her mouth. Was he wondering what it would be like for her to touch him? The thought left her dry-mouthed. Flustered, she tipped back the bottle of beer.
“Once I saw you on your knees, it was all I could think about.”
She froze, beer trickling into her mouth.
“Fuck my fucking life,” he said, disgusted. “That came out wrong.”
She laughed, spewing beer out her nose and all over the steps leading down to the sidewalk. Once she started laughing she couldn’t stop, in part because he had slapped his palm to his forehead and was rubbing it in chagrin while he muttered under his breath. She wiped her forearm inelegantly over her nose and mouth, and tried to get her face under control. “You didn’t mean that to sound the way that it sounded?”
“Nope,” he said with false cheer, looking heavenward as if God himself could intervene.
She shouldn’t ask this question, shouldn’t give in to the tension and attraction crackling between them, but he was so difficult to pin down. Average guy who walked in off the street, seducer, the wolf, and now a man with his foot in his mouth, and all of it sharing space with that shocking, sparking charisma, tightly leashed. It was so companionable to sit on the steps in this great, humming, thriving city and just talk to someone. Not just someone, to him.
She really shouldn’t ask this question. Maybe he’d say something if she stayed silent, so she tipped back the beer bottle again, and this time managed to actually swallow the beer. Still quiet.
“What did you mean?”
He shifted on the stoop, then finished off his own beer. “I just meant . . . There was something about the line of your back as you bent to pin the hem. Except . . .” He paused again and she got the sense that he wasn’t a man who had trouble expressing what he felt, but rather that he didn’t do it often. No, Ryan Hamilton felt things very deeply, but for some reason he was reluctant to share what he felt. He drew a breath and looked down the street toward Seventh Avenue. “It wasn’t just the line of your back. It was the curve of your shoulders and the angle of your elbows, the way you pulled pins from the pincushion on your wrist. You were sitting back on your heels, and you were so competent at the task in front of you. You know who you are, what you’re doing, and why. It’s hot as hell.”
Every cell in her body was quivering. Of course she’d been complimented before, on her work, on her designs, on her temper’s ability to make male designers cower, but never before had a compliment made her heart swoop in her chest.
“Shit,” he said disgustedly. “That’s not what I meant, either. Of course you’re competent. Your designs are absolutely amazing, unlike anything I’ve seen, and trust me, I’ve seen a lot of lingerie. Mastery, is what I meant. Watching you was like watching a brilliant dancer. You had total control of the material, and your tools. And her,” he said with a wry smile. “Which is no mean feat. What exactly were you muttering under your breath while she was wandering around in the showroom?”
“It loses something in the translation,” she said.
“Liar.” She smiled at him and finished her beer but neither confirmed nor denied his spot-on assessment.
He gave her the cocky grin again. “What would I have to do to get you to talk French to me?”
The wolf was back. Simone wasn’t sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved. She could cope with the Ryan who played the role of the billionaire robber baron outfitting his latest mistress. The Ryan who massaged her hands and elbows and seduced her with words was an unfamiliar creature, and far more tempting. But this conversation only confirmed her initial assessment. This couldn’t happen again. Fortunately his question about talking in French gave her an out. She retreated to the safety of silly flirtation.