In Hot Pursuit

“Sorry. I’ve seen how much you resent captivity. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

Josh heard the underlying message, despite the haze of lust that had him in a chokehold. He paused his fingertip exploration of her back, unwilling to use sensual means to get his own way tonight.

“Lexi, are you uncomfortable with me being here?” He wanted this woman more than he’d wanted anything in recent memory. Make that long-term memory. But he wanted her at full speed, all or nothing, as hungry for him as he was for her. He searched her face for some clue to her real feelings.

Damn it, but she looked familiar to him. Still, he would remember having met a woman like Lexi. He had to be mistaken.

The fish tank burbled softly, while he waited. The chirping bird in the background provided an obnoxiously happy accompaniment.

“You want to know the truth?” Finally, she tossed her shawl aside and planted jeweled fists on her hips.

In his mind’s eye he saw her donning boxing gloves, preparing for the round in which she would deliver the knockout blow—the “go home” speech.

“Nothing but the truth,” he returned, realizing he meant it. He didn’t want a sugarcoated speech from this woman. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you want.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, then slowly settled back into place as her gaze narrowed.

“Then, I’ll tell you exactly what I want, Josh Winger.” She spun on her bare heel and stalked into the living room. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the subdued light of the fish tank he could see her toenails were painted bright blue.

“I want a man to take me seriously for once.” She folded her arms over her compact body, a body visibly thrumming with an emotion he couldn’t fully identify. “For that matter, I would settle for anyone taking me seriously for once.”

“Well—”

Before he could respond, she burst into motion again, stomping around her living room sofa to pose by her coffee table. “I mean, look at me. Why can’t anyone appreciate the fashion sense I impart to all of New York? I know how to be tasteful and refined.” She pointed a finger in his direction and then started a slow trek back to him. “The point is, I don’t allow myself to fall into a rut of the refined but boring clothes that we’ve seen done to death for the past decade.”

He was so far out of his element he might as well have been swimming in the tank with the damn fish.

“I think you really look great—”

“I am willing to take risks, and that’s what no one seems to understand.” In the course of her emphatic speech, a few more locks of hair slipped free of the knot on top of her head. He was trying to follow what she was saying, damn it, but thoughts of unpinning that hair and seeing how much of her body it would cover was more than a little distracting.

“I might mix a few over-the-top colors, and I admit that my go-go boots with the Gucci cocktail dress was a definite mistake, but the point is, I push the boundaries.” By now, she stood toe to toe with him. “I am willing to try something different in order to create something unique and beautiful.”

She gazed up at him, eyes so dark they looked like a doll’s—all one color, with no hint of where the pupil ended and the iris began.

Clearly, the time had arrived for him to speak.

“I am definitely willing to try something different,” he said, trying to steer the conversation back toward bedrooms and handcuffs.

By the defeated slope of her shoulders he sensed that wasn’t the right thing to do.

Damn.

He scratched his head in the vain hope of stimulating a few coherent thoughts, and took a final stab at it. “But I understand what you’re saying. About taking risks, I mean.”

Her hip cocked to one side as she shifted her weight. The stance broadcast her skepticism more loudly than if she’d rolled her eyes, but at least she was listening.

“Like tonight, for example. I took a risk by not running to the tuxedo shop for the monkey suit I was supposed to have worn. The dinner jacket was a risk, as was the earring. But I’m not the kind of guy who makes concessions easily.”

He hoped that was a smile playing along the line of her mouth.

“But, like you, I know when to play it safe, too. I knew enough to grab the shiny silver tie out of my closet instead of the red-striped one. Shiny silver says I can bow to convention when I need to, right?”

Lexi laughed. Was this guy for real? Any other man would have run screaming for her door at the first mention of fashion. Then again, there was nothing ordinary about Josh Winger. She stepped closer to trail her fingers down the tie in question.

“Maybe we do have a few things in common,” she admitted, enjoying the way her fingernails rasped against the crisp cotton of his shirt. “But as much as I would like for something to happen between us tonight, I’m still not sure.”

She’d broken every rule of smart dating by letting a guy she barely knew inside her apartment and then telling him no. But she trusted Josh on a gut level, and she had always been the kind of woman to let her instincts guide her.

“What do you need to make you feel sure?”

His words were surprisingly gentle, coming from a man who looked like he could have been cast as a mobster in a shoot-’em-up flick.

“I felt more ready to be with you when I thought things could remain sort of impersonal.” She knew she had to stop touching him, had to take a step back from his big, sexy body. But the planes of his chest fascinated her, called to her, wouldn’t let her stop the fingertip massage of all those male muscles.

“You’re afraid of getting too personal?”

There was a hoarse edge to his voice that made her wonder if her touch affected him as much as it did her.

She nodded, not trusting her own voice.

He gripped her wrists in his palms, lightly restraining her. “That feels phenomenal, but I can’t think straight when you touch me like that.”

Feminine pride curled through her, even though he seemed to have no idea he’d just paid her a compliment. She whispered a mental “in your face” to all her detractors tonight.

Houseplant be damned. She must have some magnetism left somewhere, to be able to distract this man.

Josh closed his eyes while keeping her wrists imprisoned. He tilted his head back, just a little, exposing to her view the thick cords of muscle in his neck.

Then he looked down, his eyelids snapping open. “I’ve got it.”

Gray eyes locked on to hers, startling her out of her contemplation. “You do?” She wondered if he was going to let go of her wrists. Part of her didn’t want him to.

“Anonymous sex.”

Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe several.

When it started again, it pumped erratically, awkwardly.

“Excuse me?”

Josh relinquished his hold on her wrists, allowing her arms to drop to her sides. Nothing resided between them now except a sizzling two inches of air.

“You don’t want to make it personal, so we’ll make it anonymous.” His gray eyes glittered down at her, looming nearer as he closed the distance between them. “No lights.” His mouth brushed hers with a featherlight sweep of his lips. “No conversation.” He kissed his way across her jaw to whisper in her ear. “Just you and me—” he trailed his finger down her shoulder to her elbow “—tangled in your sheets until dawn.”

Lexi didn’t know when her eyes had drifted shut, but she found herself fantasizing about that simple touch winding its way down her belly, or maybe her thighs.

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