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‘Some people accessorise with handbags or shoes or both. I accessorise with eye colour or pattern.’
‘Pattern?’ His brows shot up. ‘Patterns on your eyes?’
‘Sure.’ She had the most fabulous collection of freaky contacts. Shopping on the internet was a temptation to which she frequently succumbed.
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ It was different. It wasn’t the typical beautiful babe thing—she wasn’t ever going to be pretty or beautiful. She couldn’t compete with that—but she could do quirky. She could do defence.
‘You’re like an inverse chameleon. You hope people won’t see past the surface?’ He nailed her just like that. He finished his coffee and stood. ‘Come on, then, so long as you’re sure you’re not going to eviscerate if you go into the sunshine, let’s get out of here.’
It wasn’t the sun that threatened to eviscerate her. It was his burning focus.
On the footpath outside he tossed the car keys at her. ‘I just need to get something. Be a minute.’
She caught the keys and watched him walk unevenly across the road into the snow’n’skate store.
This was her opportunity to escape him—to get in the car and put her foot on the accelerator to the spa and apologise for lateness. But as if she was going to do that—she hadn’t wanted to go there anyway. And as if she was going to pass up an opportunity to spend some time with a good-humoured guy who looked as if he’d just stepped out of a sportswear catalogue?
She might be different, but she wasn’t crazy.
She got into the car and scooted the driver’s seat forward again so her feet could reach the pedals. He was back in a minute as he’d said, clutching an uber-hip recyclable shopping bag with the store’s logo.
‘You have friends in there?’
He just winked, chucking the bag on the back seat and fixing the legroom in the passenger seat. ‘You sure you’re okay to drive?’
With a flourish she curled her fingers round the steering wheel. ‘I’m fine.’
He leaned close. ‘No more urgent grooming matters to attend to?’ His voice was the auditory equivalent of chocolate sauce—warm and smooth and ready for a berry to be dipped in it.
‘I think the pedestrian population is safe now,’ she muttered, trying to get her pulse to stop its rapid acceleration.
‘Great. Then take the first left.’
She did exactly that and in only a hundred metres or so had to stop—a red light. Naturally. But as she paused he leaned across her seat, reaching his long arm down between her legs.
‘What are you doing?’ she gasped, ‘I’m trying to drive.’ She lifted both hands from the wheel, undecided if she should throttle him—his head was basically in her lap!
‘Stop it.’ Actually she didn’t mean that. She was thinking all kinds of things she shouldn’t be, what with seeing his dark head hovering just above her thigh like that...
Not wriggling was really difficult. So was not crashing the car. ‘We’re at a red light. I’m trying to concentrate.’
And that was so impossible right now. He moved his hand, his shoulder rubbed against her thigh as he jerked on the handbrake between them. Then he went south again—deep south. His hand encircled her ankle, lifted it for a half second as he slipped her shoe off.
‘Jack!’ Another totally girly gasp.
He sat back, a smile of success creasing every feature, as her shoe sat in the palm of his hand. ‘You can’t drive safely wearing these. You can’t do anything safely wearing these.’
‘I can and do,’ she said breathlessly. ‘If you were as short as me, and plainly you’re not, then you’d understand. As it is, you can’t possibly get it.’
‘I just want to get there in one piece.’
She blew out a big shot of air and finally realised she had to take the brake off as the car behind tooted impatiently.
Irritatingly, it was easier to drive barefoot—but she wasn’t going to admit it to him. ‘That was really dangerous.’
‘No more dangerous than you combing your hair at a red light. At least this time you had your handbrake on.’
