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She jumped at the sound of his amused voice, floating in through the open door.
‘Just talking to myself,’ she said as she briefly held a cold flannel to her cheeks before re-emerging from the bathroom, hopefully looking more serene. The serenity received a sharp nudge at the sight of Hunter and Ivan, so perfectly matched in colouring and sharp-eyed in-quisitiveness as they watched her approach.
‘Do you do that often?’ he asked.
‘Talk to myself? All the time. I have more interesting conversations that way,’ she said, giving him a pointed look before turning her attention to Ivan.
‘Open up, darling. This is going to make you feel so-o-o good. Oh, yes, isn’t that nice…?’ She rubbed the gel into his eager gums, alternately babbling encouragement and instructions for Hunter to hold still. ‘Yes, that feels so good when I do that, doesn’t it, darling…? Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes…’
‘You know, anyone eavesdropping on this conversation might get the wrong idea about what’s going on,’ murmured Hunter drily.
‘Hmm?’ Her incomprehension lasted only the few seconds it took to register the wicked smirk behind his bland expression. ‘I doubt it, not if they knew you were in here. You’re nearly forty after all,’ she said wither-ingly, remembering his knee-jerk reaction to her last taunts about his age.
‘If I recall rightly, you’re not all that young any more yourself, in spite of those surprisingly dewy-eyed, ingénue looks,’ he replied, uncrushed. ‘Most people subscribe to the wisdom that youth is a poor substitute for experience.’
‘Yes, well, I happen to prefer younger men,’ Anne said, thinking that if she was going to lie she might as well go the whole hog. She longed to snatch Ivan back out of Hunter’s powerful arms and wondered how to do it without risking more physical contact.
‘Like Dmitri?’ he asked, taking her off guard.
‘Who?’
‘The baby’s father,’ he clarified wryly.
‘Oh, him. Yes.’ Out of an inexplicable desire to shock him she said blithely, ‘Dmitri was so young and handsome…’ She gave what she hoped was a blissfully reminiscent sigh. ‘Barely out of his teens…’ She cast him a sly look from under her lashes. ‘No experience but tons of youthful energy and enthusiasm!’
There was an answering smoulder in the dark eyes during the short silence that followed. Uh-oh, had she laid it on a bit thick?
‘No experience at all?’ he drawled at last. ‘Did you take advantage of an innocent young lad, then, Anne? Seduce him before he realised what was happening?’
The idea was highly comical—the blind leading the blind. Her mouth curved, displaying a dimple in her left cheek, and her eyes danced, very blue under their winging brows.
‘Oh, I don’t have to seduce men. They usually find me irresistible.’ She laughed at the absurdity of the notion and tossed her head, the glossy rope of hair snaking forward over her shoulder, revealing the frivolous red bow that bound the end of the plait.
‘So you whistle and they eagerly dance to your tune?’
‘Oh, no, I’m the dancer. I simply teach them to whistle the right tunes,’ she said pertly.
His gaze followed the red bow as it bounced to rest against her hip. ‘A thoroughly devious, manipulating woman, in fact.’
The way he said it, in that slow, gravelly rough tone, it sounded dangerous and daring. Anne rather liked the idea of being considered dangerous, she who had always been boringly safe. Apart from the joyful absurdity of it, maybe if Hunter thought she was a vamp who enjoyed ensnaring helpless victims in her scheming toils he would be more inclined to give her a wide berth and stop pestering her with questions she didn’t want to answer.
‘Exactly. So you’d better beware,’ she drawled throatily, recalling the old movies that her mother had loved to watch on video while she was still imprisoned in her bed. She fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘I might decide th
at you could do with a music lesson.’
He didn’t turn a hair. ‘I suspect our divergent musical tastes might prove an insurmountable stumbling-block, but thank you for the offer,’ he murmured politely. ‘If I’m ever desperate for light relief I’ll know where to come.’
Light relief? Was everything he said a double-entendre or was it her sinful subconscious at work again? ‘It wasn’t an offer,’ she snapped.
‘No? A threat, then.’ He made it sound negligible.
‘More of a friendly warning,’ she said, hanging on to her patience by a thread. Whatever had happened to that volatile temper of his? Why was he suddenly so frustratingly difficult to provoke?
‘Kind of you. But as you pointed out I’m no longer in my first flush of impulsive youth. I doubt if you’d find me as susceptible as a teenage virgin.’
The casual dismissal of her womanly wiles sounded very much like a challenge and for a moment Anne was tempted recklessly to accept it. Fortunately, however, her innate common sense came to her rescue. Taunting Hunter had been asking for trouble; pitting herself against him further would be the equivalent of kneeling down and begging for it!
‘May I have Ivan back now?’ she asked steadily.
