Slade Baron's Bride. Sandra Marton

least expect it.”

      “Try getting a regular deck of cards to grin at you,” Slade said, and they both laughed and began to talk, bouncing from topic to topic as strangers usually do, except he wasn’t really sure what he said, or what she said.

      He was too busy watching the play of emotion on her face when she laughed, the way she had of widening her eyes when he said something amusing. He was too busy listening to her voice, which was husky and soft and sexy as hell, even though he had the feeling she didn’t know it was sexy any more than she knew that little way she had of pushing her hair back from her ear was starting to make him have to curl his hand into a fist to keep from reaching out and doing it himself.

      Up close, the suit was still demure but now that he could see a hint of the body beneath it, he knew he’d never think of a suit the same way again. And her scent. Lilacs, he thought. Or maybe lilies of the valley.

      “…don’t you think?” she said, and Slade nodded and said yes, he definitely did, and hoped he was saying yes to the right thing, because he hadn’t heard the question. He told himself he was being ridiculous, to get his jaw off the floor and his brain into gear.

      “That’s why I think of it as The Dead Battery Conspiracy,” Lara said. “You know. You do all the right things, keep their batteries charged—”

      Oh, yes, Slade thought, while he kept smiling like an idiot, yes, indeed, there was nothing like keeping your batteries charged.

      “You turn them on carefully—”

      Carefully? Hell, he didn’t want to be turned on carefully. He wanted to scoop her up, drag her off into a dark corner and ravish that mouth and that body.

      “—but they don’t work. They never do, when you want them to.”

      “No,” Slade finally said, and cleared his throat and changed the topic before he made a spectacle of himself in public.

      They talked some more. Or, rather, he talked. She just listened. After a while, he noticed a strange look on her face. He wondered if he was boring her but then he realized it wasn’t that. She looked…contemplative. Yeah, that was the word. She smiled in all the right places but he had the feeling she was weighing the consequences of something important, and that whatever it was, it was beyond his comprehension.

      It gave him a funny feeling, one he didn’t like. So he stopped, in the middle of a sentence, and said, “How about some coffee?”

      Lara blinked. She looked back at the coffee bar, then at him.

      “Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, I’d like that.”

      He rose from his chair. She did, too. They walked to the rear of the lounge, poured some coffee, sat down on a small sofa in a corner and went on with their conversation about inconsequential things. Weather, and flying, and how some airports were better than others, but all the while they were chatting, he knew it was only a cover for what was really happening between them.

      They were turning each other on.

      That little shot of electricity came again, when he refilled her cup. Their hands brushed, and the resultant spark made them jump.

      “Whoops,” she said, with a little laugh, “one of us needs to be grounded before we go up in flames.”

      “Oh, I don’t know,” Slade said, with a smile. “Going up in flames might be fun.”

      Their eyes met and held, and then she looked away and they talked about carpets and static electricity, about everything but the tension stretching between them.

      He told himself it was nothing unusual. He was a man who enjoyed women. He always had, ever since the divorced wife of a neighboring rancher back home in Texas had decided to give him herself as a gift for his sixteenth birthday. He liked women, liked the way they sounded and looked and moved. And women liked him. So yeah, he’d sat in a bar, or gone to a party, he’d looked at a woman and she at him and bam, the connection had clicked and the both of them had known they were going to end up in bed together.

      But, dammit, this was different. Who was he trying to kid? He wanted this woman with a need that was almost painful. He wanted her in his arms, wanted the scent of her arousal on his skin, the taste of her on his tongue, the hot wetness of her closing around him.

      And she wanted him. He could read the signs. The glow in her eyes. The rosy color in her cheeks. The way her coffee cup trembled in her hand. He wondered when she’d be ready to admit it to herself and what he could possibly do about it when she did, considering that they were trapped in this damned lounge with the rest of the world.

      “…of the world,” Lara said.

      “What?”

      “I said, it seems as if we’re trapped in here, and the world has come to a stop.”

      “Yes.” Slade nodded. “Yes, it does.”

      They both fell silent. He saw the way she looked at him, from under her lashes, and how she looked away, and he knew it was time.

      “You’re beautiful,” he said softly.

      Color flooded her face but she smiled. “Thank you.”

      “What does your hair look like, when it’s loose?”

      He saw a pulse flutter in the hollow of her throat. “What?”

      “Your hair. Is it long? Does it fall over your shoulders, and your breasts?” He took the cup from her and put it on the table beside him. “This isn’t just another pickup line,” he said. “You know it’s not.”

      He looked into her eyes and what he saw made his body harden. She knew what he was thinking, that he was imagining what it would be like to strip her of that oh-so-proper suit, take down that carefully tied-back hair, touch her and kiss her until she cried out with need for him.

      And in the middle of all those crazy thoughts, another announcement blared from the public-address system.

      All flights were grounded, for at least the next few hours. Passengers who wished to secure overnight arrangements were to come up to the desk.

      Lara cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, and gave a forced laugh, “well, that’s that.”

      She was right. It was over, and he was glad. Whatever insanity had been going on between them was finished.

      “Yes.” He smiled politely. “Are you going to wait it out here or try for a hotel?”

      “Here, I think. How about you?”

      “I’ll hang in here,” he started to say, but he never finished the sentence. “The hell with this,” he growled. “Come with me.”

      Something flashed in her eyes and he thought, for a heartbeat, she was going to say yes.

      “No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

      He looked at her left hand, saw no ring. “Are you married?” She shook her head. “Engaged?” She shook her head again. Slade moved closer, until they were a breath apart. “Neither am I. We won’t be hurting anyone.” He reached out and took her hand. She let him do it, though he felt the tremor in her fingers. “Come to bed with me, Lara.”

      The color rose in her face. “I can’t.”

      “We’ll be incredible together,” he said, his hand tightening on hers.

      She shook her head. “I—I don’t even know you.”

      “Yes, you do. You’ve known me forever, the same as I’ve known you.” His voice was rough and low. “As for the details…I’m an architect. I live in Boston. I’m straight, I’m not married, not committed to anyone. I’m twenty-eight years old, I just had my annual physical and my doctor says I’m healthy enough to outlive Methuselah. What more do you need to know, except that I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I want you?”

      And