Wickedly Hot. Leslie Kelly

confidence, as if he knew all there was to know about her after an hour of conversation.

      “Let me tell you what I’ve figured out about you.”

      She smirked, daring him to be accurate.

      “You’ve been nursing ginger ale all evening. Before I rescued you, you’d done nothing but look at the paintings, the furniture and that old necklace. You didn’t return one glance at one of the rich guys who’d probably love to invite you to bathe in champagne back at their pampered palaces.”

      “Champagne bath? Sounds ticklish,” she retorted, though the mental image created a surge of warmth low in her body.

      He ignored her. “Your foot was tapping with suppressed energy and your fingers clenched and released about thirty times a minute.”

      “You were watching me that long, hmm?”

      He didn’t try to deny it. “You had my complete attention the moment I became aware of your existence.”

      There was a note of intensity, almost a growl in his voice, which surprised her. Again she wondered, briefly, if she’d ever met him before, perhaps on one of her trips to track down and retrieve artifacts stolen from local families during the war.

      But she knew she hadn’t. This was one man she would never have been able to forget.

      “Your face, your mouth, your eyes, your body, they were all saying one thing,” he continued, uncaring of the open ears surrounding them on the dance floor.

      Take me?

      “Bored.”

      That, too.

      “Bored enough to want to do something different.” His voice lowered, and there was an unmistakably suggestive tone in it. “Maybe something crazy. Which is why I decided to shock you out of your boredom during our initial conversation.”

      Oh, yeah, their initial conversation. The one that had included mention of her nipples and breasts, both of which were still aching as their bodies brushed against each other.

      “I’m still not sure I’ve forgiven you.”

      “I don’t think I asked for forgiveness.”

      Again that confidence. That suggestive—not salacious—tone. He was a self-assured man who’d noted their instant attraction and was acting on it without games, without the typical steps of flirtation. She liked that about him. Damn, she liked him more and more the longer she remained in his arms.

      “Are you sure you’re not a P.I. or something? You’re pretty good at watching people,” she said.

      Her tone was teasing, though she was a teensy bit worried. If she didn’t know for certain he was an architect, she might have thought the P.I. thing was nearer to the truth. The man was incredibly observant!

      “You’re very interesting to watch,” he said, his voice low and only for her ears. “Fascinating.” Then he lightened up. “Besides, it beats watching the white-haired guy with the ruffled shirt trying to look down the blouse of every cocktail server here.”

      She followed his glance. “Mr. Sherman. Disgusting, but harmless, especially since his wife tried to castrate him back in the seventies.”

      He stopped dancing, nearly stumbling on his own feet. His eyes were wide and she merely shrugged. The story was an old one.

      “You’re serious?”

      “Why do you think none of the servers have slapped his face? Everyone feels sorry for the limp old thing.”

      He shook his head, drawing her close again to continue the dance. “What about the couple over by the buffet table? He looks thirty years too young to be her husband. I thought she was his mother until I saw them kiss on the dance floor.”

      Jade glanced over, unable to hide a frown of disgust when she saw the couple. “The latest divorced matron with her rebound boy toy.”

      “That kind of thing happens in the rich crowd even in the South?” He sounded truly surprised.

      “Obviously you haven’t seen or read The Book.”

      “The Book?”

      “The tell-all novel that changed the image of Savannah in print and on film.”

      He nodded. “Ahh. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

      “Here, we just call it The Book.”

      “Okay. And actually, I have seen the movie. I assumed it was fiction.”

      “Some was. But not the eccentricities of the city’s residents.”

      He shrugged, looking neither surprised nor disappointed. “It fits. Eccentricities, beautiful homes, fine things.” He stared into her face, studying her eyes, her hair, her cheekbones. Jade resisted the urge to lick her lips, wondering if they were still as glossy red as they’d been when she’d touched up her lipstick earlier.

      “I like looking at fine things,” he murmured.

      She sucked in a breath. The way he said the word fine made her shiver deep inside, as if he’d examined her, studied her, and declared her as lovely and desirable as a perfect piece of art.

      God, what deceptive things come in pretty packages. Because she wasn’t fine. She wasn’t being honest. She wasn’t anything he thought her to be.

      For a brief moment, she wished they’d met under different circumstances. If Jenny had never mentioned Ryan Stoddard. If she’d never seen the man’s picture—which had enraged Jade even more, considering how irresistible he’d be to a vulnerable twenty-one-year-old. If only…

      If only there’d been a big mistake and he wasn’t the man she’d sworn revenge on.

      But he was. And it was time to get on with it.

      “Okay, Ryan. I’ll have that beer with you.”

      RYAN LEFT THE BALLROOM of the old mansion, telling Jade he’d meet her outside in fifteen minutes. She gave him a measured look, then nodded her agreement and stepped out of his arms. He’d had to stand there on the dance floor for a moment, to calm his pulse, to evaluate what he was doing, to make sure he wasn’t about to make a mistake.

      There was something so intriguing about the woman. Her strength, her charm. The way she stood her ground when surrounded by catty women whose dislike probably stemmed from jealousy more than anything else.

      She seemed above it, somehow, not rising to it except for that one moment with Mamie. But even then, she’d regained her cool head pretty quickly.

      He didn’t know why, but he had a strong sense of misgiving about how the evening was progressing. He was supposed to be the hunter. So why was he suddenly feeling hunted?

      “You’re imagining things,” he told himself. Things were going perfectly. It was only his overactive imagination—and overheated sex drive—that needed to be brought under control.

      Unfortunately, someone else overheard. “Imagining things? No, you’re not.”

      Ryan looked up and saw the woman in the hoop-skirted ball gown who’d been talking to Jade earlier. She should have looked ridiculous, but somehow, her innate grace made the silly dress work. At least in this setting.