Page 81 of Frankly, My Dear

“No.”

She curled her lips with disgust, and he could just hear the gears of her brain grinding out that word she liked to call him. She didn’t disappoint him.

“Jerk!”

He smiled smoothly. Then he noticed her eyes riveted to a point just to the right of his mouth and remembered a comment she’d once made about his having a dimple. What had she said? Oh, oui, now he recalled. It was something about how he could have anything in the world from a woman if he just showed that dimple once in a while.

Deliberately he smiled wider, pleased to see her lips part with appreciation and her hazelnut eyes grow a misty green with passion. Passion! Was he demented, standing here waiting for the kill?

With a grunt of disgust, he threw the magazine to the desk and stood. Walking to a side table, he poured himself another half tumbler of bourbon.

“Thank you. I would like a glass, too.”

He glared at her for reminding him of his lack of hospitality, then complied ungraciously. He was rewarded for his efforts when she choked on the first swallow of the potent brew.

“Go to bed, Selene, and stop playing games with me.”

Selene felt as if she’d poured liquid fire into her mouth. Heat seared her tongue and throat, then landed like a bolt of lightning in her stomach. But a tingling warmth…delicious and almost sensual…followed in its wake, and she decided she liked James’s bourbon. She took another sip, unamused by his silent laughter at her reaction to the booze. She licked her lips and saw, to her pleasure, that he was no longer laughing, inside or out.

“So what else have you read in my magazine that puzzles you besides Oprah?” Selene asked conversationally.

“Well, I’m not sure I understand these automobile things, or the airplanes that you mentioned to me before,” he said. He put his drink down, sitting on the edge of the desk, and flicked through the pages until he came to ads for Chrysler and American Airlines.

“Horseless carriages that travel on roads and in the skies,” was the only explanation she could come up with.

“I thought as much.”

“I don’t think I would like living in your time, though, despite those marvels.”

“Really? Why?” She tilted her head in question and sipped her drink, feeling a slight buzz.

“Everyone seems to be in such a rush to get somewhere. Another city. Another job. Another woman, or man. The pressure to move on seems endless. There is no sense of contentment.”

“You may be right,” she said softly, pondering his words.

“Although I do think I like those teddies,” he added, with that blasted dimple of his flashing at her like a neon sign that said, “Sexy. Sexy. Sexy.”

“Teddies?” she asked, pulling her gaze away from his enticing mouth with considerable effort. Was that a smile tugging at his lips? Did he know what effect he was having on her, and was he enjoying it? The brute! She was supposed to be teaching him a lesson in what he would be missing, not the other way around.

“Oui, isn’t that what you call that revealing garment you are wearing on page sixteen?”

Selene had forgotten about that layout for Victoria’s Secret. She felt her face grow hot with embarrassment, though why she, a model, should be embarrassed by an advertisement she couldn’t really say.

“I must say, Selene, that I am shocked that you would expose your body for one and all to see. Are you sure you’re not a fancy lady in your time?”

“A fancy lady? What’s that? I always thought of myself as having class. Is that what you mean?”

He shook his head slowly from side to side.

“Oh, you jerk!” she exclaimed, suddenly remembering the New Orleans auction where he had referred to brothels as fancy houses. “I am not a whore. There’s nothing wrong with modeling underwear. Standards are different in 1996.”

He nodded hesitantly, seeming to accept her explanation. Then he flipped to another page, and winked at her. She leaned forward to see what headline had caught his attention now. Oh, Lord.

“So do you know ‘Ten Ways to Light Your Lover’s Fire’?”

Selene reached for the magazine but he held it out of reach, laughing.

“Sweetheart, I could light your fire ten ways to Tuesday and not even be started,” she boasted foolishly, refusing to let him goad her into scurrying off like a frightened mouse.