Falling Awake(31)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“No problem. We can talk about the formalities tomorrow.”

He sensed her hesitating again, as though considering the risks of diving off a high board. At that moment Sphinx appeared, padding into the small hall to greet them.

Isabel glanced down at the cat and then looked up quickly, resolve gleaming in her eyes.

“Would you like a cup of tea before you drive back to the inn?” she asked.

Anticipation flashed through him, as if he had just climbed aboard the front seat of the roller coaster. Unknown thrills awaited.

“Sounds good,” he said, managing, just barely, to keep it polite and casual.

He moved through the doorway before she could change her mind. She stepped back, set her purse on the hall table and started to move off in the direction of the kitchen.

He reached out to retrieve his jacket. “I’ll take that for you.”

She froze when he touched her shoulder. So did he. Beneath the thin knit fabric of her dress he could feel the heat of her skin and the soft, lushly rounded curve of her shoulder.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

For what had to be the longest moment of his life, they stood, unmoving, in the close confines of the tiny foyer. He did not take his hand off the sensual curve of her shoulder. He wasn’t sure he could.

She turned her head slightly and looked at his fingers. She contemplated them for a few seconds and then she met his eyes and smiled just a little.

The invitation was unmistakable and irresistible. Gently he slid her glasses off her nose and set them on the hall table next to her purse. She blinked, as though he had removed a veil.

Very deliberately he eased his jacket off her shoulders and dropped it beside the glasses.

He wasn’t really undressing her, he thought, but somehow it felt as if that was what he was doing.

He rested his hands lightly on either side of her throat and traced the outline of her delicate jaw with his thumbs. When he toyed with her gold earrings she flattened her palms lightly on the front of his shirt.

“I’ve never had much luck with romantic relationships,” she said very seriously. “So this is probably not a good idea, especially since we’re going to be working together on a professional basis.”

“I’ve never been real good at the relationship thing, either.” He threaded his fingers through her hair. “What do you say we don’t jinx this by telling ourselves that this has to be the start of a long-term situation?”

A wistful look came and went on her expressive face. With obvious reluctance, she moved her hands away from his chest and curled them around his wrists.

“I’m not interested in a one-night stand,” she said very gently but very firmly.

Nice going, you idiot. Now she thinks you’re just looking for a quick roll in the hay.

“Neither am I.” He pulled her closer. “So what do you say we take this nice and slow? We go for a good night kiss. Nothing more. No commitments. No promises. No problems tomorrow if one of us decides not to mix business and pleasure.”

Something that might have been relief mingled with regret and amusement lit her expression.

“What do you call an arrangement like that?” she asked.

“A free pass to a thrill ride.” He stroked her lower lip with one finger. It trembled at his touch and everything inside him clenched with need. “Good for one night and one night only.”

“All right.”

He covered her mouth with his before she could change her mind. The plan was to make the kiss slow, seductive and nonthreatening. The last thing he wanted to do was screw up big time with Tango Dancer.

He sensed the caution in her but he could also feel her eagerness and curiosity. The knowledge that she was attracted to him sent a highly charged rush of energy through him. Whatever was going on here, it was working in both directions.

He deepened the kiss. She responded with a soft, urgent little sound that just had to be the most erotic thing he had ever heard in his entire life. Her arms wound around his neck.

He drank his fill and was still thirsty. He managed to drag his mouth away from hers long enough to kiss her smooth throat. She shivered, gave a small gasp and dug her fingertips into his shoulders.

The tantalizing scent of her body and the faint, herbal fragrance of her hair were addictive. Sliding his palms down the length of her back, he savored the warm, sleek curves of her body through the clingy material of her dress. A vision of how she would look and feel naked in a bed made him groan aloud.

She stiffened. “Ellis?”

“It’s okay.” He slipped the gold earrings slowly, carefully out of her ears. “I have a vivid imagination where you’re concerned, that’s all. I’ve spent a lot of time during the past few months wondering what it would be like to hold you like this.”

“You’ve thought about us kissing?” she whispered, blushing furiously.

“Yes.”

“Oh, my.” She buried her face against his shoulder. “I suppose it’s only natural that we would be curious about each other.”

He caught her chin on his forefinger and urged her to look at him. “Are you telling me that you’ve imagined this moment, too?”

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were fever-bright. “I’ve spent a lot of nights working on your dreams, Ellis Cutler. Naturally I was curious.”

He studied her intently. “Are you equally curious about all of your dream clients?”

“No. Not the way I was about you. I wanted to know if the real you would be anything like the you I imagined when I worked on your dreams.”

“Come to any conclusions?”

She framed his face with her hands and brushed her lips lightly across his. “Yes. You are exactly as I knew you would be.”

He looked into her incredible eyes and wondered if he would ever be able to pull himself free of the spell she was weaving around him.

“You and I know better than most people that dreams can’t be trusted,” he made himself say.

“There is truth in dreams. You just have to know how to look for it.” She raised her brows, amused. “That’s why you hire me, remember?”

He told himself it would be a huge mistake to take what was happening between them seriously. Isabel’s elevated interest in him had a lot to do with the fact that he was a Level Five, just as she was. She had admitted that she longed to meet someone else who dreamed the way she did. It was probably inevitable that she would allow herself to be intrigued, perhaps even a bit enthralled, by the first man she met who knew what it meant to go into an extreme dream state.