The club was dark, but not dark enough that he could miss the flush across her cheeks, or the way the heated vee between her thighs shifted closer to his rock-hard erection in an dance as old as time.
The smile curved his lips before he realized it. "Don't worry, baby, we're definitely going to be doing that, regardless of your answer."
She licked her lips. Her sweet, plump, cherry-red lips. "I don't--" She shook her head, her shoulder-length brown hair moving across her shoulders. "I wasn't going to say--"
"You do," he countered, "and you were." Dropping his lips back down over hers, he said,
"But since that's a given, what other kind of crazy have you got for me?"
Her fingertips tightened on his shoulders. "You and me doing ... it's a given?"
"Yup."
"But we just met."
"Lucky us."
He was glad to hear a surprised little giggle escape her lips, but then, too soon, she was back to her arguments."I don't do things like this."
"I know you don't."
She frowned and, without thinking, he reached up to brush away the lines between her eyes. He wanted to see her smile, not frown.
"How?"
Her soft skin against his fingertips had him losing his train of thought. Hell, how could he possibly think without any blood left in his brain? Not even close to knowing what she was asking, all he could do was echo, "How what?"
"How do you know I don't do things like this?"
"I just do."
Her full lips pressed together. Shit, that wasn't the right answer.
"Because I look boring."
"Hell, no." A little bit of spark came back into her eyes, enough to tell him that he was heading in the right direction again. Thank God. "You've been anything but boring."
She cocked her pretty head to one side, the hair brushing against her shoulder blades, making him wonder what it would feel like brushing over his dick as she blew him, sixty-nine position.
"But you're surprised by that, aren't you?"
Jesus, he thought as he corralled his brain back to the conversation, what was this?
Twenty-fucking-questions?
A lie lay on his tongue, whatever she wanted to hear, but what came out instead was, "A little, yeah."
"I knew it." Her victorious expression disappeared as quickly as it came. "Tell me why you're so surprised."
The first words that came into his head were, "You were wearing a halo."
He nearly groaned at the stupidity of blurting that out when he saw her outraged expression.
"A halo?" She actually reached up to the top of her head, as if she needed to make sure that she did not, in fact, have a halo hanging over her soft brown curls.
"No," he said, trying to backpedal as fast as he could, "not a halo. You definitely weren't wearing one of those."
He needed to change the subject, get them back to ... Hell, what had they been talking about?
"Then what?"
Shit, he wasn't thinking fast enough. Could barely get his brain to function when he could still scent her arousal, when he was still ridiculously hard and throbbing behind his zipper.
"It's just that you just looked so innoc--"
Her eyes narrowed as she waited for him to finish and he decided it was smarter just to shut up. Whatever he said about her looking pure or innocent was just going to piss her off. He knew that now. He didn't know why, just that it did.
Just as he didn't know how the hell one tiny little woman was throwing him more off his game than a field full of three-hundred-pound guys all coming at him with everything they had.
Her nostrils flared and he couldn't believe even that looked cute on her. Jesus, he had it bad for this one. In under an hour she practically had him spouting poetry.
And shooting in his pants from just looking at her.
"I'm sick to death of everyone thinking they know exactly who I am! I'm sick of everyone assuming all I want to do is smile and organize things while they go off and have their big romantic sunsets together! I'm sick to death of never, ever doing something so crazy that I get to regret it in the morning while secretly having loved every second of it! For all people know, I could be bringing guys like you home every Friday night and trading you in for a new guy on Saturday!"
Her hands had fisted on his chest now and he was sure she didn't realize it, but she'd been hitting him to emphasize each of her points, one thump at the end of each sentence like an exclamation point.
Still, the picture of her throwing him over for another guy not twenty-four hours later had him growling with a sudden spurt of jealousy. "Have you done that?"
The low rumble of his question seemed to snap her out of her momentary fury.
"Seriously? Are you asking me that for real?"
His hands came around her shoulders, jealousy burning hotter than it ever had. If she said yes, he'd hunt down every one of those guys and break their necks with his bare hands.
"Have. You. Done. That?"
He'd seen enough game tapes to know that he had one of the meanest glares in football, but instead of being cowed by the four snarled words, Anna's answering smile was the brightest one yet, so stunning that he almost felt blinded by her beauty, by that light that surrounded her.
"No," she said, still smiling. "I haven't." She went to her tippy toes and tilted her face up to his to press a soft, short kiss to his mouth. "But thank you for thinking that I could have if I'd wanted to."
On the verge of dragging her by the hair up to his room and tying her to his bed for the rest of the night, he growled, "Hell, baby, you could have any guy here in ten seconds flat."
But he only wanted her to want him.
"That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."
Not even trying to understand her--no question about it, women were one huge, endless mystery--Cole pulled his focus in tight again. "If you want to be crazy for once, I can help you.
What do you say, Anna? Should we be crazy together?"
"You mean crazier than--" She actually looked both ways and lowered her voice to a near-whisper. "--sleeping together?"
He chuckled against her mouth, swiping his tongue against her lips for another quick taste. At her indrawn breath he said, "Oh yeah. A whole lot crazier."
A half-dozen expressions moved across her face.
Pleasure.
Excitement.
Curiosity.
Desire.
Doubt.
And then, as if it were single handedly going to lock down the coffin on his plans: Full-on fear.
But then, instead of pulling out of his arms and saying no, she took a deep breath and said, "You're not talking about gambling or karaoke, are you?"