Could it be that he’d never touched her before? That seemed impossible, given how long he’d known her, but this contact felt new. The warmth of her skin zipped right through his fingers, up his arms, down his chest and across the Mason-Dixon line to rebel territory. He was not going to get an erection from touching a woman’s fingers. He was not.
Okay, he was, but he would control it. “Thanks for the coffee.” He cradled the large cup in both hands. He associated her with coffee, maybe because they’d spent so many mornings surrounded by the scent of it.
“It’s cherry bark.”
His glance flew to hers. She’d brought home his special preference on purpose. Nah, probably not. But if she had…
“I happened to have some on hand.”
She hadn’t done it on purpose. His tiny spark of hope died. She hadn’t asked him about cream and sugar, either. He figured she’d noticed he took it black, not because she cared about him, but because she was so smart and observant.
“Okay.” She stood in front of him, her cup clutched like a shield in front of her. “If you’d like to sit in that chair, I’ll bring up the questionnaire on the computer. I created it today and it’s probably not perfect because I had to rush a little, but it’s a start.”
Back to the hugging chair. He could do this. He settled into it without spilling his coffee and vowed to keep his chair-sex fantasies under control while he gave fake answers to her questions.
She looked so earnest that he felt guilty about misleading her, but he had to, for self-preservation. “Did Faith help you with the questions?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“I hope not.”
“Look, Dev, if you want to forget the whole thing, then—”
“No, I don’t. Let’s do it.” Now there was a loaded suggestion.
“Right.” Obviously her thoughts were miles away from his, because she became all business, turning away and slipping quickly into her secretary chair in front of the computer. “I’m sure you’d like to get this over with.”
That was up for debate. Although he had to fight his attraction to her, she was unknowingly demonstrating the qualities he found so sexy. He’d been dating the wrong kind of women for years without realizing what the right kind was. He wanted someone unaffected, someone who entertained guests in jeans and an old sweatshirt, someone who picked out furniture for the way it felt when you sat on it instead of how it looked, someone who didn’t take an hour to put on makeup and fix her hair.
Good thing she’d directed him to this chair. He could see her profile from this position, but he wouldn’t seem to be watching her. From the love seat or the opposite chair, her back would have been to him. Of course, with this woman, a view of her straight spine and the tender nape of her neck would send him into overdrive.
“Are you ready for the first question?” she asked.
“Shoot.”
“Who would you rather take to bed, Cleopatra or Joan of Arc?”
He barely kept from choking on his coffee. Neither. You. “Aren’t they both dead?”
She swiveled the chair to look at him. “Yes, but I picked them out as archetypes. One is all about glamour and seduction, whereas the other one didn’t care about that, but she had charisma and sacrificed herself for a noble cause.”
He wondered what she wore under the sweatshirt. With her perky br**sts, she really wouldn’t need a bra. Then he realized she was waiting for his response. “I’m pretty sure they both sacrificed themselves. Didn’t Cleo get way too chummy with a snake?”
Jamie frowned. “Yes, but forget about that. Just think of the image of Cleopatra floating down the Nile on her barge. Does that excite you?”
“No.” Or she might be wearing one of those stretchy sports bras, the kind that displayed a woman’s n**ples when she was excited.
“Then you’d pick Joan of Arc?”
“No.” He tried to tell from the drape of her worn sweatshirt if she had on a bra or not. He couldn’t.
“Is it a bad question?” Uncertainty flashed in her eyes. “Maybe I don’t have the right historical figures. Let’s try Lady Godiva and Amelia Earhart.”
He forced himself to concentrate on something besides her br**sts. “Let’s try Jennifer Lopez and Jodi Foster,” he said gently. “Guys don’t fantasize about famous dead women.”
“Faith said that question might not fly, but I liked it. I was hoping—”
“Then maybe you should leave it in.” He wasn’t quite sure when, but somewhere along the line he’d become protective of her feelings. She was proud of her question and he’d shot it down. Now he wished he hadn’t. “I’m not very intellectual, so I’m not a good person to judge.”
She turned back to stare at the screen. “Faith says you’re smarter than you let on. She said if you didn’t think that question would work, I should probably take it out. So I’m taking it out.”
“Wait a minute. I—”
“Too late. It’s gone. Okay, next question. Which part of a woman’s anatomy do you notice first?”
He gasped, then covered his reaction with a coughing fit.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded and cleared his throat. She was so damned clinical that none of this must bother her, which meant she had zero interest in him as a man. He was only a specimen under a microscope. “Coffee went down wrong,” he said in a thick voice.
“Would you like some water?”
“I’d like a different question.”
She sat, her fingers poised over the computer keys, her gaze on the screen. “But this is important for a woman to know about her guy, don’t you think? Just tell me. It’s br**sts, isn’t it?”
“I am so not answering that.”
“Come on, Dev.” She scrolled up and down the document. “We’re going to poll a bunch of guys and see if any of them choose something besides br**sts. I’m doubting it, personally. I think a woman should always buy things to emphasize her br**sts if she wants a guy to get turned on.”
If that was true, he wondered why he was sitting there in a state of arousal while Jamie wore a baggy sweatshirt that disguised her br**sts. Still, he had been fixating on them. Maybe disguised br**sts were underrated as a sexual turn-on.
But he was here to give her false info. “All right,” he said. “Then put that down for me, too.”
She nodded and began typing. “Breast man. And thank you for being honest.”
He winced. Honesty would have meant saying that the first thing he’d noticed about Jamie were her incredible green eyes, which were so expressive. Next he’d noticed her sweet little mouth, especially when she gave that saucy little smile of hers. He’d never really taken note of her br**sts until she’d worn that slinky knit dress to the Pump Room. Now, of course, he was intensely interested in them.
“Would you find it sexy if a woman wore a necklace to bed and nothing else?”
He wasn’t a fan of jewelry during sex. As far as he was concerned, the only hard object in the bed should be his penis. But here was a perfect opportunity to discover if his answers would find their way to the Sherman family matchmakers. If he said he loved seeing a nak*d woman wearing a necklace, and a nak*d woman in a necklace appeared, he’d have his proof.
“I think that’s very sexy,” he said.
“A choker style, or something long that dangled between her br**sts?”
Well, he hadn’t thought he liked jewelry in bed, but now he was imagining Jamie with emeralds that matched her eyes…. A choker would have kinky overtones, which would be sort of exciting, but a long necklace, with a teardrop emerald nestled right between her freckled br**sts… He didn’t know for sure they were freckled, but he could guess they might be.
“Dev? Which necklace?”
He jerked out of his daydream so quickly that he almost spilled his coffee. “Long and dangling.” He still sounded hoarse, so he cleared his throat and said it again. “Dangling.”
“Got it. Long and dangling between her br**sts,” she murmured, typing in the answer.
He was losing focus. He was supposed to be feeding her wrong answers, but when it came to thinking of hav**g s*x with Jamie, there were no wrong answers. “Rubies,” he said, just to throw in something different from his emerald fantasy. “Rubies are sexy. The color of passion and all that.”
Jamie typed some more. “Rubies it is. Next question. In women’s negligees, do you prefer silk, lace, or a combination of the two?”
Apparently he’d groaned without knowing it, because she turned to him, alarm in her expression. “You aren’t getting sick, are you?”
He sat up straighter. “Nope. No.” He thought frantically of a way to cover his goof. “I, um, remembered I forgot to record the Bulls game.” Another lie. His VCR was humming away at this very moment.
“Is it over?”
“No, just starting.”
“Then it’s not a problem.” She jumped up. “What channel?”
“WGN. But that’s okay.” He glanced around for a TV and didn’t see one. “You don’t have to—”