British. His accent. Highly educated, deeply cultured, laden with class and control. And with an inflection that told her he wasn’t actually English, but something too complex to fathom. He sounded exactly as he looked. Exotic, superior, formidable.
Not that she knew how he looked. After the stolen glimpse at his costume-that of someone ready to tackle a sandstorm head-on-she hadn’t ventured another look at him. Couldn’t work up the nerve to take that look. Probably would only when he decided she’d taken enough of his party time and went back to his companion.
He just had to have a companion. Men like him-assuming other men like him existed-were invariably spoken for. And this one wouldn’t merely be spoken for. He’d be fought over, tooth and nail.
She sighed. “Actually, I meant the champagne shower.”
Hell. And he’d know she wasn’t even joking. She should just shut up until he moved on. She’d do well to remember she was an outcast for a reason. She’d never developed the art of conversation. Or the common sense of social graces. Every time she hurled out what she was thinking, uncensored, she varied between cultivating disgruntled critics or outright enemies.
Not that she was cultivating either here. The man must simply think her a total moron by now. Oh, well.
Turning her back on him, she flopped her purse over her back, raised her multilayered skirt, wrung its ends, took off one soggy shoe, then the other and dangled each over the marble balustrade, watering the shrubs with excess champagne before placing the shoes facedown to drain.
So what if she was confirming his suspicion that he’d just stumbled on the party clown? What did his opinion matter, anyway?
Suddenly, nothing seemed to matter as dark rumbles rose, harmonizing with a cello solo, both male and instrumental music enveloping her in a surge of warmth and…well being?
Oh, wow. He was laughing. And not at her. With her. She could tell by the answering exuberance rising inside her.
She felt him leaning against the balustrade, looking down at her, and she shivered at the amusement still staining his voice. “So-you welcomed the cooling off, even at the price of braving the rest of the ball wet and sticky, in a ruined gown and barefoot?”
Her lips twisted in self-deprecation. “With the way I was sweating, this was my fate anyway. I was already squishing in my shoes. It was a relief to fast-forward to the inevitable end.”
“May I inquire why such a cool-looking butterfly was sweating buckets in the perfectly air-conditioned ballroom?”
Butterfly? At five-foot-six and a hundred and forty pounds, she was too substantial to be called that. And cool-looking? Was he baiting her? Trying to get her to admit why she’d been so hot and bothered? As if she’d tell him!
Then she opened her mouth. “Are you a different species? Perfectly air-conditioned? Not according to this body’s thermostat. I entered that ballroom and almost got knocked off my feet by thousands of people emitting the steam of body heat and self-importance, then you trained those eyes on me and I just about spontaneously combusted…”
Shut up. Just shut up.
This was far worse than her usual candor crises. This man disturbed her. Unbalanced her. Big time. But there was no use feeling bad about it now. The damage had already been done.
She gritted her teeth and waited for his response, expecting him to burst out laughing for real this time. Or to take advantage of her confession and proposition her.
“So that was why you welcomed the cold shower!” Here it came. The making fun of her. The lewd proposition. Or both. “Thank you.”
Wha…? Thank you? What the hell was he thanking her for? The ego stroke? The comic relief?
Her chagrin evaporated as he went on, something that was no longer amusement-wonder?-coloring his magnificent voice. “Thank you for giving me the opening to let you know how you tampered with my temperature the moment you trained these eyes on me.”
He touched her then, a thumb tracing a burning, downcast lid then a forefinger below her chin, coaxing her face up. She trembled at the barely substantial contact.
Then he exhaled a gravelly, “Do it again.”
His invocation raised her eyes to his without volition. And the impact was even harder this time. In the full moon’s rays, the whites of his eyes shone silver, the irises infinite by contrast, a black hole sucking her whole into it.
Then he began unraveling the intricately folded cloth that obscured his face in slow, hypnotic movements. At last he stopped, dropped his arms to his sides and whispered, sounding as disturbed as she felt, “Look at me. All of me.”
His command/plea shattered the spell that had been keeping her eyes captive to his, and she obeyed, letting her gaze stumble all over him, absorbing everything about him with the same greed her gown had soaked up the champagne.
And he was magnificent.
But…no. He was more than that.
Long ago, when she’d believed she’d one day find love and passion with one person who’d been made for her and she for him, she’d had a vague, impossible vision of that person. This man surpassed even that spawn of an outlandish teenage imagination.
Tall, dark and handsome were givens. The devil was definitely in the details here. How tall, for instance-ten or more inches taller than her. And though his getup only hinted at his body’s power, she’d bet he’d fill out a superhero’s suit to perfection. Then came the part of just how handsome he was.
She’d never had a knack for poetry or art. She was all about numbers and spreadsheets and harsh financial facts. But she could see how a face like that deserved sonnets. And a wingful of portraits in a museum. His perfect face proved that asymmetrical, weathered faces didn’t have a monopoly on character.
But what was really unfair was that his attraction went far beyond the physical. The way his gorgeous eyes spoke, communicated, the command he had over his every move and intonation, the influence he’d displayed on others, herself foremost among them. This was a man who had mental faculties as razor-sharp as his cheekbones.
OK. Something was officially wrong with her.
Was it possible she’d absorbed the dozen glasses of champagne subdermally? She’d gotten drunk once. She’d had an unstoppable urge to blurt out the truth unprovoked then, too.
She succumbed to the urge now. “God, you’re beautiful!”
She winced, bit her lip. But it was out. All she could do now was wait for him to shake his head and turn away, to burst into belated laughter or to finally pick up the invitation he must by now believe she was blatantly issuing.