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She dropped the bombshell in the same monotone a kid might use to request a peanut butter sandwich.
“Let me get this straight. Your IQ is off the charts, you could be anything you want, and you choose to play with metal for a living?”
He knew it was the wrong thing to say the instant the pliers sheered off and sliced the metal clean in two.
Damn it, he usually weighed his words as carefully as his decisions, but somehow her announcement had thrown him more than discovering the wrought iron impression of the Sydney Opera House at the auction tonight was her creation.
She picked up another sheet of metal and resumed twisting with the pliers, and he had the distinct feeling she was wishing it was his head.
“I like what I do, I like being creative,” she said, her voice glacial, her eyes shooting green fire. “What I don’t like is feeling constricted or being confined when I could be out and about getting inspired for my work.”
She stabbed at the metal, making a giant hole for goodness knows what reason. “I also don’t like being judged by the size of my brain.”
She paused to give a particularly vicious twist to the metal to the point where it bent and contorted to breaking point. “And I really, really, don’t like some judgmental jackass like you belittling what I do.”
She was right. He didn’t take her job seriously and hadn’t from the first moment he’d learned the truth tonight.
Mentally kicking himself for being such a moron, he crossed the room to stand in front of her, willing her to look at him again, to pay as much attention to him as she was to the bizarre creation in her hands.
“You know what I like?”
“What?” She lifted her head a fraction, enough for him to see her frown while her body language—folded arms, tense shoulders, slight lean away from him—screamed hands off.
Like he could do that.
“You,” he said softly, cupping her chin, using the gentlest of pressure to lift her face toward his, hoping she’d listen to what he had to say after the way he’d blundered through things the last few minutes. “I like you. I’m sorry I offended you. You caught me off guard, that’s all.”
Her compressed lips softened a tad but she didn’t lose the frown. “It still doesn’t change the fact you think I’m wasting my time being a metal sculptor rather than using my brain for something more worthwhile. Like an archaeologist perhaps? Or maybe a brain surgeon? Or a rocket scientist?”
She snapped her fingers. “I know, maybe I should be the world’s greatest tour guide/curator.”
Her frown vanished, accompanied by a twitching of the corners of her lush mouth. “Oh, that’s right. I already am.”
To his amazement, she laughed, a loud, belly laugh that echoed in the cavernous warehouse, bouncing off the walls until it enveloped him with her natural spontaneity and warmth.
“So I take it I’m forgiven for being a conservative jackass who can’t think before he speaks?”
“There’s nothing conservative about you.”
Her eyes widened to large green pools as his hand slid from under her chin to rest at the nape of her neck, as if she anticipated his next move would be to draw her closer and kiss her senseless.
“Just in case, I think it’s time to shake things up a bit, to show you exactly how non-conservative I can be.”
Aidan didn’t know who made the first move but the short space between him and a handful of luscious woman vanished in an instant as they lunged at each other.
“Never knew you could lighten up this much, Professor,” she gasped as he slid his hands over her shoulders, pushing down the flimsy straps holding up her shimmery, barely-there dress as he’d been yearning to do all evening.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Fancy Feet,” he murmured, savoring the feel of silky soft skin beneath his fingertips, blazing a trail with his lips where his hands had just been.
A weird sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh erupted near his ear. “Fancy feet?”
He raised his head from the creamy skin of her neck reluctantly, muttering a curse. “Not the most romantic endearment you’ve ever heard, I bet.”
She smiled, a sensuous upward curving of her lips that had him dying to cover them with his own. “I’ve heard better. Then again, it is original.”
“It’s those damn shoes you keep wearing.” He pointed to yet another sexy ensemble designed to entice and make him focus on the perfection of her endless legs. “How’s a guy supposed to not ogle your sensational legs when you draw attention to them with shoes like that?”
A little furrow appeared between her brows. “Hmm…you have a thing for shoes. You haven’t got some weird foot fetish, have you?”
