“Once I realized I could outsmart adults, the game was on to see how far I could go,” he said frankly. “The security specialist who caught me, a tough ex-marine named Charles, was impressed, especially because I was self-taught. Once I did my stint in juvenile detention, he brought me onto his payroll. Taught me how to use my talent for good instead of evil,” he summed up with mild derision.
Melodie’s surprise appeared genuine.
“You weren’t expecting honesty?” he challenged.
“It’s not that. I’ve just never met anyone with a natural ability for programming.” A shadow flickered behind her eyes, something he barely caught, but it colored her voice as she said, “I thought that sort of thing was a myth.”
She was talking about her brother, he was certain of it, but her smile wasn’t sly. She wasn’t trying to trick him or win him over. No, her comment was more of an inward reflection and a hint of confusion. Wondering if Anton was really as good as he’d always claimed?
Hardly.
As quickly as Roman formed the impression, her expression changed and he was looking at a different woman, one who seemed open and engaging, her cares forgotten in favor of enjoying a lively conversation.
“I’m certainly not intuitive with them. Someone had to show me how to set up my email on my tablet.”
And there was the “I’m harmless” claim Roman had been anticipating since he had realized who she was.
The conversation moved on to contacts and wedding arrangements. Iced coffees replaced the white wine everyone had sipped with lunch. Huxley said something about the dock and took Ingrid to inspect it.
Melodie made no move to follow, choosing instead to shift forward slightly and remove her sweater, revealing a matching sleeveless top that clung lovingly to her breasts as she twisted to drape the sweater over the back of her chair.
“I didn’t expect it to be this warm. It’s fall at home. Quite wet and chilly.” She sat straight and, as if she felt the chill across the Atlantic, her nipples rose against the pale lemon of her top.
A base male fantasy of baring those breasts formed in his mind. He saw pink tips resembling cherries melting off scoops of ice cream. He wasn’t a breast man per se, but the languid image of caressing and licking the swells, working his way to the sweet, shiny niblet at the peak, was so tangible he had to part his thighs to accommodate the pool of erotic heat that poured into his groin.
At the same time he realized conversation had stopped. She was very still.
He lazily brought his gaze up and realized she’d caught him blatantly ogling her. A strange jolt hit him like an electrical charge, deep in his gut and far stronger than a zing of static. It was like a full current that reverberated in his chest, making his heart skip a beat and his abdomen tighten.
Her blue eyes held his, fathomless and not the least offended. In fact, her reaction to his masculine interest was arousal. He’d seen it in the tightening of her nipples and read it now in the confused shimmer of excitement and indecision expanding her pupils. Her lashes quivered, eyes shiny, and the tip of her tongue wet her lips.
The pull behind his thighs became more insistent. He wondered if he had ever experienced a more carnal moment.
She swallowed and jerked her gaze from his as though it was a physical wrench of muscle from bone.
He mentally berated himself for letting her see his interest, highly irritated by how easily she had got to him. It was time to drop the ax.
“Does, um, he come around the office much?” she asked, gaze scanning restlessly toward the water. “Are you used to their displays?”
“Who?” he almost growled, then remembered two other people were here. Ingrid and Huxley. They held hands and bumped shoulders as they staggered, love drunk, across the sand.
Roman was behaving almost as inebriated, forgetting they were even here, manufacturing lurid fantasies of possessing a woman too lethal to imbibe. He tried to shrug away the strongest wave of sexual attraction he’d ever felt toward a woman and almost wondered if she’d slipped him something.
“He might, but I don’t,” he replied belatedly, forcing his mind back to the conversation. “The whole point in being on the cutting edge of technology is to use it.” He chinned upward to his office, rebaiting his hook. “I often telecommute.”
“And Ingrid is your avatar in New York?” she guessed.
That took him by surprise. He almost chuckled, then caught himself, dismayed by how easily she kept disarming him. He eyed her, searching for the source of her power. “I hadn’t looked at it that way. I suppose she is.”
“Working from home always seemed so ideal to me,” she mused, propping her chin on her hand. “But now I’m doing it, I find I’m becoming a workaholic, never letting it go. I keep sitting down for one more thing and losing another two hours.”