She wasn’t sure how she felt about his comments. Flattered. Flustered. A little wary. And really? He liked it when she frowned at him?
As if he’d read the thoughts flashing across her face, he laughed. He traced a fingertip in the faint crease between her eyebrows. “You’re doing it again. Gets to me every time.”
She poked his very close—and very fine—chest with one finger. “I know your type. You, Dan Phelan, are a flirt. A player.”
“I’ll grant you the first. There’s nothing wrong with a little lighthearted flirtation, as long as it doesn’t cross the line into offensive. I flirt all the time with my neighbor back home—and she’s eighty-three. Gives as good as she takes. She calls me her ‘fancy boy,’” he added with a laugh.
“As for the player part—no. Not if you mean someone who uses women and then moves on. That’s not who I am. I’m always entirely honest with the women I spend time with, and when I’m in a relationship, it’s exclusive. And before you ask, there isn’t currently a relationship and there haven’t been that many in the past. I’ve been pretty busy for the past decade or so.”
From the brief bio he’d given her, she’d say he had been busy! But why was he telling her these things now?
“What about you, Kinley? You said there isn’t anyone at the moment?”
“I was married once, several years ago,” she answered evenly. “It didn’t last long—just long enough to teach me that I’m much better at business than relationships.”
Dan’s expressive eyebrow rose again. “You gave up after one painful disappointment?”
“I didn’t give up,” she corrected him immediately. “I redirected my attention to areas I was stronger in. I, um, don’t like to fail,” she added in a mutter. “In anything.”
“I’d already figured that out about you.”
She tossed her head somewhat defiantly. She didn’t enjoy openly dissecting her weaknesses, though she would not shy away from admitting them. “Like I said, all business, all the time.”
“You were quoting someone else at the time. The ex?”
She shrugged. “Oddly enough, I thought he was focused on career success, too. Everyone, including him, always said we were two of a kind—until he changed his mind eight months after the wedding and decided he’d rather be a carefree bachelor and spend most of his life playing. He said he was sorry, but a wife didn’t fit into that unapologetically hedonistic scenario—another direct quote, by the way.”
“Wow. Sounds like a real winner.”
“Oh, he’s still the overachiever he always was,” she said with a dry laugh that didn’t quite mask the shock she still felt whenever she remembered that out-of-the-blue announcement. “The difference is that now he’s determined to be the very best ‘party dude’ ever. Tom was always one to set his sights high.”
Dan reached out to touch her hand. “He did hurt you,” he murmured, alluding to their conversation in the garden last night.
It seemed futile to deny it. “Yes. But I got over it.”
“I’m not so sure you did.” He slid his hand up her arm to lightly tap her shoulder. “There’s a little chip here that I suspect wasn’t there before. Maybe that need for control you’ve admitted to has a lot to do with making sure you don’t get hurt that way again.”
“I told you,” she said with a swallow. “I don’t like to fail.”
“Sounds to me like you’re taking too much credit for that particular failure.”
She moistened her lips and shrugged. “Maybe.”
Which didn’t mean she wouldn’t do everything in her power to minimize the odds of such failures in the future, she added silently.
Dan looked thoughtful as he digested the glimpses she’d given him of her past. “I do think there should be a balance between all work and all play.”
The faintest of sighs escaped her. She pushed the painful memories to the back of her mind where she usually kept them and admitted, “I’ve always had trouble with that balance thing, myself.”
Lowering his head, he spoke almost against her lips. “Maybe you could use a little help with that.”
No, she thought, she didn’t need any help balancing her life. She had everything laid out exactly the way she wanted, her career plans clearly outlined, short-term goals defined and satisfactorily underway. She’d tried t
he marriage thing, and it hadn’t paid off for her, but she hadn’t totally ruled out the occasional lighthearted fling. As long as both parties knew from the start that it wasn’t serious, that she wouldn’t allow herself to be derailed again from her long-term plans. Since she doubted that footloose Dan Phelan was any more interested in being tied down than she was, maybe there would be no harm in enjoying his attentions during the brief time he would be around.
Giving in to temptation, she rose the half inch needed to bring their lips together. Dan gathered her into his arms, and for the first time she was pressed fully against that fit body, keenly aware of every ridge of muscle, every strong angle—and the unmistakable evidence that their kisses were as arousing to him as they were to her.
She could almost feel her insides melt with hunger for him. It had been much, much too long since she’d wanted anyone this much, since any man’s smile had turned her knees to jelly, since anyone’s kiss had cleared her mind of every thought but of him. Actually, she didn’t think she’d ever reacted to anyone quite the same way she had to Dan—certainly not as fast.