‘It did. Such a simple thing,’ she mused, ‘and yet did you know that white lines can save up to eight times as many lives as a speed trap?’
‘Can they?’
‘So the statistics show. Filter lanes can reduce accidents by as much as twenty per cent on some stretches of road.’
‘How interesting,’ he said, sounding as though he thought it anything but.
‘I find it fascinating,’ she said, ‘but then I find any kind of statistical analysis fascinating.’
‘So it would seem.’
At the tightness of his voice and the flatness of his tone, Zoe frowned. Dan hadn’t budged an inch. He was still sitting there with his arms folded staring resolutely out of the window, his jaw tight and his brow furrowed.
In light of her less than scintillating conversation, was he regretting his decision to take her home? It was entirely possible, of course, but she wasn’t giving up without at least a bit of a fight. So what might he find interesting? she wondered. What would capture his attention and get him to look at her?
She racked her brains for a moment before seeing a billboard flash past and having something of a light-bulb moment.
‘Take underwear, for example,’ she said.
There was the tiniest of pauses. ‘Underwear?’ he said.
‘Women’s underwear in particular.’
She thought she heard him blow out a breath. ‘What about it?’ he muttered.
‘When men buy their wives or girlfriends underwear, seventy per cent of them go for red lace with bows and stuff hanging off it and holes in unusual places. Ninety per cent of women prefer white or black. That’s a lot of unused underwear
sitting at the back of drawers and a lot of disappointed women. I should think there’s an advertising opportunity for you in there somewhere.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘Of course,’ she added conversationally, ‘for five per cent of women it’s irrelevant anyway.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they don’t wear any underwear at all.’
‘Five per cent?’
Zoe nodded. ‘Five per cent.’ Surely it had to be about that?
‘Draughty,’ he murmured, still resolutely staring out of the window.
‘It can be,’ she said, and with a little wiggle deliberately pulled the hem of her dress down.
That got his attention. And that of the taxi driver if the spluttered cough that came from the front seat was anything to go by.
In the ensuing thundering silence she heard Dan inhale slowly, deeply, as if bracing himself, and then watched as he slowly twisted round, his eyes landing on her thighs before travelling up the length of her and finally meeting her own.
And then it was her turn to draw in a sharp breath because the fierce hunger in his expression, the desire blazing in the depths of his eyes and the rigid tension radiating off his body was just about rendering her boneless. Oh, he wasn’t regretting his decision, she thought dazedly. He wasn’t regretting it at all.
‘You’ll catch your death,’ he said, his eyes glittering dangerously and his face all dark and tight.
‘Want to warm me up?’ she suggested, although he was doing a pretty good job of that with just his gaze.
‘Very much so.’
‘Then what are you waiting for?’