Anything You Can Do(42)
After an hour of excruciatingly painful mundane conversation, Austin had to admit he was floundering. Bailey totally unnerved him, sitting there all prim and proper in her navy blue pinstripe suit when he knew what was under it. He'd seen her cool eyes become slits of passion, had kissed her full lips and held her firm, sweaty body against his. However hard she tried to pretend it hadn't happened, he knew it had.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Would you like to go somewhere else?" he asked. "Maybe we could find someplace to dance." He could hold her body next to his again, and who knew what might happen then?
"Dance?" She looked confused, almost frightened.
Her eyes darted across the room, then back to him and down to her empty tea glass. "I don't dance," she finally said, her tone cold.
Right, he thought. She could run like a gazelle, swim like a mermaid, make love like—there was no metaphor for that, for the way her body moved so smoothly with his. No woman that coordinated, that graceful, would be unable to dance.
"Religious preference?" he asked sarcastically.
"No. Lack of training and talent." Her eyes met his, defiant, challenging. She sat upright in her chair and crossed her arms.
He knew that body language. She was shutting him out and, as usual, he had no idea why, but he wasn't about to let her know that. He emulated her posture. "How amazing that a beautiful woman like you can't dance."
He almost got her that time. She blinked twice, rapidly, then regained her composure. Austin waited, a strange intoxication pervading his being. He could almost predict what she would say now, and that was exciting, to think he knew her so well. She'd make some snide remark such as how they ought to report that amazing fact to Ripley's Believe It or Not.
"Not all of us are skilled in all things," she said. Austin dropped his gaze to the table and took a deep breath, trying to regroup. He'd been wrong. He didn't know her after all.
"I'm sure you have a busy schedule tomorrow," she continued in that same distant tone, "and I need to get home and feed Samantha."
She opened her bag and pulled out her wallet. With another jolt, Austin realized she intended to pay for her own drink.
"No!" He grabbed her hand, and for an exhilarating instant he could see green sparks shooting from her eyes. "My treat," he insisted. "You can have me over for dinner next time."
Blast! Of all things to say to a woman who couldn't cook!
She shrugged and withdrew her hand from his grasp.
"Then thank you." Her eyes dripped green icicles.
*~*~*
"He hates me," Bailey informed Paula an hour later as the two of them perched cross-legged on Paula's bed, sipping hot chocolate. The scene, reminiscent of so many in high school, was vaguely comforting in spite of the chunk of granite that had settled in her abdominal region after the disastrous evening with Austin. "Even though I was so nice to him, it would have turned your stomach. It did mine. He hates me."
"You haven't told me one thing that would substantiate that theory," Paula replied.
"You weren't there to hear the intonations, see the gestures. Anyway it doesn't matter. I don't care." Even with Paula she should salvage some of her damaged pride.
Paula raised an eyebrow in disbelief, and Bailey averted her gaze. "So why did he ask you to meet him if he doesn't like you?" she asked, ignoring Bailey's last comment.
"I don't know." Bailey leaned over the edge of the bed to catch Samantha in mid-leap. The little dog wriggled from her grasp and nestled into the pillows between the two women. Bailey tangled her fingers in the soft fur, soaking up the undemanding love. "I don't pretend to understand the man's motives," she said. "Maybe he's up to something underhanded."
Paula sighed exaggeratedly. "If you'd only apply the same principles to having a relationship that you apply to everything else, you'd have Austin or any other man you choose eating out of your hand. Pull out all the stops, don't quit until the race is over, give it the Bailey Russell effort."
"The race is over, and I could care less. The subject of Austin is closed." She would put him out of her head as well as out of the conversation. She'd had enough of making a fool of herself over a man. Okay, so this particular man made her feel all tingly inside when he touched her, and being with him, competing with him, even when she lost, made her feel as if she were bursting with sunshine and fire. So what? She'd been doing just fine before she met him, and she'd do just fine without him. His only position in her life would be opposing counsel. "It's your turn," she told Paula. "Tell me what's going on with Prince Charming."