Macy barely had time to decide what she was going to ask from Leo before she was pulled to a stop, turned to the right, then back to a stumbling, feet tangling left.
A deep breath and . . . it was time.
She lifted her chin, ran her fingers into her hair, her tongue over her lips. Then, with her imagination wearing the under things she'd failed to wash in time for her body to wear, she looked Leo Redding in the eye.
Big mistake. Big, big mistake.
She'd forgotten about his eyes. How he seemed to see more than any near stranger should see. How what he saw was intimate, private, not at all what she wanted to reveal.
With each step she took toward him, her pulse quickened.
At every bluesy note, her heart beat.
From the roots of her hair to the tip of her toes, her blood ran hot, raising a flush on her skin. Leo never looked away, stirring her further. Macy swore she felt her nostrils flare.
And then she knew what she wanted. To see him smile. To make him smile. As much to prove that she could, that she possessed the stronger will and the necessary feminine wiles, as to add fuel to the fire of her fantasy.
Having drawn even with his wide-spread knees, she wedged her legs between, leaned forward and planted both hands on the flat arms of the chair. The tips of her fingers brushed the insides of his elbows. His only move was to reach up and remove his wire rims.
She angled in closer, lifted one hand and touched a finger to his cheek. "I want you to do something for me."
Leo raised a brow. In the background, an anonymous hand clapped to Eric's mouth muffled a smart remark. Macy gathered her wits and her courage and climbed into Leo's long-legged lap.
"I want you to smile. Can you do that? Can you smile for me, Leo Redding?"
Moving even nearer, she twisted around and settled her seat in the natural dip of his thighs, draped her legs over the arm of the chair, her elbow around his shoulders.
He smelled wonderfully warm and male and she snuggled up to his body that felt . . . oh, he felt like nothing she'd known.
His legs beneath her bottom were hard. His belly at her hip was hard. The muscles across his shoulders were solid and hard beneath her forearm. Even the hand, the very large hand resting long fingers on her shins, was a study in masculine strength.
Lips parted in seductive invitation, she stroked an index finger over Leo's cheek and shivered at the bristle of evening beard on her skin. She trailed the same finger down a path to his collar, worked loose the knot on his tie.
"C'mon, Leo. I know you can smile. You've got all the right muscles." She toyed with the top button of his shirt, poking the bare tip of her finger beneath the placket to his collarbone.
Still, no response. Nada. Nothing. Ignoring the murmurs of the audience, she whispered directly into his ear. "I'll make it easy on you. A quick grin and we'll call it a night."
She pulled back to look at his face, expecting a gradual capitulation. But no, he was stoic to the core. It was time to get down and dirty.
Pouting always worked for Chloe, so Macy gave it a try at the same time she lightly touched her thumb to the edge of Leo's mouth, drawing the one corner upward.
No reaction. Macy ground back a scream.
She plied her final weapon, running her fingertips in feathery movements over his tightly drawn lips, begging with her mouth only inches away. "One smile. Please?"
And then she felt it. A shift. A change. A flare and flash in Leo's eyes, and a new sense of his body hardening beneath hers.
A part of her wanted to extricate herself from both his lap and a situation as awkward as any she could recall sharing with a man. A part of her wanted to wiggle, to experience and explore this private intimacy.
She managed, instead, to sit very still and avoid disclosing to the rest of the room what was now so impressively, so solidly pressed to the back of her thighs. Leo reached for her wrist, removed her motionless fingers from his lips. She blinked slowly and smiled, a smile meant for Leo only, Leo alone. She wanted him to know that, between the two of them, they'd get out of this with no bloodshed, they'd go on to live another day.
And then the man blew the wind from her sails.
He smiled.
Not a humorless grin. Not a slight curl of his lip. Not a sneer or a snarl, but an ear to ear, start-my-heart-beating smile. Yet that wasn't the worst part. The best part. The worst. Because once he'd released her wrist and she'd made ready to hop up from the chair, he cupped the back of her head.
And he kissed her.
Excerpted from ALL TIED UP (Blaze, 24) by Alison Kent. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
