Nick set his empty glass down on a nearby table. “Our good luck. Finding someone who knows his, or her, way around the chemical and physical complexities of building materials is always a challenge.”
“Finding anyone to hire onto Nick’s team is a challenge.” Dale gave a low whistle. “This man’s such a tyrant in the field no one wants to work for him.”
Amusement sparkled in Jules’s eyes. Though Nick knew Dale only ribbed him, he wasn’t above defending himself in front of this lovely lady. “I’m not a tyrant, evidenced by the fact Frank came back to work.”
“Trust me, I’ll keep your uncle in mind,” Dale said. “We stand a better chance of luring him out of retirement than of keeping Frank from the beach for long.”
Jules laughed brightly. “Does Dale have hiring privileges? Shall I give my uncle a call? I’m not sure how he’d feel about working for a tyrant.”
Nick scowled, a scowl that faded quickly beneath her high-beam smile. He liked the way she reserved her smiles for him, dodging Dale’s flirting without being cold, yet expressing she’d already decided who had her attention tonight.
Jules was a class act and he’d just hit his limit of listening to his integrity impugned while his friend tried to steal his girl. Plucking the flute from Jules’s hand, he passed it to Dale.
“We’re touring the theater. Jules would like to see the place before we work our magic. You schmooze.”
“Tyrant.” Dale spun on his heel and plunged back into the crowd leaving Nick staring after him and Jules giggling.
“I take it Dale’s more than your employee,” she said.
“A friend. A good one most of the time.”
Taking her hand, he led her toward a waiter, where they picked up fresh champagne before heading through the doorway with the crumbling cusps. Resting his hand lightly on her hip, he directed her to precede him up the stairs.
As he watched the gentle sway of her leather-clad behind, Nick knew exactly where he would take her. The memory of her dancing across the stage still played vivid in his memory, and being alone there together would go a long way toward fueling his fantasies.
Jules followed willingly where he led and during their roundabout tour toward the dark stage, they discussed where he’d be staying during his visit in Savannah—ADF had rented his design crew townhouses in a fashionable community. He quizzed her for the details of the citywide debate about whether to gut-rehab the Risqué or renovate it. She regaled him with questions about how he planned to handle accessibility for the disabled, what historic materials he intended to retain and if he would attempt to qualify for tax-credit benefits.
While they talked one thing became very evident to Nick, Jules knew her stuff. She also knew how to keep him talking about everything but her. A phenomenon he intended to end now.
Leading her onto the dark stage, he drew her down beside him on the rolling spiral staircase where an actress portraying Gypsy Rose Lee had descended during her striptease. She sat on the step above him, her incredible body contracting in a fluid fold of leather-clad curves, clearly not bothered about the effects of the stairs on her dress. He liked that she wasn’t uptight or prissy.
“You’ve picked my brain about this theater for the past two hours and I’ve answered all your questions. Now I want you to tell me about you. What you do for a living. Where you live. Tell me all about the woman who asks such intelligent questions and comes to an erotic theater by herself.”
Jules swirled warm champagne in her glass, considering. Then she lifted her gaze and gifted him with a smile. “Okay, my life in a nutshell. I’m in education and I’ve lived in Savannah since I started college. I already told you why I came to the Risqué tonight, but I came alone because I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Are you dating?”
She shook her head, sending shiny auburn waves dancing along her shoulders. “I haven’t been. I was engaged, but my fiancé and I ended our engagement about six months ago.”
He wondered why but wouldn’t ask such a personal question. He asked how long she’d been engaged instead.
“Five years.”
“Well, beautiful, are you over him?” When she nodded, he saluted her with his glass. “Your ex’s loss is my gain. So where did you live before college?”
“All over. We traveled a lot.”
Probably military, he decided, which could account for her nonchalance at attending the theater alone and her ease in impromptu social situations. He’d known his fair share of women who wouldn’t have been comfortable attending any formal event without at least bringing a friend. Speaking of… “What about your friends, Ramón and his…girlfriend?”
Jules laughed, a throaty sound that arrowed through his senses at close range. Her thigh was mere inches away, and he couldn’t help but wonder how she’d react if he ran his hand along its sleek length, though he hadn’t been invited yet.
“Katriona’s not his girlfriend,” Jules said. “She’s his head manicurist at the salon. Technically, she’s not even a she.”
He winced. That much had been obvious. Nick hadn’t missed the gigantic bustline, either, and the mechanics of her appearance were more than he wanted to know.
Jules laughed again, another burst of sultry sound that—gratefully—shattered the image of the manicurist and kicked in his pulse like a jackhammer.
“She does a lovely manicure, though.” She held up a hand to emphasize her point and that was exactly the in he needed.
Taking her hand under the pretense of examining her manicure, Nick brushed a kiss across her knuckles. He heard her quick intake of breath and the moment became charged with the promise of sex.
“So what else do I need to know about you before we can explore this intense physical attraction between us?”
“I can’t think of a thing.” She sounded excited, exactly the reaction he’d hoped for. “Nothing interesting about my life, I’m afraid. I work a lot.”
She was kidding, right? Jules knew the difference between a cornice and a corbel-table and she didn’t think she was interesting? He’d lay odds he could disabuse her of that notion before they parted ways tonight. “I work a lot, too. Plays hell with my social life. Have to make time when I can.”
“A good thing you seem to make new friends easily.”
New friends? Given the way she’d just fielded his questions, he didn’t know enough to call her a friend, but she obviously didn’t want to share her personal life. Keeping it simple. He understood and respected that.
“I’d like to become better acquainted tonight.”
Her clear gaze never left his as she set her glass on a step above her. The shadows played across her features, a striking study of dark and dusk that bleached all color into soft shades of muted grays.
She seemed almost tentative as she stretched her hand toward his face, and he had the impression again that Jules wasn’t nearly so experienced at seducing strangers as she’d have him believe. Her fingers trembled as they brushed his skin, just a light caress of warm fingertips against his temple, a touch that was less sexy than…reverent.
Nick wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the tender expression softening her beautiful face, but any thought he might have given the subject vanished beneath a savage backlash of reaction to her combination of tentative and tender.
“Kiss me, Jules, or let me kiss you,” he ground out in a voice that held nothing back, though common sense urged him to take it slow.
But to his profound pleasure, her long hair suddenly swung forward, surrounding his face and shoulders in a thick curtain of cool silk that blocked all the shadows