pinched off a knuckle-sized piece of bread. "There's something about the transience, you could say. The fact that it's only temporary that makes it more immediate, more personal. A flower blooms and you think, oh, pretty. Or you design and create a bouquet, and think, oh, stunning. I'm not sure the impact and emotion would be the same if you didn't know it was only temporary. A building needs to last; its gardens need to cycle."
"What about landscape design. Ever consider it?"
"Probably more briefly than you did New York. I like working in the garden, out in the air, the sun, seeing what I put in come back the next year, or bloom all through the spring and summer. But every time I get a delivery from my wholesaler it's like being handed a whole new box of toys."
Her face went dreamy. "And every time I hand a bride her bouquet, see her reaction, or watch wedding guests look at the arrangements, I get to think: I did that. And even if I've made the same arrangement before, it's never exactly the same. So it's new, every time."
"And new never gets boring. Before I met you, I figured florists mostly stuck flowers in vases."
"Before I met you, I figured architects mostly sat at drawing boards. Look what we learn."
"A few weeks ago, I never imagined we'd be sitting here like this." He put his hand over hers, fingers lightly skimming while his eyes looked into hers. "And that I'd know before the night was over I'd be finding out what's under that really amazing dress."
"A few weeks ago . . ." Under the table, she slid her foot slowly up his leg. "I never imagined I'd be putting on this dress for the express purpose of you getting me out of it. Which is why . . ."
She leaned closer so the candlelight danced gold in her eyes, so her lips nearly brushed his. "There's nothing under it."
He continued to stare at her, into the warmth and the wicked. Then shot up his free hand. "Check!"
HE HAD TO CONCENTRATE ON HIS DRIVING, PARTICULARLY SINCE he attempted to break the land speed records. She drove him crazy, the way she cocked her seat back, crossed those gorgeous bare legs so that the dress slithered enticingly up her thighs. She leaned forward - oh yes, deliberately, he knew - so that in the second he dared take his eyes off the road he had a delectable view of her breasts rising against that sexy red. She fiddled with the radio, cocked her head long enough to send him a feline, female smile, then leaned back again. Re-crossed her legs. The dress snuck up another half inch. He worried he might drool.
Whatever she'd put on the radio came to him only in bass. Pumping, throbbing bass. The rest was white noise, static in the brain.
"You're risking lives here," he told her, and only made her laugh.
"I could make it more dangerous. I could tell you what I want you to do to me. How I want you to take me. I'm in the mood to be taken. To be used." She trailed a finger up and down the center of her body.
"A few weeks ago, or longer than that, did you ever imagine taking me, Jack? Using me?"
"Yes. The first time was after that morning I saw you on the beach. Only, when I imagined it, it was night, and I walked down and pulled you into the water, into surf. I could taste your skin and the salt. I had your breasts in my hands, in my mouth, while the water beat over us. I took you on the wet sand while the waves crashed, until all you could say was my name."
"That's a long time ago." Her voice went thick. "A long time to imagine. I know one thing. We really need to go back to the beach."
The laugh should've eased some of the ache, but only increased it. Another first, Jack concluded: A woman who could make him laugh and burn at the same time.
He whipped the car off the road and onto the long drive of the Brown Estate. There were lights glowing on the third floor, both wings of the main house, and the glimmer of them in Mac's studio. And there, thank God, the shine of Emma's porch light, and the lamp she'd left on low inside.
He hit the release for his seat belt even as he