But she didn’t care. If there was anything seriously unsexy about her it was her feet. It was where all the damage and scarring almost twenty years of dance had wrought was so violently on display. It was like a confession. Nothing had been easy and she had paid a price, and right now she wasn’t confessing to him!
‘What is the problem now?’
His Russian accent was heavier, and that just upped the sexy quotient—which wasn’t helping.
And what did he mean now? As if she’d been causing problems left right and centre...? He was a fully paid-up member of their trouble brigade. She wasn’t wearing total responsibility for the disasters of this morning.
‘There is no problem,’ she grumbled. ‘I just want to look after this myself.’
He looked sceptical.
‘I didn’t ask to be brought up here, you know. I didn’t ask for all this attention.’
He gave her a long, searching look that implied she had. Which was so unfair!
Gigi wriggled uncomfortably. His gaze dropped lower and caught on something.
What now? Gigi looked down. She’d been aware that her midriff was bare, her T-shirt having worked its way up in all the manhandling, but she hadn’t given any thought to the fact that because her jeans were low-riders she was showing off quite a lot of skin—nor to the fact that the indent of her belly button rose high above them, exposing her piercing.
Before she could even think to pull her T-shirt down he brushed his knuckles over her navel and set the miniature silver bell tinkling.
‘It’s a bell,’ she said. Cringed. Could she sound more stupid?
He did it again, his touch unbearably gentle. Suggestive of how he would be in another even more intimate situation.
Gigi bit her lip.
Lifted her eyes to his.
He was smiling at her. ‘I wondered what that sound was.’ His accent had thickened.
Her breathing grew rapid and shallow in response.
She was now throbbing ever so subtly between her legs. All he had to do was touch her again for a little longer and that throbbing was going to detonate.
The problem was it also drew her attention to the way she was angled against him, thighs apart, virtually inviting him into heaven.
She could hear Lulu’s lecture: ‘There are really only two situations in a woman’s life when she should be displayed at this angle to a man, and if that man isn’t her significant other he should be her gynaecologist.’
Denim or no, Gigi felt self-conscious, and she brought her knees down fast—only now he was standing between them and she was stuck...unless he moved.
He moved. Almost nonchalantly, but she wasn’t fooled. And with the flats of his hands on the bench on either side of her she was trapped.
This was his move. He was making a move on her.
Gigi’s heart began to flutter like crazy, because he was so close, and he smelt so good, and the energy pulsing between them was like jungle drums in her blood.
She swallowed, unable to break the clasp of his gaze.
Sweet heaven, she had to find a way off this bench. Because so much more than a full reveal of her manky feet was barrelling towards them, and she really didn’t want to be the showgirl who gave it up on a bathroom vanity to the man who might or might not be instrumental in taking away the livelihoods of the Bluebirds.
And—oh, God—he was smiling at her.
‘So what’s the problem with your feet?’
This time his dark drawl sounded a lot less impatient, as if whatever the problem was he’d be willing to take the time to fix it.
Immediately her mind went to her other problem and how much time he might devote to that...
She cleared her strangled throat. ‘There’s no problem.’
He vibrated the bell with the tip of his thumb and she made a soft, inarticulate sound. He raised his knowing eyes to hers. The air between them pulled taut.
‘Tinker Bell,’ he said.
‘Tinker Bell?’ she echoed doubtfully.
‘I read the book when I was a boy and I always had a thing for Tink—little nuisance that she was. Wendy didn’t do it for me.’
Gigi narrowed her blue eyes at him and he wanted to laugh, because telling a woman she reminded you of a fairy from an old children’s book was almost as crazy as what he was doing right now—sliding the pads of his middle and forefinger over the incredibly silken flesh just below her navel, stroking her there.
He only needed to slide his fingers a couple of inches south and he could snap the buttons on her jeans. Another couple of inches and he’d know exactly what she was wearing under the denim. Another couple and sweet, perfect nirvana.