At first, Barrett had been furious with her for pulling a stunt like this. He swore he wouldn't pay her a dime for tonight's debacle, as he tried to redirect the conversation back to business. He'd been making progress with J.J., his light threats doing their work on his quarry's head. But then her lips had touched his hand, shooting a direct line of heat to his groin, and he was—for the first time he could remember—so distracted by something other than business, he'd almost been speechless.
She'd caught him totally off-guard with her antics, and as much as propriety ranked high on Barrett's list of musts, it had taken him several serious minutes to talk himself out of hauling her out of her chair, thrusting his hand into her silky blonde hair and forcing his tongue into her mouth. By the time he'd gotten himself under control, there was no turning back. The Harrisons wanted a story.
But, two could play her game, and it wasn't lost on him when she started stuttering, her bravado faltering as he rubbed slow circles in the soft skin of her hand. He'd smirked at her then, relieved that if they were going to play, the field was at least level.
Just now, her bright blue eyes had lost the artifice of their shenanigans for a moment when he mentioned blueberry pancakes. They were her favorite, and he had no idea how he knew that, but he did. Likely, he'd watched surreptitiously some time or another when she chose them at the Boxing Day buffet, or overheard Susannah remind Felix to get the ingredients for her birthday breakfast. He'd catalogued it in the corner of his mind reserved for Emily.
He shrugged. "They're your favorite."
"Yes, they are."
He pushed his leg meaningfully into hers, fully aware that she'd uncrossed her legs and her thighs were lightly spread, confined only by the narrow lines of her blue tweed skirt. He sipped his scotch then dropped his unoccupied hand to his lap, wondering what she would do if he slid it over, slipping it onto the warm skin of her thigh.
"And after pancakes?" prompted Hélène.
"Barrett doesn't dress like this on the weekends," said Emily, turning up her nose a little. Hmm. She doesn't like the way I dress for business? Something else to catalogue in the "Emily Corner." "He just wears jeans and a shirt. He walks around his apartment barefooted."
"Like a Polo model," said Hélène, fawning a little.
Barrett felt a flush of heat in his cheeks. He knew he was good-looking. He certainly used it to his advantage now and then, but he hated when it upstaged business dealings. Surprisingly, Emily chose that very moment to squeeze his hand lightly, as if she knew it bothered him.
"Naw. He's just Barrett. Barefoot in the kitchen making blueberry pancakes for his lazy fiancée."
He had a sudden image of her lazy in his bed, her blonde hair spread out on the white pillowcase, her eyes closed, her breasts peaked under a thin white sheet. He'd lower his head and capture one in his mouth, wetting the sheet around it to transparency as he sucked it into a tight point, before attending its twin. She'd wake up to his mouth, hot and wet, caressing her, and wind her fingers through his hair. Then he'd shove down the sheet down so there was no barrier between his tongue and her sensitive nipples—
"What then?" asked Hélène eagerly.
"Emily, tell them the rest," he rasped, unable to escape from the fantasy playing in his head. He was utterly captivated by the story they were weaving of a happy young couple waking up to hot sex, pancakes, jeans, bare feet... it was like walking into a dream you'd been longing for, hoping for, wishing for your entire life. Although Barrett was working like hell to conceal it, he was as rapt as Hélène and J.J., wondering what happened next.
"I did the dishes because it's only fair to take care of him after he's taken care of me," she said softly, turning her luminous face to look up at him.
The words "take care of him" made another bolt of heat shoot down to his already growing erection, which tented his Armani suit pants under the table. He let his mind wander back to his fantasy of Emily in his bed, his lips skimming from her breasts to the flat, soft planes of her stomach, over a neat triangle of curls to the hidden bud of her throbbing sex that he'd take between his lips as he had her nipples, listening for her moans and whimpers as her fingers curled into the sheets by his head.
"Barrett?" asked Emily softly from beside him, still holding his eyes with hers.
Barrett swallowed deliberately, reaching for his scotch and dropping her eyes. He didn't want her to see the raw lust there, the lifetime of want. "Go on."
"Barrett was cagey when I came out from the bedroom all dressed. I suspected something was up."
He looked at her grin and sparkling blue eyes. "You were wearing that pink top with the pink sweater."
She nodded with surprise. It was the same outfit she'd been wearing when he "accidentally" bumped into her at Penn at few months ago.
"Barrett's lived in Philly all his life, and yet he'd never seen the Japanese House," said Emily softly.
"It takes a woman to make sure we get our dose of culture," said J.J. warmly, squeezing Hélène's shoulder affectionately.
Barrett turned his eyes back to Emily, realizing that for the first time—in a long, long time—he was actually having fun. And it felt good. Really good. "Emily's always been fascinated by history. Did you know she's a doctoral student at Penn?"
"Japanese studies?" asked Hélène.
"Early American," answered Emily, and her thumb lightly stroked the skin of his hand as he'd done to her before.
He swallowed, glancing down at their hands, and trying to keep the thread of conversation. Had such light contact been this distracting for her a few minutes ago? He recalled her stammer. He was affecting her just as much as she was him. It was a heady notion that cool as ice Emily Edwards was affected by him—he'd barely dared to hope she could ever see him as someone other than Barrett "the Shark" English, and now here she was beside him, spinning delicious tales and undamming a lifetime's worth of yearning for her. He didn't know what to do with this new information—not immediately—but it was firmly in the column of things he needed to explore further, in depth, after tonight.
"So you headed for the Japanese House..." said J.J., taking a slice of bread from the basket on the table and buttering it.
"Yes," Emily said, increasing the pressure against Barrett's thigh and making him grit his teeth.
He took the cue and picked up the story. "And what Emily didn't know, was that I'd visited the Japanese House the week before and arranged to have it all to ourselves for the afternoon."
Her thumb was still making mesmerizing circles on his skin.
"I couldn't figure out why it was so empty at first," she said, grinning up at him.
He smiled back, and it felt odd at first because he wasn't accustomed to smiling; smirking or polite half-grins were more his style.
"She called it a 'blue-sky-day' and kept berating the good citizens of Philadelphia for not appreciating a cultural treasure on such a beautiful day."
She chuckled lightly. "The garden is very lovely, Hélène, with flowering trees in whites and reds. And there are koi fish in a rock pond. We strolled over bridges and all the while I thought Barrett was indulging me, wishing he was back at home in his office closing on a big deal."
Is that really what she thought? That he'd rather be closing on a deal than spending time with her? He mulled her comment for a moment. She was right, of course. Even tonight, he'd been very annoyed when she'd started this whole engagement fantasy, but it shocked him to realize he hadn't actually turned his mind to business for a whole fifteen minutes now, distracted by Emily's body, captivated with the story they were creating.
"I assure you," he said quietly and firmly, lifting her hand to his lips again as his eyes seized hers hungrily. "When I have you all to myself, the last thing I'll be thinking about is business."
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Hélène, fanning her face again. "How romantic."
Emily's lips parted softly, her eyes losing some of their confidence to vulnerability. Her eyebrows furrowed ever so subtly. If he'd been looking any less intensely, he would have missed it.
"Barrett..." she whispered, searching his eyes with hers for a deeply intimate moment, and he felt the lines between game and reality, fiction and truth, blur irreparably. His heart raced and he thought about pulling her away from the table, finding a dark nook somewhere, and kissing her slowly and deeply without stopping for a long, long time. Would she let him? Was this game her way of telling him she'd fantasized about him the way he had about her?
"Emily sometimes forgets the romantic hidden deep inside of me."
"I do," she murmured in a daze, her eyes soft and supple, staring at him in languid fascination.
"But I had a lunch arranged at a small table under a cherry blossom tree."
"You did?" Her voice tilted up and his eyes widened at her, squeezing her hand a little harder, forcing her to shake herself out of her reverie, and play along. "You did," she said with more confidence. "A lunch. Under a cherry tree."
"And then he just...popped the question?" asked Hélène.
Barrett turned away from Emily, forcing a light smile for Hélène's benefit. "Not yet."
"We had lunch first," she said. "After lunch we gazed out at the gardens, and finally I said it was time to go."
"But I said it wasn't time to go. I dropped to one knee."
"And you asked me to be your wife."
"And you said yes."
Emily picked up her wineglass and downed the entire thing in a single gulp. "And I said yes."
Hélène and J.J. clapped quietly, offering their half-empty glasses for a toast and exclaiming over the romance of Barrett and Emily's love story.
Barrett flashed his eyes at J.J., feeling like the king of the world with Emily Edwards still holding his hand beside him. "You see, J.J.? I always get what I want in the end."
"We'll see, Shark," said J.J., his eyes narrowing. "We'll see about that."
Emily pulled her hand away from him to pick up her wineglass and he instantly missed the warmth of her fingers entwined with his. He pushed his thigh into hers, but she moved away slightly, crossing her leg to the other side. What had just happened? What had he missed?
When Barrett looked at Emily, her face was reserved and polite, as it always was at these dinners, and she smiled appropriately at him, then at the Harrisons, before excusing herself in a perfectly modulated voice to go to the ladies' room.