"Funny business, I bet," she muttered, earning another slight twitch of his mouth.
"Don't you have people to schmooze?"
"Don't you?" She fired back, ashamed by her cheap shot considering he'd just told her this crowd were avoiding him and she'd seen the evidence firsthand with the Meyers.
His imperious gaze swept her from top to toe, visually stripping her black-silk-imprinted-with-crimson-roses strapless dress from her body.
Her skin pebbled and prickled with awareness. She'd never felt so exposed.
"I'm right where I want to be."
It meant nothing, a line from a guy used to having women falling at his designer loafered feet. But in that moment, with warmth flowing through her body like liquid honey, she wished she could believe him.
As if sensing her reaction, he pushed off the wall and took a step forward. In her face, in her personal space. Her senses ratcheted to high alert. Jax was too close, too hot, too much.
"Nothing to say?” His lips kicked into a sexy grin. “That's a first."
Biting back the irrational urge to reach up and pull his head down to within kissing distance, she eyeballed him. "You don't know me."
He leaned down and she braced against the incoming assault of hot male and crisp citrus.
"Maybe I'd like to?" He murmured in her ear, his warm breath tickling her skin and her eyelids fluttered shut, lost in the heat of undeniable attraction.
Before reality set in. She couldn’t get involved with the enemy.
His fingertip touched her ear lobe, trailed across her jaw, setting her alight. Desire streaked through every common-sense reason why she shouldn’t grab his hand and drag him out of here, back to her place.
She'd always been spontaneous when it came to guys, not following convention of waiting to be asked out. If she liked a guy, she let him know. But as Jax stepped away, leaving her hot and bothered and yearning, she knew he was no ordinary guy.
She couldn't toy with him. He wasn't the type to tease or taunt without serious repercussions. Considering the dire circumstances atSeaborn, she couldn’t afford to play with fire.
"I'd like you to leave our mine alone."
The glimmer of lust in his eyes didn't dim. If anything, her feistiness seemed to turn him on.
"And I'd like the wealthy in this city to acknowledge I'm nothing like my father and consider doing business with me, but we don't always get what we want."
His honesty stunned her, and when his lips clamped and he tried to turn away, she grabbed his hand.
"So you have a heart beneath that tough-guy exterior after all."
He frowned, but the rigidness around his mouth softened. "No."
He tapped his chest. "No heart here."
"You want acceptance—"
"For my business." He waved a dismissive hand at the crowd. "Couldn't care less what they think of me."
His clarification only solidified her impression that this deliberate ostracism had to mean more than he let on.
“You want them to accept your business, and I want my family business to survive intact. Maybe we should brainstorm a solution to our problems?"
His frown deepened. "Why? As you pointed out, we barely know each other. Why the hell would I discuss my private business with you?" He shook his head. “I understand business proposals. This?" He pointed at the crowd. "Not a hope."
She stared at him, something tugging at the edge of her consciousness.
He'd used the wordproposalagain… What if they could brainstorm a proposal to benefit them both?
