Sherryl Woods - Can't Say No

Then the phrase “good sport” crept into her mind, followed by “understanding woman.” It was like hearing a battle cry, with enemy troops just over the crest of a hill. She put her hands against Blake’s rather solid chest and shoved with all her might.

“You have some nerve!” she said indignantly, when she could manage to get a word out without sounding all breathless and fluttery. “Is this how you seduce your string of women? Do you get them up in one of these dumb balloons and then take advantage of them, when they don’t have anyplace to run?”

“At the risk of sounding egotistical, most women I know aren’t interested in running.”

“Well, I am. I don’t even know you. I do not go around kissing strangers.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to change that, won’t we?” he said with absolute calm as he shot another blast of hot air into the balloon.

Audrey had seen enough by now to know that the hot air sent them up, not down. Her stomach rolled over. “Change what?” she asked, regarding him warily.

“The fact that we’re strangers.”

Audrey didn’t want to be disagreeable, not if it would end her captivity at a height that made her head swim. “Fine. We’ll meet later for drinks. After the race. A friend told me about this great little outdoor café in Aspen. We can have a drink and celebrate your victory.”

“Why wait?”

Good question. He’d already heard most of her salient answers and he wasn’t particularly impressed with them. She tried one last time to remind him of the race. Not so long ago it had been all-important.

“How much talking will we be able to do, if you have to keep your mind on the race?”

One brow arched. “You could help. Working side by side often makes a relationship much stronger.”

She folded her arms stubbornly across her chest. “Not on your life.”

“Then I can probably manage to do two things at once.” His glance slid over her with provocative slowness. His voice softened to a purr. A little more oomph and it would have been a predatory growl. “If I couldn’t and had to choose, though, I think I’d opt for getting to know you.”

Her pulse leaped crazily.

Flattery, Audrey, that’s all it is, she told herself. A man resorts to insincere flattery when he’s losing his case. All she had to do was muster a few more convincing arguments along this line and she’d be down on the ground in no time and Blake would be soaring on to another victory. Harvey would have his publicity coup and she would have her sanity, to say nothing of keeping her limbs in one piece.

Then, Blake lifted his gaze to meet hers and her optimism faded, along with rational thought. There was a depth of sincerity in his eyes that rattled her more than anything else that had happened all morning. Her mouth dropped open in astonishment, then her heart began to pound.

Oh, sweet heaven! she thought, her eyes widening in dismay.

There was absolutely nothing more disconcerting than a man who switched obsessions when you were least expecting it. She had the oddest feeling that she wouldn’t feel one bit more panicky, if he’d suddenly announced that the bottom was about to drop out of the gondola.

In fact, she was beginning to think that was the only way she was ever likely to get back down to earth.

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