“I have a feeling you appreciate them for very different reasons than I do. But you just wait until you try this one out. The nib is amazingly smooth. It glides over paper like…”

“Naked skin over satin sheets?” Susanne’s eyes twinkled.

The words created images in Anja’s mind that made her feel even warmer. “Now who’s engaging in verbal foreplay?”

“Okay, okay. Let’s focus on the pen. What’s next?”

“You turn the knob in the other direction to draw the ink into the pen.” Anja watched Susanne’s long, slender fingers as she twisted the knob clockwise. “Now turn the knob just a tiny bit in the other direction to release a few drops. That gets the air out.”

“And you have to do this every time your pen runs out of ink?” Susanne asked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just use cartridges? Open pen, old cartridge out, new one in, screw back together, done.”

“On the danger of sounding like verbal foreplay again, a fast in and out isn’t always best. A true pen aficionado wants to savor the process.”

Susanne hummed. “Savoring… Mmm, yeah, I’m all for that.”

Wow. This really had to be the sexiest ink refilling of all time. Anja had trouble focusing on the task at hand. “All right. Now wipe it clean, and you’re done.”

Susanne took a tissue from a box on the counter and wiped down the ink-smeared section and the nib of the pen. When she crumpled up the tissue and threw it into the wastebasket, her fingers came away a bit inky.

“Oops.” Anja handed her another tissue.

Susanne wiped at the stains and grinned. “Don’t worry. I don’t mind getting my fingers wet.”

Anja gulped in air. “Getting inky with you is dangerous.”

“Nah. I’m totally tame.”

“Uh-huh.” If there was one word Anja didn’t associate with Susanne, it was tame. She had a feeling she could be dangerous for more than her libido. “So want to try it?”

Susanne stared at her for a few seconds. “Oh, you mean the pen.”

“What else would I mean?” Anja tried for her most innocent expression. She slid a sheet of paper in front of her and watched the way Susanne’s long, strong fingers seemed to cradle the pen rather than gripping it.

“Ooh, nice.” Susanne studied whatever she had written for a moment and seemed to hesitate before holding the paper out to Anja.

She expected to find Susanne’s name or hello, hello, hello. That was what most people wrote while testing out a pen. Instead, Susanne had written a short message to her.

Want to have dinner with me tonight?

Oh wow. Susanne had to be aware of what day it was. The store was covered in paper heart decorations, and half of the customers coming in yesterday and this morning had been looking for last-minute Valentine’s Day gifts.