“A woman who doesn’t finds herself watching other people climb to the top while she fills water glasses and makes the coffee.” She could have cursed in frustration the moment she’d spoken. It wasn’t her habit to speak that freely. The point was, she was here to interview him, Lee reminded herself, not the other way around.

“An interesting analogy,” Hunter murmured. Ambition. Yes, he’d sensed that about her from the beginning. But what was it she wanted to achieve? Whatever it was, he mused, she wouldn’t be above stepping over a few people to get it. He found he could respect that, could almost admire it. “Tell me, do you ever relax?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your hands are rarely still, though you appear to have a great deal of control otherwise.” He noted that at his words her fingers stopped toying with the stem of her glass. “Since you’ve come into this room, you haven’t stayed in one spot more than a few seconds. Do I make you nervous?”

Sending him a cool look, she sat on the plush sofa and crossed her legs. “No.” But her pulse thudded a bit when he sat down beside her.

“What does?”

“Small, loud dogs.”

He laughed, pleased with the moment and with her. “You’re a very entertaining woman.” He took her hand lightly in his. “I should tell you that’s my highest compliment.”

“You set a great store by entertainment.”

“The world’s a grim place—worse, often tedious.” Her hand was delicate, and delicacy drew him. Her eyes held secrets, and there was little that intrigued him more. “If we can’t be entertained, there’re only two places to go. Back to the cave, or on to oblivion.”

“So you entertain with terror.” She wanted to shift farther away from him, but his fingers had tightened almost imperceptibly on her hand. And his eyes were searching for her thoughts.

“If you’re worried about the unspeakable terror lurking outside your bedroom window, would you worry about your next dentist appointment or the fact that your washer overflowed?”

“Escape?”

He reached up to touch her hair. It seemed a very casual, very natural gesture to him. Lee’s eyes flew open as if she’d been pinched. “I don’t care for the word escape.”

She was a difficult combination to resist, Hunter thought, as he let his fingertips skim down the side of her throat. The fiery hair, the vulnerable eyes, the cool gloss of breeding, the bubbling nerves. She’d make a fascinating character and, he realized, a fascinating lover. He’d already decided to have her for the first; now, as he toyed with the ends of her hair, he decided to have her for the second.