Combustion by Elia Winters Page A

He’d addressed the fact that she clearly didn’t want to share her idea. Sharing with him had to be better than sharing with a complete stranger, right? “Otherwise, your idea may be wonderful, but it’s never getting into the World’s Fair.”
    Astrid stopped right behind her chair, her nails pressing into the lush green velvet. Her brow furrowed as she seemed to weigh all her options, and a few times, he saw her gaze rake over him from head to toe. Finally, her shoulders relaxed. “All right. I guess you have a point.”
    There, he had her. Eli stood, trying not to look so excited. “So tell me. I promise, I won’t steal your idea.”
    Astrid looked away into the fire, her profile aglow, and began tracing her fingers across the back of the chair. “It’s not that.” She paused for so long he thought she wasn’t going to continue, until she finally did. “Before we start, you should know that I’m not the kind of machinist you might expect.”
    â€œOkay. So what kind of machinist are you?”
    Astrid cast him a sly smile and stepped a bit closer, coming around the back of the chair and walking right up to him in front of the fire. His mouth went dry as she took the lapels of his coat in her hands, drawing him even closer and looking up at him with mischief in her eyes. “I’m progressive.”
    She wore a half smile, the very tip of her tongue pressed to her top lip. Such deliciously full lips. Without moving away, Astrid reached into her bag on the mantel and withdrew a small brass cylinder with a narrow tip, the likes of which Eli had never seen. He took the device from her and turned it over in his hand.
    It was a plain brass cylinder, as far as he could tell. What was it, some kind of lipstick or face paint? He held it up to the firelight, puzzled, and finally handed it back to her. “I don’t understand. This is your invention?”
    â€œYes.” And she spun a dial at the bottom of the device.
    Eli jumped when the small device began to hum, vibrating intensely in her hand. All right, so it did that. This still didn’t make much sense. Then, Astrid reached up and touched the tip of the cylinder to his collarbone, right where the white collar of his shirt met the lapel of his coat.
    He twitched away. “Wait. That’s…” His voice trailed off as she moved the bullet back and forth along his neck, then to the other side.
    â€œNice?” Astrid didn’t look away from his eyes, her very gaze challenging him to pull back, to call her on her inappropriate behavior. The problem was, her actions felt so good that he had no intention of stopping her, propriety be damned.
    â€œVery nice.” His voice sounded breathless in his own ears. Astrid reached up to run the device along the back of his neck, wrapping her arm up and over his shoulders, bringing her body very close to his. He was losing his focus, his entire thought process swept away into her flowery smell and some very improper thoughts about what she might look like under all those clothes.
    â€œI invented this.” Astrid returned the toy to his collarbone, and he swallowed, saw her watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat.
    Clearly, there was something he didn’t understand, some missing piece to this puzzle. So she created a neck massager? “I don’t think I understand, Astrid.”
    Rather than pull away, she continued to touch him with the brass cylinder, moving it in small circles in the center of his chest, meeting his eyes with her own. The arousal in his body was palpable, and only through supreme self-control could he keep its physical signs at bay.
    Astrid looked down at the center of his chest, where she was still drawing patterns across his shirt. “I get lonely sometimes, Eli, and I like this device. I like it very much.” And she slid the vibrator over to one side, ghosting over his nipple.
    Oh, holy