"So tell me, Jack, when exactly was it that you helped Angela Lombard out of her dress?"
Jack Robinson peeled his eyes away from the night sky, and turned to the woman next to him. Phryne was beautiful in any light, but here on the moonlit grounds of the Observatory, she took his breath away. The pale curves of her face seemed as though they could have been shaped from marble, if marble came in a warm, vivacious, thrill-seeking form.
"At the end of our interview," he replied, endeavoring to keep his face blank. "She just needed a little…assistance." He'd actually been curious as to how Phryne had heard of that incident, but the fun of watching her fidget had surpassed his need to know.
"Are you always so susceptible to a damsel in distress?" she asked, looking up at him with slightly narrowed eyes.
Jack couldn't keep a smile away at that. "Well, it had been so long since I'd seen one..."
Phryne ducked her head, a smile on her own lips, and then turned her eyes back to the stars.
"When exactly did she mention the dress?" Jack queried after a moment, before taking a look at his watch. He really should take the evidence they'd just found back to the station, but the thought became rapidly less appealing with each glance at Phryne.
"During my cocktail party," she answered. "We were making conversation after I was found in her room."
Jack tilted his head in acknowledgment. "Must have been some conversation." He paused. "Did you – did you have a response? I'm, er, still writing up my case notes."
Turning slowly, Phryne looked him fully in the eye. Her ruby lips spoke with soft deliberation.
"I told her that I prefer it when you take off my dress with your teeth."
With his teeth? Jack fought back a strangled groan, as his pulse began to pound. He had imagined slipping a shimmering gown from her shoulders in a myriad of ways, but he now knew that he'd missed one.
"I feel certain I would have remembered that," he replied, with all the calmness he could muster.
Phryne shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly.
"Perhaps I dreamed it. It must have been a very…vivid…dream."
Jack took a step closer, close enough to sense the lingering traces of her perfume after the long day.
"Perhaps you're in need of psychoanalysis yourself, Miss Fisher."
She bit on her lower lip. "I'm quite sure a lot could be accomplished to our mutual benefit on the couch, Jack."
His heart in his throat, Jack reached out an arm and snaked it under Phryne's car coat, pulling her to him. She came without resistance, her body soft and languid.
"But can reality compete with dreams?" Jack asked, his voice low and quiet. He marveled as Phryne Fisher – the most maddeningly fearless and intrepid person he knew – quivered slightly against him.
"I've always believed so."
Jack brushed his mouth against her ear. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on…" he rasped, grasping her even more tightly, before turning his head and covering her willing lips with his.
And for the first time since the day they had met, Jack Robinson was grateful that Miss Fisher liked to drive too fast.