He took a deep breath, and suggested as casually as he could, "Let me walk you to your car."
She shrugged bare shoulders into her lightweight jacket, and glanced at the neon clock across the room.
His eyes followed the smooth pale skin of her shoulders down to the V where her red sweetheart neckline met white cleavage, and for a moment he flashed on the glazed snowy mountain he had skiied alone last weekend. He had plunged recklessly, thoughtlessly down those slopes, so intent on conquering them that he hadn't noticed how icy they were. And somehow, he had made it to the bottom in one piece.
"I always make it somehow, by the seat of my pants most of the time," he mused, reflecting on his foolhardiness.
"What?" she frowned, bewildered and slightly distracted by the noisy crowd surrounding them.
"Oh, I was just thinking about some skiing I did last week," he mumbled, pulling his attention back to the present. He extended his right arm.
"Shall we?" he asked.
She took his arm with a polite smile, and they wound their way through the crowd to the exit door.
She breathed deeply of the cold, clear December air as they stepped out of the stale smoky barroom. She exhaled and sighed.
"I love the air outside when the sky is dark and the stars are out."
She paused, tilting her head back so that her medium length brown hair brushed down her back as she looked at the stars directly above her.
"You know," she continued, "I hate to be cold outside, but whenever I stop and look up at the stars, I don't feel cold any more."
His eyes inventoried the brown waves of her hair as she tossed it back; the pearlescence of her earlobe beneath it; the golden glow on her upturned face from the fluorescent lights on the building above them; the taut whiteness of her neck as she strained to glimpse the tiny points of light.
She looked at him and said with surprise, "Don't you want to look at them? Look. They're beautiful up there." And she turned her face upward again.
"I rather like the view down here at the moment," he said.
She smiled slowly and continued to gaze upward. She liked that he was watching her, and she stood in the moment, savoring it.
How long had it been since she had been regarded as a work of art?
--Too long, but she hoped he hadn't guessed that.
A warmth began to creep slowly up her body, and it collided with the cold chill on her shoulders, producing a shudder she couldn't contain.
He slid his arm around her shoulder and guided her toward her car.