ONE
She looked up, her eyes meeting the intense gray-blue gaze the same color as storm clouds from across the lavishly decorated event tent. The man was quite possibly the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her life. The candles lit throughout the space and on all the white linen covered tables cast flickering shadows that danced everywhere, picking up highlights in his dark-blonde hair and casting half of his impossibly handsome face in shadow.
His suit was fit snugly to his body, gray dress slacks that delineated his long legs and left little to the imagination at the apex of his thighs. A matching gray, slim cut suit vest was buttoned closed over a black dress shirt, showing off his impressive upper body even though he was covered up to his neck. The material of the black dress shirt stretched across his shoulders and over his bicep as his arm relaxed, lowering it from taking a swallow of his drink. The forest green necktie that all the other members of the groom’s party wore had been loosened at his neck, and the top button of the black dress shirt had been unbuttoned. The sleeves of the shirt had been rolled to his forearms, and the candlelight shone on sun-bleached arm hair that dusted deeply tanned skin. His fingers were long, nearly wrapping around the highball glass in his hand.
She swallowed hard, her entire body completely still as he raised the glass of amber liquid in silent salutation before bringing it to his lips. All the while, those storm-cloud, gray-blue eyes never left hers.
And she felt it all the way to her toes. Among other places.
Which just pissed her off, honestly. Who the hell was this guy?
Hardening her gaze, she stared at the obnoxiously handsome stranger across the room until he dropped his eyes, though she knew the second he raised them back to her, her entire body going hot. She refused to look over in his direction again. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how his attention affected her.
Notthat she was affected by that tall, brooding, insanely attractive specimen of man…
Her body disagreed otherwise; her heart hammered in her chest, making her breathing much more labored than walking across a room would entail, and her nipples were damn near begging for him to look at them, the way they were peaked beneath the corseted bodice of her dress. Hopefully he couldn’t see…
Her sister found her then, and she leaned down and hissed, “Who isthat?”
Her sister just smiled knowingly and leaned closer to whisper, “Thatis Free’s cousin, Kasey.”
“He seems like an ass.”
Her sister admonished her, but she wasn’t listening. She made a disgruntled sound in the back of her throat. “He’s cocky and it’s damned irritating, the way he keeps looking at me.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have worn that dress,” her sister teased, winking.
She rolled her eyes and brushed her long hair over her shoulder, taking a deep sip of her champagne. The dress she’d worn was perhaps a little over-the-top sexy, but how often did a girl get to dress up and make jaws drop? Could she really be upset with the poor sucker for being pulled into her like a personified version of a Venus Fly Trap?
Tommy would be there soon anyway, so the poor guy would get the hint soon enough, if he hadn’t already.
But as the evening wore on, he clearly wasn’t getting the hint. Those thundercloud gray-blue eyes followed her wherever she went. As she stepped to the bar to get another glass of champagne, she knew how good the backs of her legs looked as she walked in her sky-high heels. Feeling devious, she put an extra little sway in her hips as she moved across the floor. When she glanced through her lashes at him, she was perversely delighted that it hadn’t gone unnoticed. Ha. Poor sucker. Eat your heart out.
She was approached by a young blonde who asked her to dance, which she accepted with a grin. He was boyishly cute, though she admitted to herself he reminded her too much of her own little brother for her to consider him attractive in that sense. He was stiff as he stood with his arms around her lightly, and she wanted to laugh. It reminded her of those awkward middle school dances.
The blonde kid’s eyes went up when something caught his attention over her shoulder, and then the sexiest, smoothest southern drawl she’d ever heard hit her full in the belly, making her knees wobble slightly. The younger kid dropped his arms from around her waist, stepping back as the owner of that voice came into view, and she stiffened immediately when she realized it was Mr. Storm-Cloud-Eyes from across the room. He held out one of those outrageously sexy hands and murmured low, “I believe this dance belongs to me.”
She couldn’t say no without creating a scene, and not wanting to do that to the bride and groom, she had no other choice but to accept. Setting her hand—dammit why was she shaking—in his, she sucked in her breath at the electricity that arched between them at the contact.
Her eyes flushed up—way up,Christ was he tall—to connect with his just as his other hand slid around her waist, pulling her close against the hardness of his body. His hard thighsbrushed against her bare ones, his hips aligned with hers, and he brought her in close enough for her breasts to come to a rest against his broad chest. If her nipples weren’t trying to get his attention before, well, they sure as hell were now.
And dammit if he wasn’t the single most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on, especially up close.
Mr. Tall-Blonde-and-Sexy moved them across the dancefloor, swaying effortlessly while keeping her effectively trapped inside the circle of his arms. Every time they moved, his thigh would press between hers and her breath would catch. What was wrong with her?!
Pump the brakes, woman!
“I have a Tommy,” she blurted out, then could have kicked herself, turning a vicious shade of red in embarrassment. “I mean, I have a boyfriend. Tommy.”
Her teeth gnashed together when she heard it—no, shefeltit as it rumbled against her breasts that were pressed so close to his chest—as he laughed at her. The fucker was laughing at her!
“Mmmm,” he murmured low, so low that it too, vibrated into her chest, making her nipples tingle. This was not going well. “Is that why you won’t look at me? Because you have a ‘Tommy’?”
Annoyance flashed through her, and she stiffened her body slightly against his. “I’ve barely noticed you.”
He leaned closer then, dropping his head so that his mouth was just breaths away from her ear, and he murmured in that slow, sexy drawl, “That’s not what your body is sayin’, darlin’.”
She spluttered in indignation and made to pull away, but his arm tightened just the slightest around her waist, his hand capturing hers more fully, and at the way his fingers spread wide across the lower portion of her back, she was struggling to rememberwhyshe was pulling away. Shit, she was struggling to remember how tobreathe.
