Her dancing companion shrugged. “Your loss.” He ran his hands down his torso, presumably to emphasize what she was missing out on.
Her head screamed at her to walk away, but she couldn’t let Sophie down, so she gritted her teeth and shuffled her feet awkwardly, looking anywhere but in front of her.
A moment later she felt a light touch on her shoulder. She turned to find Connor looking at her with a hint of concern.
“My turn.” He put his big body between her and the male dancer. Then he took her right hand in his, put his left hand loosely on her hip, and slowly danced them onto the terrace. “Hi again.”
He smiled, crinkles forming at the corner of his eyes, and goose bumps raced across her skin. Goose bumps she did not want to feel. “I didn’t need you to rescue me.” Embarrassment made her voice too sharp. “I’m perfectly capable of extricating myself from a situation I don’t want to be in.”
“Who said I was rescuing?” His fingers splayed across her hip were warm, steady. “Maybe I just wanted an excuse to dance with you.” With a subtle flex of his muscular thighs, he turned them round. “At this angle, you can watch.”
“Thanks, but I’ve seen enough of young men thrusting their hips at me.”
His chuckle resonated through her eardrum, and she felt it all the way down to her toes. “Noted. I’ll keep my hips to myself.”
Dimly she heard shrieks from the group as the dancers continued their routine, but Olivia didn’t watch—not that she would have been able to see much anyway because Connor was too tall for her to look over his shoulder. It forced her attention elsewhere: To feeling the heat from his chest and the slide of hard muscles beneath his chef jacket. His fingers on her hip pressing, soothing. Somehow finding their way beneath her blouse and touching her skin, sending a fizz of awareness up and down her spine.
The smell of aftershave, fresh, vibrant, where she was used to refined and expensive.
The thump of her racing heart.
She was so lost in the moment that she jerked at the touch of a hand on her arm.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, the guys have finished.” Jessica, barely containing her grin, slid Olivia a sly glance before shifting her attention to Connor. “Lovely to meet you again.” He smiled and held out his hand to shake hers, but she laughed. “Oh, no, I’m going in for a hug. I’m Jessica, by the way,” she added when she finally stepped back. “Liv’s sister. And this is Ashley, mother of the bride and Liv’s eldest sister.”
“Hey, let’s just call me theothersister.” Ashley threw her arms around Connor as if they were longtime friends.
“Now please excuse us,” Jessica said brightly. “We’re off to... powder our noses.”
“We are?” Ashley looked nonplussed.
Jessica pointed to her belly. “Pregnant lady needs the bathroom. Now.” She took Ashley’s arm and frog-marched her away. Just as Olivia thought the embarrassment was complete, Jessica halted, turned, and winked at her.
Olivia scowled.
Connor let out a deep rumble of a laugh. “Your sister is trying to set us up.”
“You think?”
He slid her one of the lopsided smiles that came so easily to him. The one that shone in his eyes and was impossible to resist. She should know—she was trying her hardest. “So, Livvy, are you ready to have a drink with me yet?”
She bent to pick up her glass from the nearby table. “I’m drinking with you now.”
“Great, we can move straight to dinner.”
She wished the butterflies in her stomach weren’t making their presence known quite so vigorously. “I’m here with my niece on a hen week. I can’t just disappear.”
“Yes, you can.” To her horror, Sophie appeared behind her, a huge grin on her face. “In fact, I insist.”
Throwing them a little wave, she flitted off, leaving Olivia with a sexy, highly amused young male.
“What about it, then?” He angled his head to get down to her level. “If you hate my company, I promise to drop you back with the rest of your party.”
“And what if I said I’d told you I couldn’t leave them as an excuse so I wouldn’t hurt your feelings?”
“I’d say I’m a big boy and I can take rejection.”
It was said firmly, his gaze unwavering from hers. A reminder that while she was trying to pigeonhole him as young, aboy, it was very obvious he was all man. “Look, I’m flattered, but I don’t like feeling pushed into doing something.”
