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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mia
Catherine said to bring a date. There was no doubt in my mind who I wanted to go with. Sure, Catherine had suggested Terry, but even if she hadn’t noticed our attraction, I would have asked him.
I was headed as quickly as my stilettos would allow toward Art, where Ally had said she thought Terry was.
That was where I found him. He was standing over a table, a red pencil pinched between his lips as he stared at some photographs. I knew what he would do with that pencil—use it to outline the areas of the photographs where the editor had made oversights. He was a perfectionist, and I loved that about him. I wanted to be that pencil he had between his lips. More importantly, I wanted to be as carefree as I always was around him. Terry had a calming presence, and right now, I could use some of his calm.
Taking Terry with me to the Inlet for Hope Ball was going to be problematic. He might ask me questions I wasn’t ready to answer. I wondered if Catherine could give me pointers in handling him just like she planned on talking me through the media interviews and attendee questions.
“I hear if you take a picture, it will last longer,” Terry teased. “If I remember correctly, someone showed you how to do that.” His brown eyes danced as playfully as his smile.
I giggled in spite of myself. “Yeah, I vaguely remember those half-assed lessons.”
“Oh, half-assed, huh? That’s what they were?” Terry was teasing me, and it was making my whole body warm. “Maybe it’s just because you were too busy ogling the teacher the way you were just now. Not paying close enough attention.”
His grin was contagious, and I found myself grinning just as wide.
“Maybe,” I agreed.
That made him chuckle. “You’re really just going to give in to me that easily? There’s not going to be some big debate on me and my teaching?” He watched me with a raised eyebrow, leaning over the table, almost caressing it. His stance was disarming, and all I could think about was the last time we were in here. There were several tables in this room, and yet he had chosen to work on the one that he had bent me over. I flushed at the memory. Terry’s grin widened—he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Stop,” I said. My tone had meant to come out in warning, but instead, it sounded all breathy in the quiet of the room. This couldn’t happen right now. No more dirty tricks or fucks across tables. It was the middle of the day, and surely the volume of our fucking would bring people into the room. Or at least alert them to our location and what was happening. I wasn’t prepared for that. I was here to invite him to go to a ball with me, and I needed to remember that. The reminder of my task made me feel silly. Almost like a teenager standing in front of the high school quarterback and asking him to prom. Surely Terry would say yes, right?
“Something on your mind?” Terry asked me in his sexy southern drawl.
I swear that man knew just the right time to add that thick accent into his words. He knew that it made me weak in the knees. I wondered if he remembered the first time I had admitted that to him. We were in college and he had come home to a burnt dinner. I was a mess and he was, of course, trying to charm the pants off me to defuse the situation.
It had worked too.
I forgot all about the stir-fry that had been stuck to the bottom of one of his cast iron pans, which apparently wasn’t the correct pan to cook it in to begin with. I rolled my eyes at the thought. Terry just continued to study every inch of me.
I cleared my throat, bringing his eyes back up to mine. I laughed. “I know what you’re doing with that accent. Same thing you did to me all those years ago.”
“Right,” he said, nodding. A hand came up, and Terry scratched at the back of his neck. “Is that what you were just thinking about? The time I disarmed you with my accent?”
“Yep,” I admitted.
“That was a great night.”
“It was,” I said, agreeing with him easily. “I forgot about all about the burnt dinner when you crooned into my ear like that.”
“Ah, yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “I forgot about that one.”
“Which time were you thinking about? How many times have you used that accent on me?”
“As if you don’t know.” Terry lifted his eyebrows in suggestion. I swear my panties were growing damp with that look.
“Whatever,” was all I could get out.
“What’s up?” Terry let out a chuckle. He wasn’t going to tell me which time came to mind for him. I’m not sure why it bothered me or why I was even giving it a second thought. I shifted my feet uncomfortably; if that southern drawl continued to drip from those lips, I would lose my nerve. I had to get it together. Bite the bullet and just ask him.
“I, uh, have this, uh thing...that I need to go to,” I stuttered through my words, not able to get out a coherent thought. I was a mess. The man was fully clothed—beautifully clothed—in business attire.
“Am I making you nervous?” Terry began to stalk toward me at a teasingly slow pace. He reached me, keeping a handspan of distance between us. I was sure he could smell my arousal.
“I think you’re doing it on purpose,” I admitted.
