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“What? Now?”
“What did I just say, Logan?” She smiled up at him, but the curve of her lips was strictly for the audience, because her gaze glittered with challenge. “Don’t make me dare you.”
He rolled his eyes and laid a chaste kiss on her lips that shouldn’t have pumped up the erection in his pants as much as it did. But the score of flashes in his peripheral vision told him her instincts had been dead-on. So he didn’t complain. Out loud.
He’d had enough of the spots dancing before his eyes and steered Trinity through the crowd and into the hall, refusing to think about how disappointing that brief kiss had been.
“What is this shindig again?” she asked, eyeing the decorations with enthusiasm.
“It’s to benefit Roost, a foundation that helps families relocate and rebuild after a natural disaster. I’m on the board. I took my father’s place.”
His dad had established the foundation a year before his unexpected death, and Logan had gladly stepped in as the head of the board. It meant something to him to continue Duncan McLaughlin’s legacy.
Of course the real heroes were the people doing the heavy lifting; Logan just funneled money into the coffers and ensured Roost’s logo appeared regularly during baseball games. Occasionally, he showed up at a fancy deal like this one and gave a speech.
Her gaze cut to him and held far more appreciation than it should. “I’ve heard of Roost. I didn’t know you were involved in it. It’s a cause you’re passionate about or is this just a family obligation?”
The offhand question dug at him, tripping more than a few wires inside. “Why can’t it be both?”
She shrugged one bare shoulder. “I guess it can be. Just seems to me that if you’re going to champion a cause, it should be your own. Not your father’s.”
“My father was my role model. I would do well to emulate him. So would a lot of people.”
“Of course.” But he didn’t mistake her comment as agreement, and it did nothing to cool his suddenly boiling temper. “And you’d also do well to be yourself instead of a carbon copy of someone else. A philosophy you might guess I readily subscribe to.”
A lecture on individuality from the woman with a tongue piercing was not on the agenda for the evening. Neither was a dissection of his desire to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I’m happy with who I am, thanks. Roost is important to me. Have you seen what a house looks like after a tornado tears through it? It’s my pleasure to drum up support for people who have lost everything.”
“I’ll write you a check later,” she murmured as several people picked that moment to ask for an introduction to his date. “It’s the least I can do.”
“You’re already doing the least you can,” he commented under his breath and dived into the social minutiae required at such an event before she could come up with what would no doubt be a cutting rebuttal.
It was nice to win one occasionally.
Trinity chatted up the curious guests with ease, clearly in her element, while Logan thought seriously about leaving early. Wearing a tux ranked about last on his list of fun things to do, followed shortly by eating in a formal setting. As a member of the board, he had the dubious privilege of being seated at the head table, where all eyes stayed trained on him and his flashy date.
His uncomfortable awareness of her dimmed not at all as they worked their way through steak and asparagus that probably tasted great when it wasn’t flavored by visions of whirling a woman into the shadows to see just how naked she was under that dress.
When the band struck up a slow jazz number, Trinity’s hand snaked beneath the table to squeeze his thigh. He avoided jumping like a teenager, but just barely.
“What?” he muttered.
“Ask me to dance, ding-dong,” she shot back in a whisper.
He checked his ninth or tenth eye roll of the evening and stood to offer her his hand. “Would you do me the honor, Ms. Forrester?”
She didn’t bother to check her own eye roll as she let him help her to her feet. “Are you trying to sound ninety, or does it come automatically?”
“I never come automatically.” He cursed. That had slipped out and probably told her far too much about his mental state.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She sounded like she was trying not to laugh.
They walked out on the dance floor and his hands drifted into place at her waist as if he’d done it a thousand times. Which, theoretically, he had—if you counted all the times he’d done it in his mind since opening the door earlier that evening.
She felt so good that his fingers spread across her skin without any prompting on his part, but he couldn’t help wanting more contact. The point was to give the appearance that they were into each other. He just wished it wasn’t so easy to fake that part.
