“Run into a lot of those in your line of work, do you?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow, and he couldn’t help but laugh. She was funny.It was so, so annoying that she was funny. He could’ve probably handled the hotness if she weren’t also funny.
But as it was, he was a goner.
“How was the Shirley Temple?”
“Not as good as Beth El’s. They make it with Sprite. It’s just not the same.”
“I’m so sorry. I know that’s really disappointing for you.”
“Good thing I’m a trooper.” She looked him up and down, and he was dying to know if she approved or if it’d been the suit that did it for her. He could still get home and put on a suit if she asked. “So, does jeans-wearing Judah dance?”
“There is no version of Judah that dances,” he said firmly.
Her teeth nibbled at her lip. He was jealous ofteethnow. What the hell had his brain become? “What if I asked really, really nicely?”
The way that went straight to his dick… “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
“Because you’re a terrible dancer?”
She was so fucking infuriating it made him think in profanity, and hereallytried not to think in profanity. “Because…” He threw up his hands. “Come on, Arielle. You know why.”
Arielle rolled her eyes. “Can’t have everyone see that precious Ein Klein Hotmusic touches girls? Or is it specifically me you can’t be seen touching?”
He glanced around to make sure no one was listening, and sure enough, everyone was way too busy drinking, dancing, and laughing to care about two wayward guests lurking in the corner. “We both know what happens when I touchyouspecifically, andthatis not something that can happen here.”
“I already told you,” she said in a voice so low he had to move dangerously close to hear it. “That does not require an apology.”
Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was that he simply couldn’t think straight around that skirt, but he suddenly found himself asfilterless as she was. “It’s not just that I can’t stop thinking about kissing you,” he uttered under his breath, enjoying the way her eyes widened at the proclamation. “It’s that if you get any closer, I’m not sure I’ll be able to hang on to the self-control that’s stopping me from sliding my hands up that tiny little skirt to see what’s underneath.Thatwould be a problem.”
It was her turn to choke on nothing, which would’ve been incredibly satisfying if his pants hadn’t felt thirty-seven sizes too tight. “That is not a problem,” she rasped, reaching for his free hand and sliding it a few inches up her thigh. “We don’t even have to dance.”
Oh God, but he wanted to take her up on it. There was no way in hell hecould, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted anything this badly in his entire life. Her skin was so smooth under his palm, her heat radiating through him, and he felt absolutely feral with the knowledge of how close he was to touching her somewhere he’d never imagined touching anyone but his nameless, faceless future wife.
Against his better judgment, he glanced up at her, at the narrowed eyes and smirk that proved she knew just how badly he wanted to keep goingandthe fact that he wouldn’t.
He retrieved his hand and immediately felt bereft at the loss, as if the temperature in the room had just dropped thirty degrees. “You know the worst part?” he said, because why not—what secrets could possibly be left between them at this point? “I took care of myself specifically before coming here, because this afternoon maxed out all the restraint I possess, and still, in five seconds, you manage to make me…” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “You seriously make it murder to control myself around you.”
“Have you ever considered you might be trying way too hard?” she said, but she didn’t touch him again. Then she blinked and crossed her arms. “Hold on. Did you, Judah Klein—”
“Please stop using my full name.”
“—just admit to thinking about me when jerking off?”
Okay, he did just do that, but it sounded so, so much more horrifying when she said it out loud. “Can you not?” he whispered fiercely.
“Are you kidding?” Her hand fiddled with one of his buttons, and he knew he should step away, but every now and then, one of her fingertips would graze his chest, and each time it ignited a firework under his skin. He couldn’t make himself give it up if he tried. Plus, she smelled dizzyingly good, and he knew she’d taste good too. “I know being horny is new to you, but that’s not the kind of thing you say to a girl before you tell her to fuck off.”
Her nails scraped his chest through his shirt with more intention, and he was starting to lose the will to argue. His head dropped back against the wall, eyes closed. This was so bad. “I’m not telling you to fuck off,” he said in a strangled voice, the profanity alien on his tongue.
“If you don’t want me to leave you alone, then what do you want?”
He laughed, low and bitter. “That cannot be a real question.”
“Then…?”
“Arielle.” He snapped his head forward, frustrated and far too awake. “I’m not feeling you up in the corner of a bar at my brother’s birthday party.”
“So let’s leave. I live three blocks away.”
