I knew I was being rude, but he was pissing me off. Lord forbid anybody thought he’d muddy up his perfection with a girl like me.
“I get it.” I finished the drink, slurping it sloppily from the glass just to piss him off more before banging it down on the table. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’m gonna go meet somebody.”
“What?”
“If you ain’t gonna dance with me, I’ll find somebody who will.”
I moved toward the dance floor. Already three guys hovering near the bar paused in their conversation to watch my next move. The handsome man in glasses looked like the best bet when Ford grabbed my wrist and spun me into his arms. The fabric of his tux was slightly rough under the sensitive skin of my arms as he wrapped them around his shoulders.
“I’ve got you.” He grabbed my waist and snapped me right against him.
I swallowed, too stunned to speak for a minute. I loved being in his arms. Damn if chemistry wasn’t a crazy thing. I couldn’t tell if he felt it too. Sometimes it seemed like he did, but that it pissed him off. Other times it seemed like he couldn’t look at me. His face was even harder to read behind the mask but if anything, he seemed lost in thought—and slightly worried.
“Are you having doubts?” I asked him.
His gaze flicked back and forth between mine. “What?”
“Doubts? About introducing me to someone. If it’s too soon, I get it.”
“No.” His thumbs moved in circles on my hips. “No. Not about you at all.”
“Oh, excuse me.” I bumped into a couple behind me. “Your dress is amazing.”
An older woman draped in a peacock colored dress and clinking beads that matched her mask glided past.
“Thank you, love. You look fabulous too.” She inclined her head and they spun away.
I shrugged at Ford as if to say, “Look! My first time talking to a fancy-pants and I didn’t mess it up too bad. Aren’t you proud of me?”
He blinked once. Okay then. Maybe that message didn’t go through.
We danced for a little while longer. His dancing was controlled, but efficient. No surprise there. The man needed to let loose.
“Relax. This isn’t a waltz.” I squeezed his shoulders.
“I know how to dance.”
“Oh, excuse me.”
I could have danced all night, but he took me back to our table for the speeches that were supposedly starting soon.
“A request for more money,” he whispered as he pulled out my chair.
While he went to the bathroom, I met the couple next to us. I discovered it was the nice peacock dress lady, Kathy, and her husband John.
Ford returned and I was halfway through a story about my Aunt Helen and her fling in the forties with a former member of the mafia when Ford returned.
“She never saw him again.” I drew a finger along my neck and stuck out my tongue. “All she ever heard was he went on vacation and never came back.”
They laughed and I smiled until I saw Ford’s face. He was grimacing as usual.
“Ford. This is Mr. John and Kathy Carlisle. They have a house off Bandit Lake and two purebred Greyhounds they rescued from the race circuit.”
“I was gone two minutes,” he said, mostly to himself.
He set down two more glasses of whiskey for us.
“And is this your Ford?” Kathy said.
