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The rather stuffy solicitor had raised his overly bushy eyebrows at that, and Naomi had wanted the ground to swallow her up, even as some small part of her had squeed for joy like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she’d said instead. “We’d never work like that, as you well know. Besides, I’m pretty sure your uncle expected you to make a love match, so—”
“I’m fucked either way, I get it. How on earth am I going to achieve that in three months? Great Uncle Thomas was quite insane it seemed.”
While Naomi had silently agreed with that assessment the solicitor had cleared his throat and looked down his long hawkish nose at them both. Even the incorrigible Josh had snapped to attention as though he was facing the head master at school.
"I can assure you, Mr. Garrison, that your uncle was of sound mind when he made this will. He was denied the opportunity to follow his heart when he was a young man, and he confided in me on more than one occasion that he was worried about your seeming unwillingness to commit and settle down. With gay marriage now possible, it was his firmest wish that you find someone to make you happy if you haven't already."
He'd looked at Naomi in such an assessing way she'd squirmed on her seat. There was no way this stranger could know the depths of her feelings. Naomi might love Josh and vice versa—at least in a friend only way—but that didn't mean a thing in the grand scheme of things, not when his whole future was at stake here.
In the end, it hadn't mattered, of course, because Josh had met Dawson. It was ironic in the extreme that Josh and Dawson would never have met, had it not been for this will. In an effort to ascertain the legality of the will, Josh had sought other legal advice. Monroe and Creek were the solicitors, which had been recommended by Naomi's accountant, and the rest was history as they say.
"Ah, there you are." Dawson's deep, compelling voice snapped Naomi out of h
er day dreaming, and she took an involuntary step back when Josh's new husband advanced on her. How on earth had she ended up in this tiny service corridor? There was no way she could get past Dawson's bulk, not without plastering herself all over him, and that would be inappropriate to the extreme. As were the erotic thoughts her mind was meandering down in an instant. Damnit though.
At six feet and a half, Dawson towered over her by a good foot. To be fair, he towered over most people, apart from Josh, and if his height wasn't intimidating enough, then the air of dominance that leaked out of his very pores most definitively was. It meant Naomi reverted to the equivalent of a tongue-tied schoolkid around him, and she swallowed past the sudden lump of apprehension in her throat. There was something dark and dangerous in the slow appraisal he gave her body in the gloomy corridor.
Her skin tingled, and goosebumps broke out across her exposed flesh under his silent perusal. When his gaze lingered a fraction too long on her bosom, Naomi barely resisted the urge to bring her arms up over her chest to hide her body's far too obvious reaction to his presence. It would only draw further attention to the way her breasts heaved with her desperate need for oxygen. Her nipples were tight little beacons, practically begging for some attention, and she clenched her thighs together in a vain effort to stop the answering ache in her clit. There was nothing at all she could do about her knickers growing damp.
She was going to go straight to hell, there was no doubt about it, because she couldn't help her building excitement when Dawson's lips curved into a half smile. By the time his amber gaze sought hers, trapping her with its heated intensity, Naomi couldn't have moved away if her life depended on it.
“You’re not hiding from me, are you, sweet Naomi?”
She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head, as he closed the distance between them until he stood so close to her that his body heat seeped through her dress. The whiff of his expensive cologne melded with the scent of Dawson, and Naomi held her breath when she felt him lean in closer. So close that his breath ghosted across her face.
“Good. Open your eyes, my sweet.”
Naomi shook her head, and a low chuckle was her reward. It brought with it more of Dawson’s virile scent, and a whimper escaped her when she felt the calloused pads of his fingers stroke across her collarbone before he buried one hand in her hair and tugged.
“I said look at me, girl.”
The submissive inside of her instantly responded to the molten steel in his low voice, and his eyes lit up with silent approval. “That’s better. Josh is looking for you.” He grinned when Naomi immediately blushed, and she held her breath when he traced the heat in her cheeks with his fingertips.
“Fascinating,” he murmured, and Naomi had to ask.
“What is?”
Instead of answering her, Dawson continued the gentle strokes along her skin, and her heartbeat went into overdrive when he followed the line of her jaw, and lingered on her pulse point. It would be so damn easy to relax into the strokes of the calloused pads across her hypersensitive skin. Strokes that left heated awareness of him in its wake. This was wrong on so many levels, yet it felt so damn good. When those clever fingers delved lower, along her collarbone, and lower still, until they traced the tops of her breasts, Naomi finally found the gumption to push him away. Not that it got her very far, because Dawson didn’t move an inch, and feeling the hard muscles of his chest under her hands did nothing whatsoever to calm her raging libido.
“Please…”
“Relax, sweet Naomi, and stop acting as though I’m going to eat you.” He pulled back to give her much needed breathing space. “Though the idea has merit … if it wasn’t my wedding night.”
His grin turned positively sinful at Naomi's gasp in answer. She gave him a shove to further reiterate her point and to hide her body's immediate reaction to this man.
He’s married to your best friend. Stop ogling him.
Surely if she repeated that mantra in her head it would have the desired effect?
She breathed a sigh of relief when Dawson took a step back. She still couldn't fit past him, but, at least, she wasn't pressed up against him anymore. Crossing her arms over her chest, to hide her trembling hands and the whole come-get-me-act her nipples were engaged in, she squared her shoulders and tried her best to glare at him.
“You have no right to say such things to me. You’ve—”
“Why not?” His casual question threw her further off balance, and Naomi was painfully aware that she must be doing goldfish impressions right now, but … seriously?
"Why not?" she echoed and blew out an exasperated huff when he winked at her.
