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“I guess we should fix this, then.” She wanted to touch him. She wanted to run her hands over the hard muscles of his chest and glory in the way he growled softly in her ear as she did so. She behaved as she started buttoning his shirt.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that you moved,” Demetri told her as she replaced the last button in its hole.
“What?”
“You pulled me to you after you promised you wouldn’t move your arms.”
“Oh. That.” She blushed. How was it possible that she could still blush around him? “Well, you wouldn’t kiss me,” she told him, turning away from him. She couldn’t stand to look at him when she made her admission. She’d embarrassed herself enough already.
“I’ll make sure not to neglect you that way again. But I am going to have to punish you for breaking your promise.”
His hands rested easily on her hips. She couldn’t—wouldn’t look back at him. He had too much power over her body now. Looking at her shoulder, she gasped when she saw the spot he’d bitten clearly.
“What did you do to me?”
“Nothing you didn’t tell me I could do. And don’t think you’re changing my mind about punishing you.” His hand roamed over her ass.
“I—I’m hungry. I want to go get supper,” she told him for lack of anything better to say.
“Of course. But we will finish this discussion later.” His hand did not leave her hip as he guided her through the hallway toward the main office.
“Good, you’re finished. I was beginning to wonder if I needed to order delivery.” Tina’s eyes sparkled with mischief when she looked at Stacy.
Stacy was torn between forcibly removing Demetri’s hand, trying to coax the shirt to cover more of her body and just blatantly covering the newest hickey and the bite mark with her hands, if she could even manage to cover it all.
“Let’s go, I’m starving,” Tina said with a smile. “And something tells me you two worked up quite an appetite.”
Stacy refused to look at her friend as Demetri laughed. She determined to just keep her mouth shut and try to get through the night. Tomorrow, she’d call her guru and ask him to meet her. She was prepared to beg if necessary.
However disgruntled she felt, there was a part of her that noticed Demetri seemed to be completely comfortable touching her. He didn’t seem to mind if anyone thought they were together—a couple. Even after so many years of marriage, Thomas had never seemed to be so at ease with her. Especially not in public. It had been as though he’d been hesitant for anyone to know she was his wife. Now she knew why.
But Demetri was just a friend, and he seemed to have no problems showing her affection. Public displays seemed natural for him, and truthfully, she was enjoying them. A lot more than she should.
He was everything her ex wasn’t, and that scared her. What if she allowed herself to fall for him and he turned out to be just another asshole in wolf’s clothing? Did she want to trade one disastrous relationship for another?
She needed time to think about what she wanted. She would save that for another time. Right now, she had two friends she was determined to enjoy supper with. And as much as she’d never admit it out loud, Demetri really had helped her work up quite an appetite.
Of course, she didn’t have to admit it after her stomach growled.
But, being the great people that her new friends were, they kept their chuckles silent. At least at first.
Chapter Eight
Stacy behaved all weekend. She completely ignored the fact that she hadn’t seen Demetri since they parted ways at the pizza place, when he said he had business he had to attend to. She preferred not to think about what kind of business that could be. She’d already lost more sleep than she was comfortable with wondering if that ‘business’ was another woman. She preferred to think about the more pleasant aspects of the evening.
Tina had laughed at Stacy when she kept sliding closer to Demetri through the course of the meal. Stacy had explained—several times—that she was getting weird looks from the men who passed her and she just didn’t want anyone to think she wanted them to do more than look. She refused to admit she just wanted to be closer to him.
She also refused to admit she’d gotten warm fuzzies in her stomach as Demetri put his arm around her when one particularly dense man came over and didn’t seem to want to take the hint.
Of course, that hadn’t stopped the strange man either, who pointed out any woman could get a friend to put his arm around her. She’d been shocked when Demetri chuckled and agreed. He was full of surprises, and they hadn’t ended there. No, he and the man talked about how it was only the right thing to do, to protect their female friends from potentially unwanted attention.
When Stacy looked at Demetri, fully prepared to call him a traitor, he winked at her. With a shrug to the other man, he said in a very casual tone, “What can you do, though? Excuse me.” With no other warning, Demetri lowered his mouth to hers. She’d been too stunned to push him away. And when his tongue traced her lips, she’d automatically opened for him. She didn’t care that her hands were slightly greasy from the pizza she’d just been eating. It didn’t stop her from grabbing a fistful of his hair as his tongue plunged in and out of her mouth. He kissed her like that, stealing her breath, until she moaned and squirmed beside him.
Breaking off the kiss, he smiled. Stacy wasn’t sure who he directed his comment to, but Demetri simply shrugged again and said, “There was some sauce...”
Tina had laughed as the other man walked away, shaking his head. Then her friend—her best friend—had had the audacity to ask, “So how’d it taste?”
Stacy knew that she was referring to the fact that both of her companions stared at her as she added red pepper flakes to her slices of pepperoni pizza, but she was still embarrassed.
