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“It’s just... I... I feel horrible about putting you on the spot like I did and...”
It occurred to him then that she didn’t want him to be there. That she was regretting the low moment—at a time when she most definitely was not herself—that had made her ask. That she was trying to let him down lightly.
Slowing the car, readying to take the next exit and turn his black-tuxedoed self right back toward Santa Raquel, he said, “Kace, if you’ve changed your mind...if you don’t need or want me to be there, just say so. You know it’s not going to hurt my feelings any.” His neck go
t a little tense, though, as he said the words. He hated the possibility that she’d be embarrassed by him.
He understood. She’d said just a couple of weeks ago on the beach how she’d learned from an early age to see the value in her looks. In physical appearance...
“Oh, my God, Michael. Don’t keep doing that to me. You know I want you there. I just don’t want to lean on you too much. Or use you. Or anything else bad I’m apt to do without realizing I’m doing it.”
Pedal to the metal, he grinned. They really were a mucked-up pair. Funny how much he liked being in it with her, though. “I want to be there, Kace,” he said.
And he knew that, despite the cold tremors beneath his skin, the horror story he was walking into, he wanted to do it.
Because he wanted to be there for her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SHE LOOKED ABSOLUTELY STUNNING. Mouth dry, Mike could hardly believe the woman walking toward him in the back lot where she’d had him escorted by security was his date for the evening.
Could hardly believe she was Kacey. Even at her best. He’d never seen such perfection. Flawless skin. Creamy and...perfect. Her eyes looked bigger, her lips fuller, her cheeks higher.
And her hair...it flowed over her shoulders, and part of it was up, too, clipped in something that glittered and looked expensive, creating ringlets of hair around her head like a halo.
Her neck and chest glittered in the early evening sun. As she grew closer, he saw why. She actually had glitter on her skin.
He barely held back a gulp as he dared himself to really look at her dress. Black, with silver rhinestone accents at the cleavage, it was cut down to her ribs and showed him the swells of both ample breasts. It hugged her waist, her hips, her thighs—to the point where he could think of little but running his hands down it.
But it was her ankles that took his breath away. The dress ended right above them, leaving them exposed. And fragile looking.
The bruises were gone, but he remembered the way those ankles had looked, multicolored and swollen. The delicate bones hardly seemed capable of supporting her.
Black with rhinestones, her shoes were strappy and fragile looking, too. The heels raised her up almost to his nose and it felt odd, having her face so close to his.
“I know, too much, right?” she asked as she stopped in front of him and struck a modeling pose. “It’s okay, you can say so.”
What he needed was a cold shower. Maybe a jail cell. He had no business wanting to touch any part of her. Let alone wanting to run his hands along her thighs.
Or dip his face toward the enticing swell of her breasts.
He had no business finding her so attractive. Period. Or feeling any of the things he was feeling.
She trusted him not to see her that way, or at least not to lust after her when he did. She could be with him because he didn’t want sex with her.
Hadn’t wanted it, he amended.
About as confused as he’d ever been, he told himself it was Doria he was seeing. Doria he wanted.
But in that moment, standing alone with her in the studio parking lot, his hard-on hidden by the jacket of his tux, sex with Kacey was pretty much all he wanted.
* * *
“YOU LOOK STUNNING.” Michael’s tone, almost worshipful as he stood before her, every inch virile masculinity, was for her benefit. She knew that.
He was trying to make her feel better.
But this was Michael’s first trip to Beverly Hills—with her. Their first time together in her world, and she was not going to ruin it with issues, no matter how real they might be.
