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“Yep. He’s stuck to no-alcohol beer all night.”
“And that speech. Straight from the heart.”
“Did you hypnotise him—cast some weird Dr J spell on him?” she managed lightly, adding chunks of ice to her glass and pouring in non-alcoholic punch. They’d kept a table full of non-alcoholic drinks to help Dad along and she’d kept him company. It was the least she could do in the circumstances.
She turned to Solo, sucking on her straw, feeling weird and kind of coy—the same feeling she’d got just after she’d met him, like she’d dance in a field of corn with her hair in bunches, all dressed in gingham if he asked her.
He smiled down at her, shook his head and an arrow stabbed repeatedly into her heart.
A muscle at the corner of his jaw tightened. Just one side. Oh, the blissful asymmetry of his face. She’d never get bored looking at it. Her fingers itched to reach up and trace around his jaw, feel that muscle tighten and twitch, lose herself in the way his mouth softened, his eyes darkened, just before he kissed her.
“I haven’t, um, had a chance to properly thank you,” she managed to croak, breaking the spell because it hurt, reallyhurtto want to kiss someone this badly.
“You don’t need to thank me. I would have done it a thousand times over if you’d asked me.”
“Shit!”
“What?”
“Why do you have to say something like that?”
He looked momentarily bewildered. “Sorry, I—”
She laughed shakily. “I mean, why do you have to be so… so fucking nice to me?”
Relief flooded his face, his jaw relaxed. “What would you prefer—I put you over my knee and spanked you?”
Now this was the language she understood. It chased away the stupidity that had sent her brain soft there for a moment. They were good together in bed. Short term. Forget all the soppy shit.
Brain funk sorted.
She chinked her glass against his and let the familiar energy zap down her spine and run sweet between her legs.
“That’s more what I’m used to.”
He bent his head close and murmured, “Okay, give me a time and a place and I’ll be there.”
His mouth nuzzled against her ear and she let herself sway into him. Then he whispered, “Want to dance?”
Chris Isaac’s “Wicked Game” had just started up. Like, seriously, what was she supposed to do?
Polly gulped hard. “Sure.”
He took her hand in his, and when his thumb-pad stroked her wrist as he pulled her close, she suddenly had an image of herself as one of those self-saucing puddings. Like Solo had just plunged a dessert spoon straight into her middle.
She sank against him as his arms bound her close. And God, why did he have to hold her in that old-fashioned way? Her arm sandwiched against his chest, fingers intertwined, his chin resting on her curls. She could feel the beating of his heart against her breasts, and her nipples jumped to attention.
She didn’t dare look up. She’d disintegrate.
The words crooned across the dance floor.
How did Chris Isaac know that she, Polly Fletcher, would be right here trying to resist that very thing? Clearly the universe and all that crap about a butterfly’s wings starting an earthquake in Tokyo was absolutely, one hundred per cent true. Because right now, it felt like that earthquake was right here, that her world was going to collapse into Solo’s arms and never find its way back to normal.
And then his lips moved softly down her neck, and the swell of her belly registered the hard ridge of his desire. And it was all. Just. Too. Much.
Polly pulled back. Gasped out, “Sorry, I’ve got to go—um—yeah, I forgot—I’m in charge of the cake.”
Black lashes blinked over luminous silver, then the light extinguished and her sinking heart knew she’d blown something truly magical.
