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Zach.
Barb looked over her shoulder and offered a wide smile. Pen gave the other woman a tight nod as she reached beneath the table and removed Zach’s wandering hand.
Pen cleared her throat and refocused on Chase’s speech when Zach’s fingers returned. This time she managed to stifle the surprised bleat in her throat. She slanted a glare to her right where he lounged, elbow resting on the arm of his chair, his fingers pressed to his lips and his eyes narrowed as if hanging on to every word his brother said.
With the fingers of Zach’s other hand swirling circles on the inside of her knee, Pen couldn’t concentrate on a single word of the speech. A quick glance around confirmed that no one could see what was happening beneath the tablecloth.
She shifted in her seat, but before she could crush his fingers between her kneecaps, he gripped her leg with a tight hold. She swallowed down a ball of thick lust as he pushed her legs apart.
Pen flattened her hands on the tablecloth as Zach’s hand traveled from her knee and climbed the inside of her thigh. She closed her eyes, visions of the night they’d spent together flashing on the screen of her mind.
His firm, insistent kisses on her jaw, her neck and lower.
The deep timbre of his laugh when she’d struggled with his belt.
He’d ended up stripping for her while she sat on her bed and watched every tantalizing second.
She was snapped to the present when Zach’s fingertips dug into the soft skin of her thigh, and without warning, brushed her silk panties. Pen fisted one hand on the tablecloth, dragging her dessert plate to the edge of the table. Her glass of red gave a dangerous wobble.
She held her breath when he touched her intimately again, the scrap of silk going damp against his pressing fingers. When he pulled her panties aside and brushed bare skin, Pen bit down on her bottom lip to contain a whimper.
Then the mayor’s voice crashed into her psyche.
“To Penelope and my brother, Zach. Many congratulations on your engagement.”
She jerked ramrod straight to find every set of eyes in the room on her and glasses raised.
“Cheers,” Chase said into the microphone.
Stiff as a cadaver, Pen managed a frozen smile. Conversely, Zach moved like a sunbathing cat, lazily tossing his napkin on the table before taking Pen’s napkin from her lap and standing.
He offered his hand and a smirk, and Pen prayed that the flush of her cheeks would be taken for embarrassment at the attention.
Placing her palm in his, she surreptitiously tugged her skirt down and stood with him to accept the room’s applause.
Smooth as butter, Zach pushed her dessert plate from its perch at the edge of the table, handed Pen her wineglass and lifted his own.
Then, they drank to their engagement.
* * *
“I like this.” Zach touched the F dangling from Pen’s bracelet with his thumb. “Makes me feel possessive.”
Her hand in his, Pen swayed to the music.
He liked her hand in his. He liked her laugh and the sweet scent of her perfume tickling his senses. He liked the way she smoothly handled Barb’s question about a missing engagement ring.
Where is your diamond ring, darling?
Oh, we didn’t want to upstage the mayor on his big day.
Pen was the right partner to choose for this particular snafu. She was a woman at the top of her game. Touching her under the table and listening as her breaths shortened and tightened was a bonus.
“What are you grinning about?” she asked him now.
“I think you know.”
She hummed, not confirming or denying. Like he said, top of her game.
