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“I don’t mind them,” I said, not wanting to agree with him about anything.
“Can you tell my mom’s desperate for me to settle down?” He scanned the crowd, his gaze landing on the back of a woman wearing a tight, short dress.
“Yeah, I got that impression.”
The woman he was ogling turned around, and apparently the view of her front didn’t impress Darrell because he shifted his focus back to me.
“You mind lifting the mask so I can get a look at your face?” he asked.
He was disgusting in every way. Clearly he was sizing me up to see if he found me fuckable, and I wanted to tell him I’d let my vagina shrivel up and die before I allowed him anywhere near it.
I looked around the room, trying to form a response, and saw Ford was walking toward us, his mask in hand and a scowl on his face. God, he was hot in that tuxedo. A tingle spread from my chest downward as I imagined him stalking over here because he was jealous.
As a strong feminist, I wasn’t into possessive, demanding men.
In theory, at least. I could admit to myself that if Ford threw me over his shoulder and took me to bed right now, I’d enjoy the hell out of it.
“We should dance,” I said to Darrell.
“You mean the horizontal cha-cha?” he asked hopefully, looking over my shoulder.
My fresh drink had finally arrived. I frantically tipped the server, took a generous sip, and set it down on a table. Ford was closing in on us, and if he tried to get me to leave with him, I would. My head told me not to fall into his arms and become his plaything, but my heart—and a certain other body part—well, that was a different story.
“Elle,” Ford called out, a stern note in his voice, just as I grabbed Darrell’s arm and led him onto the dance floor.
I looked back as Darrell pulled me close for a slow dance, and Ford was standing in the spot I’d just vacated, fuming.
“That’s Ford Barrett,” Darrell said. “That guy’s a beast.”
Darrell slid his hand down to cup my ass, and Ford narrowed his eyes. My heart raced as I wondered if he would follow us out here on the dance floor.
“Hey, hand on my hip,” I said sharply.
With a disgusted groan, Darrell removed his hand from my ass.
I looked over to see if Ford was still staring at us, but he was gone. A few seconds later, though, I saw him leading the woman in the short, tight dress onto the floor.
Subtle. He was trying to make me jealous.
It was working.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Ford
Two could playat this game, but one of us could play it better.
I hadn’t known I was capable of such deep jealousy until I’d seen Darrell Hampton ogling Elle. He was a known womanizer and asshole who wouldn’t get away with half the shit he did if his parents weren’t wealthy. Whether she liked it or not, I’d intended to get her away from him.
Then she’d seen me coming and whisked Darrell onto the dance floor, and my concerned jealousy had become pissed-off jealousy. So, I’d found the nearest woman and asked her to dance, and now Stormi was talking my ear off.
“How can you even see the puck?” she asked. “It moves so fast.”
“We manage.”
“Do you ever play air hockey? I love air hockey. I have to be careful with my nails, though.”
Her nails looked more like claws. They were easily three inches long. She was running the end of one of them over my scalp just above my neck, which I was ignoring.
