LuckoftheDraw Read Free Page B

way, and then just plucked them up like daisies.”
She laughed, and he tried to smile, really he did, but his stomach had gone
sour. He couldn’t go another day without telling her how he felt, and it was
going to ruin their friendship. He just knew it. “I should have sent him in my
place tonight.”
    She reached up and tucked his hair behind his ears. He’d
worn it down as part of the retro look.
    “Seriously, Alex. What’s gotten into you tonight?” she
asked, fingers still curled over his ears. “I know you’re not just tired, so
don’t give me that bullshit excuse again.”
    You , he wanted to say, but that one word wouldn’t
take the big leap off the end of his tongue. She’d gotten into him, under his
skin and into his heart and turned him from a bold go-getter into the biggest
fucking wimp he knew.
    “I have officially been to one too many of these parties,”
was his judicious answer.
    “Are you kidding?” She halfway turned to look at the room
full of people mingling behind her. “I think this is the best one yet. They
girls have completely outdone me. This is even better than the Mardi Gras party
I threw two years ago. Don’t you think?”
    He drew in a deep breath. “It’s a good party,” he admitted.
If he’d been in any other state of mind he would have been having a great time.
But for maybe the first time in his life, he hadn’t been able to pull himself
out of a funk long enough to enjoy himself.
    “Who are you hoping gets your keys later?” she asked as she
turned back to him.
    “You.” Oh there it was, brave little word.
    “Well, you might be out of luck,” she said, not missing a
beat, and obviously not taking him seriously. “I saw Bree putting something on
Michel’s keys when she took them from him earlier.” She shrugged. “Which is
fine.”
    Which is fine? She’d just spent months mourning the
breakup with someone she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life
with and she was okay with settling for fine ?
    She deserved so much better than fine. Although, he couldn’t
deny that it gave him no small amount of satisfaction that she hadn’t just
stuck a knife in his heart by telling him she couldn’t wait to be alone with
the guy.
    “He’s not bad if you like the black-hair-and-blue-eyes
European type,” she added with another indifferent twitch of her smooth
shoulder.
    He reached out and touched it, brushing the backs of his
fingers over her silky skin.
    “Add Eastern to the front of that European and you’re
speaking my language.” He said it as seriously as he meant it, meeting her eyes
when her head snapped around.
    Hallelujah, his balls were back.
    Something in her expression changed. And it was something
good.
    She stepped forward, wrapped her arms around his waist and
tipped her beautiful heart-shaped face up to his. Her eyes were two
crystal-clear pools of water within the sexy sootiness of her dark makeup. Her
mouth was temptation itself.
    “You always know just the right thing to say,” she purred in
her smoky voice.
    It was its own kind of delicious torture to have her pressed
against him chest to belly to thigh in a room full of people. He wanted to kiss
her more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life. He wanted to slide one
hand up her skirt, seek out the nirvana of her pussy, tease and torture and
drive her wild right then and there, with the party going on around them. Let
them watch if they wanted to watch.
    He’d give them a show they would never forget.
    He put one hand in the center of her back and held her
closer.
    “Here’s another one you might like,” he said, angling his
face within a couple of inches of hers. “Let’s get out of here. You and me.
Right now.”
    Her arms tightened around his waist and her hips shifted so
her belly rubbed deliciously against his crotch, making him groan.
    “Where would we go?” she asked in a whisper that shot
straight to his cock.
    “Anywhere you want, Pete,” he whispered back,