Embrace My Heart(61)

“Well, you can’t leave.” Vectra eased back as much as he’d allow, looking horrified.

“Why not?”

“Sim.” She watched him, trying to determine whether he was teasing her. “This is your event. Your charity. Do you make a habit of leaving before these things get started?”

He shrugged. “Never had a reason to leave before.”

She laughed. “Don’t even try it. I read the society rags, same as everybody else. I’ve seen some of the candy on your arm. Sometimes there’s candy on both of your arms.”

“You’re right.” He flexed said arms around her. “But this is the candy I’m in love with.” He nuzzled her ear.

“Sim...” she murmured, wanting nothing more than for them to take their leave of the party. There was more she needed to say to him, after all, but there was time, she decided. Warmth flooded her body as the truth of the statement hit home.

“Have you even spoken to everyone yet?”

“No.” He shrugged. “I rarely do since this thing will go on all weekend. Anyone I miss tonight, I’ll see before it’s all over.”

Vectra gave the man she loved a chastising look. “And that doesn’t make you feel guilty?”

“It doesn’t.”

She shook her head. “Well, it’d make me feel guilty if you left because of me. Now—” she managed to ease out of his hold, then turned the tables and eased a hand through the crook of his arm “—let me show you the art of the mingle-and-greet.”

They ventured into the crowd, stopping by guests where they’d already collected in small clusters to chat. Vectra and Qasim spoke heartily yet briefly, not long enough to shift the topics of the conversations already in progress. It took about forty-five minutes for them to make their way around the grand room.

“You’re a master at this,” Qasim said once they stood waiting for the elevator that would whisk them up to his suite.

Vectra made a pretense of brushing her shoulders. “Why do you think I’m always on Dad’s or Oliver’s arm? They’re always trying to make discreet exits.” She slanted him a saucy wink.

“If you’re attending an event that you need to dip out of early and it’s your event, the mingle-and-greet lets you make your way around the room briefly speaking—briefly because the guests are already in conversations of their own.

“It works well with loners, too—they’ve been drawn into a conversation, however brief, but they don’t feel quite as on edge afterwards, especially since they’ve been noticed by the guest of honor.”

“Ingenious,” Qasim said once Vectra had thoroughly explained her mingling technique.

“That last one I learned through experience. I was once very shy.”

“Stop.” He made a show of being stunned.

Vectra hit his arm in retaliation. “Being noticed at a party when I’m trying to go unnoticed always took the pressure off.”

Qasim couldn’t imagine the woman seriously believed she could go unnoticed. “I’m afraid your dad and brother are going to have to do without you on their arms so much,” he told her instead.

Vectra smiled. “Why?”

“A skill like yours is a hot commodity,” he explained just as the elevator dinged its arrival. “I plan to have you on my arm every chance I get for the foreseeable future.”

Qasim winked, waving to urge her procession into the car, and, thankfully, the elevator’s ascent was brief.

Qasim didn’t move away from the door once it had closed behind him and Vectra in his suite. Instead, he leaned back against the heavy pine door and kept Vectra close, her back to his chest. His mouth skimmed her shoulder and nape as his hands travelled her hips to toy with the fringe hem of her dress.

Vectra luxuriated in the sensation his fingertips radiated into her skin. They danced along the tops of her thighs, venturing toward the inner domain that part of her anatomy wanted him to find.

She put her hands to his with plans to still his pursuit. Instead, she traveled along with his touch as it honed in closer to her sex, which puckered against the cottony middle of her panties. She felt one of his hands suddenly curve in to hook around her inner thigh, keeping it spread away from its twin. She let her head rest back against his chest and gave in.

It couldn’t hurt to indulge in just a few seconds of the delicious caress, she decided.

His middle finger stroked up and down the crotch of her panties while his thumb launched a second erotic assault on her clit. The circular caresses across the hub of sensation forced a litany of moans and gasps from her throat.