A lecture on individuality from the woman with a tongue piercing was not on the agenda for the evening. Neither was a dissection of his desire to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I’m happy with who I am, thanks. Roost is important to me. Have you seen what a house looks like after a tornado tears through it? It’s my pleasure to drum up support for people who have lost everything.”
“I’ll write you a check later,” she murmured as several people picked that moment to ask for an introduction to his date. “It’s the least I can do.”
“You’re already doing the least you can,” he commented under his breath and dived into the social minutiae required at such an event before she could come up with what would no doubt be a cutting rebuttal.
It was nice to win one occasionally.
Trinity chatted up the curious guests with ease, clearly in her element, while Logan thought seriously about leaving early. Wearing a tux ranked about last on his list of fun things to do, followed shortly by eating in a formal setting. As a member of the board, he had the dubious privilege of being seated at the head table, where all eyes stayed trained on him and his flashy date.
His uncomfortable awareness of her dimmed not at all as they worked their way through steak and asparagus that probably tasted great when it wasn’t flavored by visions of whirling a woman into the shadows to see just how naked she was under that dress.
When the band struck up a slow jazz number, Trinity’s hand snaked beneath the table to squeeze his thigh. He avoided jumping like a teenager, but just barely.
“What?” he muttered.
“Ask me to dance, ding-dong,” she shot back in a whisper.
He checked his ninth or tenth eye roll of the evening and stood to offer her his hand. “Would you do me the honor, Ms. Forrester?”
She didn’t bother to check her own eye roll as she let him help her to her feet. “Are you trying to sound ninety, or does it come automatically?”
“I never come automatically.” He cursed. That had slipped out and probably told her far too much about his mental state.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She sounded like she was trying not to laugh.
They walked out on the dance floor and his hands drifted into place at her waist as if he’d done it a thousand times. Which, theoretically, he had—if you counted all the times he’d done it in his mind since opening the door earlier that evening.
She felt so good that his fingers spread across her skin without any prompting on his part, but he couldn’t help wanting more contact. The point was to give the appearance that they were into each other. He just wished it wasn’t so easy to fake that part.
Unlike earlier, no crush of cameras clamored to capture their every move, but there were still plenty of eyes on them, which meant they had to make it look good. It helped that she moved in sync with him as they danced, a shocking turn of events. If anything, he’d have expected her to try to lead, to boss him around—anything other than the fluidity they fell into instantly, as if they’d danced before.
She peered up at him from under her lashes and smiled, which hit him with the approximate force of a fighter jet at Mach 5. Apparently she wasn’t on board with the respectable distance he’d put between them, because she scooted closer, deliberately brushing his body with hers as she swayed.
It took far too long to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He was thirty-five years old, for crying out loud, and had certainly bedded a few hot women. Of course that had been a fair number of years ago, before he started looking for the future Mrs. McLaughlin.
“So,” he said inanely. “Here we are.”
One of the pitfalls of a fake relationship—they had to pretend they actually had things to talk about.
“Mmm, yes, we are here,” she agreed easily.
Her hands meandered under his tux jacket to cup his butt, which she then fingered suggestively. Every drop of blood in his body drained into his groin, and his brain fuzzed.
“Um, what are you doing?” he choked out. “Are there cameras on us that I can’t see?”
“Nope. I’m just naturally handsy. And curious.” Her blue eyes glowed in the low ballroom light. “How can I fake being hot and heavy with you if I don’t actually know what your butt feels like when I grab it?”
He groaned as he envisioned the scenario under which she might be grabbing his butt—as she cried his name in her throaty voice, urging him on as he drove her to a blistering climax, for example. Or maybe as he pinned her to the wall and took her standing up. Or, his personal favorite, as she knelt before him and pleasured him with her hot mouth, sliding that tongue piercing across his flesh.