Then he frowned a little bit at the bar, because it seemed a shame he’d pressed her butt against it before he had remembered to check it out. On the plus side, this set her at a level where he could just tilt a bit forward and end up with his face in her breasts. And he was feeling dizzy, and it was his birthday, and also, those were cute breasts. Hiding under a shirt like that. Seemed a shame. He remained upright with a valiant effort of what remained of his will. “You can talk some more,” he told her, patting her on the knee. Nice muscles to her leg, there. Promising sign for her butt. “I like your accent.”
“Merci,” she said faintly, and her trouble with the R just tickled over his body. “Umm...do you know my name?”
Oh, damn, no. What was it? Shit. She was bound to get offended if he couldn’t remember where they had met last. Where had they met last? Why didn’t he remember her? She was at his birthday party, for God’s sake. True, half the people around Grasse were, but you’d think he would remember the cute ones.
Some of the younger cousins tumbled against his legs while he was trying to think, and he bent down to right the littlest boy absently. The little Delange girl chasing them with confetti paused long enough to throw more of it over him and the new arrival, so that it ended up caught in that curly hair. He smiled at the little terror approvingly and felt his own hair. Yeah, there was so much confetti in it at this point that it was probably hopeless.
His aunt Annick passed by with a big tray of mostly empty glasses, persisting once again in cleaning up while the party was still going on. His grandfather and his Tante Colette had long since retired but everyone else was in full swing. And look at that, someone was wasting his good wine. He snagged the half-full glass off the tray and offered it to Curls.
“No,” she said faintly, and then reached out and covered the top of it with her hand, removing it from his grasp. “And you’ve had enough,” she said firmly.
Matt grinned. He’d been starting to have a niggle of a doubt, but that was definitely a girlfriend thing to do. Off in that surreal world where girlfriends actually cared about you enough to boss you around, like Allegra did Raoul.
“Matt. Who is this?” Aunt Annick paused long enough to ask, her eyes bright with joy at being the first to discover whom one of the cousins was dating.
“My girlfriend,” he said cheerfully. He looked at his girlfriend expectantly. Hint, hint. You can go ahead and say your name now.
She gaped at him again. Damn, that was such a good look on her.
“Your—girlfriend?” Aunt Annick looked pretty surprised, since the aunts thought the cousins incapable of going out with someone more than once without one of them finding out about it and telling all the others. Matt grinned at her smugly. Fooled you, didn’t I? She’d probably thought he was still brooding over Nathalie. Date just one damn supermodel in your life and no one ever thought you could get over her.
“I like to call her Bouclettes,” he said grandly. It seemed plausible as a nickname. All those curls.
Aunt Annick frowned a little bit. “Half a second,” she told Bouclettes. “Let me put this down. I’ll be right back.”
But en route instead, she crossed paths with Raoul, and Matt saw her give him the go-check-on-your-cousin poke. Damn.
“Matt,” Raoul said, surging up into their space. “What the hell are you doing? Who is this?”
Oh, fine, put him on the spot. He gave Raoul a dirty look, hopefully dirty enough to encourage him to go back to Africa. And not laugh at him. Was Raoul laughing at him? Matt was picking up on far too much amusement. Also deep aggravation.
“A friend,” he told Raoul coolly. “Back off. Go play with Allegra.”
“Do you want to be his friend?” Raoul asked his guest instead, unforgivably.
Matt scowled at him. Raoul had a girlfriend already. What was Raoul doing trying to steal his girl? “He’s got a girlfriend,” he informed Bouclettes just to make sure she didn’t get distracted. “Ignore him.”
“Umm, actually…” Bouclettes began, sounding hopeful, “is your girlfriend here? And sober?”
“Probably not sober,” Raoul said. “But better off than him. He just turned thirty.”
Matt gave him an indignant look. Was it necessary to mention that? This girl looked mid-twenties, tops.
“Matt. Who is this?” his cousin Damien appeared to ask. “And why are you picking her up and carrying her around your birthday party?”
Damn it, he knew he only had seconds with her before all his cousins started flocking in. “Go find your own girlfriend!” he snapped at Damien. Merde, now Tristan was circling in, too. Tristan and Damien liked putting on tuxedoes. And probably liked women with corkscrew curls, too. Whose tastes wouldn’t include those corkscrew curls? Matt wanted to squoosh those curls between his hands so bad.