Oh, wait, hadn’t he said he was never wearing a tux again? Not for any woman or any reason?
He…he…he…Layla stood up, coming closer to him, and he looked down at that face that seemed so little in the midst of all that hair, at those green eyes that were laughing at him as if her laughter was a warm wash of affection, and he decided he could make an exception.
Chapter 13
Gabe’s tux was a little classic for Matt. You could tell Gabe hadn’t spent much time at perfume launch parties with the most elite fashion designers in the world and all their models, lucky bastard. Matt rooted through his cousin’s drawers a bit to try to find a black T-shirt he could pair with the tux instead of the white shirt, but apparently Gabe had never gone through a black phase in his life.
No surprise there, with Gabe, when he thought about it.
So he left the collar open, because damn but he hated those stupid little ties, and anyway, Damien never wore them, and Damien in a tux made James Bond look like a wannabe awkwardly aping his betters.
The fact that he made Matt look that way too was profoundly annoying, but fortunately Damien wasn’t here tonight to make a better impression.
No tie, he thought firmly, staring at himself in the mirror. A man who had vowed to never put on a tux for a woman again had to draw the line somewhere. Besides, they were going to dinner in a three-star restaurant in the south of France, not to a perfume launch in Paris. He didn’t have to go overboard here.
He stared a second more, then abruptly started searching through Gabe’s bathroom cabinet drawers for fresh blades for his razor.
Tante Colette might hate it when he and his cousins knocked instead of coming right in, but Matt figured that if a man got all suited up to take a woman out, he should knock on the door when he came to pick her up. He kind of wished he had a rose in hand to offer her, too, and—
That’s enough out of you about the roses. Quit doing that.
Then Layla opened the door with that happy smile on her face, and all his focus zoomed in on it. Damn, she was kissable. He rested his upraised hand against the stone above the door, thinking about going for it—just stepping right in and making this a habit, that he got a kiss whenever she opened her door to him—but then she got a good look at him, and the smile fell off her face.
She looked as if she’d been hit by a truck.
“What?” he demanded uneasily, glancing down at himself.
She pressed fingers to her mouth.
Okay, shit, what? He locked his still upraised arm against the doorframe above her, braced for the worst. Since he stood in the street, one foot on the step that led up to the door, their faces were almost on a level for once.
“Oh, and you shaved,” she said in a stunned voice. Her fingers left her mouth to stretch toward his chin, and all the skin on his jaw prickled awake in anticipation. And then she curled her fingers back into her hand and dropped it, which about drove that eager skin mad with frustration.
He bit back a rumble of protest, trying to behave.
Oh, to hell with it. He grabbed her hand and brought it to his jaw. Shit, yes, that felt so good. The warmth of her palm against his skin. The way her fingers shifted in a tiny testing of his texture. The way her eyes dilated, black taking over the green. Oh, yeah. That felt just right.
“You can’t keep doing this to me,” she murmured in a strange, helpless voice.
He hadn’t done anything, had he? Well, he’d stolen that caress of his jaw, but she hadn’t objected.
She waved her other hand. “First the no T-shirt thing, and now a tux.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “I have a weak nature, you know. There’s only so much I can take.”
Whoa. His whole body woke up in this hungry wave of delight as he realized what was happening. She liked the way he looked. Liked it as in…hungry liked it. And it made his own hot hunger leap even higher.
He pressed his weight into his arm above her, leaning in more. God, but he loved this position. Her in a doorway, him closing her in. “Before you do what?”
“Before I dissolve, I think.” Her fingers flexed against his jaw. “Or possibly attack you.”
Oh, did he ever like the sound of that. “I’m wide open.” He leaned in closer. “I’m not defending myself.”
Her eyes widened and ran over him, and she shivered and closed her eyes tight. “No, seriously, you have to stop. You have no idea how sexy you are, do you? You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”
Her words surged through him, a geyser of demanding heat, until he had to lock his other hand against the frame of the door, too, gripping that sharp stone edge with all his might to keep himself in control. “What the hell do you think you’re doing to me?”