Marisa stared at his shirt, contemplating her options. The cotton was very white. Snowy, it could be said. Her gaze followed the line of buttons to his throat, where his bow tie rested, straight and begging to be tweaked.
She slid her hand up his chest. Took one end of the tie in her fingers. Pulled.
Luke instantly looked down. “What are you doing?”
Maris ignored the demand in his tone. Slowly she flicked open the buttons of his shirt, one by one, exposing smooth, brown skin.
Oh yeah. Hot. So hot.
He’d come to a dead stop. “Marisa? What are you—”
She rose up on her tiptoes, leaned forward, and pressed a kiss onto the lapel of his shirt. Her signature deep red contrasted beautifully with the white cotton.
Abruptly, Luke let her go, and she wasn’t slightly disappointed at the loss. Oh no, she wasn’t.
“What the hell?” He was staring down at the mark her mouth had left, growing horror on his face.
Ah, finally, signs of life. “I’m making sure you look like someone’s been playing with you.”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “You put lipstick on my goddamn shirt.”
“It’s just a little lipstick.”
“Just a little—”
“Hey, I told you I didn’t want to dance, okay? So when I’m done dancing, I’m done dancing.”
Luke opened his mouth, probably to argue, but she’d made her point. She was over it.
And the quicker she got away from him the better.
Marisa smiled, blew him a kiss, then turned on her heel and walked off the dance floor.
…
There was lipstick on his collar. Lipstick. On his collar.
For a minute Luke just stared at Marisa Clair’s retreating green figure, too angry to do anything.
He hadn’t paid much attention to her since they’d been introduced at the pre-wedding party, although he already knew who she was since Compass, his media company, had taken over Total Tech and he didn’t forget a name. He hadn’t seen any real need to get to know her. She was the PA to the Total Tech editor in chief, far down in the pecking order, and besides, she seemed to be the pretty blond type who sometimes threw themselves at him. The kind who got off on his money or the fact that he was CEO of one of Auckland’s biggest financial companies. He didn’t pay those kind of women much attention.
He preferred serious, intellectual women, and Marisa struck him as neither serious nor particularly intellectual. She’d already been caught breaking several of his new rules, including the one against workplace relationships, which showed him exactly how seriously she took her job. Which was not at all.
She was irritating.
Irritating. Yes. But you weren’t thinking irritating just a moment ago.
No, just a moment ago she’d felt soft in his arms. The curves of her body fitting his in a way…
Luke forced the thoughts out of his head.
Attraction to Marisa Clair was not only highly inappropriate, it was also extremely unwelcome. He’d been dancing with her only because Joseph had asked him to. Because it was expected at a wedding.
Dancing was the very last thing he wanted to do, anyway. He loathed it. The only way he could manage was to count the beat so he wouldn’t stand on her feet. The problem was that once he started, he had to finish.
Not finishing offended every single one of his compulsions.
Luke started after her, following her lush green-clad figure as she dodged the other couples, heading back toward the head table to sit with the rest of the wedding party.
She’d gotten there by the time he caught up, and was picking up a glass of champagne and taking a good, healthy sip.
He stopped right behind her. “Why did you do that?” he demanded.
She muttered a curse, paused, then turned around. Wide, lapis-blue eyes framed by thick, dark lashes stared up into his. Those lashes fluttered. Her full red mouth turned up in a smile that could only be termed seductive. “Do what?”
Luke didn’t respond to blatant sexual overtures from women. Flirting was, in his opinion, a pointless exercise. If you wanted sex you found someone who wanted it, too, and then you went to bed. You didn’t spend hours circling around the subject or talking about it endlessly.
He frowned. “Do what? You put lipstick on my collar.” He didn’t look down. He could almost feel the stain ruining the clean whiteness of his shirt. It was slightly off-center too, which made the whole thing immeasurably worse. Looking down would make him have to go home and change it. And then he’d have an even tougher dilemma—complete the dance first or change?
“Oh yeah.” She leaned back in the chair. “So I did.”
The music was winding down and soon the song would be at an end. The dance would be unfinished.