Serena held his gaze. “And why is that? Hoping to score with some nameless cutie and then walk away without so much as giving up your name and number?”
Damn, she was a tough one. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Not even close. Just hoping to spend some time with this pretty woman for a while without any pre-conceived notions. To see if we click.”
She seemed satisfied and stuck out a hand, treating him to a dazzling smile. “Well, good luck tonight, then, Catman. Or, should I say, Batman.”
Interesting. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who thought he and Grace were meant to be together.
“That’s where I recognized that voice! Too funny,” Grace said with a laugh.
“Glad to help,” Serena said with an exaggerated curtsy. “I knew my obsession with Christian Bale would come in handy someday.” She gave him one last long look, then snapped her fingers and whirled to face Grace. “Oh, so listen, I talked to Chaz. Things are going great so far. He and I have a mini-date for a game of one on one strip poker at midnight. He said he’s willing to listen to my pitch as long as the game is in progress.”
Trick had to bite his tongue. Chaz was harmless, and Serena could chew him up and spit him out, but he didn’t like the idea of a friend having to take off clothes in a room alone with the guy. He was still weighing his options on how to say something without giving himself away when Grace burst into a fit of laughter.
“How in God’s name did you get him to agree to that?”
She raised her brows. “Easy. All I did was lean in and ask nicely.”
“And I imagine you didn’t think it was necessary to tell him that you’re a card mechanic.”
“He didn’t ask,” Serena said, with the shrug of her slim shoulders.
That made him relax some. He should have known she wouldn’t put herself in a situation that she didn’t have under control, at least not intentionally. She was one savvy woman, and more than once, he’d found himself wishing that Grace had a little more of that in her, if only for her own safety. Not tonight, though. Tonight her trusting nature was the key to getting her to realize that he was a changed man. One who could be a lot more than just a friend if she would let him.
The thumping music came to an abrupt stop, and something smooth and funky took its place.
“I’m going to go find a dance partner. I’ll be around, but I have my phone if we can’t find each other,” Serena said to Grace. “You two have fun.” She didn’t wait for a reply before turning around and diving headlong into the expanding crowd.
He bit back his sigh of relief. It was nice to know that she was on his side for the moment, but he fully expected to have to give her a full report the second she managed to get some time alone with him, which would not be tonight, if he had anything to say about it.
“I guess you’re probably wondering what we’re up to…”
He stared at her, confused.
“With Chaz.”
She eyed him questioningly, and he realized that he should have asked questions, like a person who didn’t know them and didn’t know what a game of strip poker had to do with a pitch would. Shit.
She shrugged. “Well, at any rate, we’re hoping to sign him on as a client with Love Will Find a Way. That’s our matchmaking company?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”
Her smile at that admission almost blinded him. “Serena’s got him on the line for a one-on-one, so fingers crossed.”
“That’s great. Yeah, I just didn’t want to seem nosy by asking, but fingers crossed for you guys. He’d definitely be a high-profile client.”
She seemed pleased by that response and got quiet for a second. “So,” Grace asked, in a voice almost too low to hear. “Do you, uh, dance at all?”
He tipped his head her way, and they locked eyes. He knew exactly how big of a step that was for her. She wasn’t the type to make the first or even the second move, so some part of her must be feeling something for Catman. Or maybe she felt safe in this crowded room, semi-hidden in a costume. Whatever the reason for this relative boldness, it sent his senses into overdrive. He didn’t do a whole lot of dancing, but even if she’d invited him to do the Harlem Shake in a pit of vipers, he wouldn’t have denied her.
“Sure,” he said and held out a hand. “You wanna?”
She nodded and set her glass down on the nearest table before taking his hand. He drained his pint glass and put it down next to hers, noting the tremble of her fingers in his. He knew the feeling. His whole body felt that way. How nuts was that? The last woman he’d been with had shown up on his doorstep at two a.m. wearing nothing but a raincoat, armed with handcuffs, hot fudge, and something that looked like a bridle, but this—holding Grace’s soft hand—had him in f**king knots.
It wasn’t like it was the first time they’d touched. There had been plenty of times he’d helped her over a steep part of a trail during a hike, or he’d given her a piggyback when her feet were tired from walking in heels after a night out. Hell, they’d played chicken in Serena’s pool over the summer, and she’d literally had her thighs wrapped around his head. But in spite of the resulting hard-on, it hadn’t felt like this. Full of possibility. Ripe with promise.
He had a chance.
For the first time ever, he had a shot of her looking at him with fresh eyes. Not as her buddy, Trick. And, more importantly, not as the guy who’d gone in that first day with a full-court press in hopes of getting her to sleep with him. She’d been so distraught early on, he’d aborted that mission fast. He loved sex, but only when both parties knew exactly what they were getting into. Whatever this pretty, young newcomer’s issues were, he wasn’t the guy to work through them with her.
So, they’d become friends. Then one day, six months later, he’d woken up with another blonde in his bed and found himself wishing she was a brunette. And that her negligee was a crappy old tank-top like the one his Gracie wore late at night when they sat on her porch drinking cheap beer or in the morning when she came out to get the paper. And that the woman next to him would wake the hell up and go home. Since then, sex had been on an as-needed basis and he hadn’t invited another woman to stay over, not that Grace had noticed. She still made the same old playboy jokes that he’d more than earned to that point. Now was his chance to start with a clean slate.
They stepped onto the portable dance floor that took up one corner of the room, and she looked up at him. The hat that had sat on top of her curls had worked its way forward and pushed a fat ringlet over one eye. God, she was lethal. So sexy and not a clue. He noted several guys glancing their way, sizing him up. He waited until her head was turned to give them the stare down. He had one shot at this, and he wasn’t about to let anyone screw it up for him.
The mid-tempo song that played faded out, and he said a silent prayer for a little help from the gods of bump and grind for a slow one.
“This one goes out to all the ladies,” the DJ crooned. “With love, from your host, Chaz.”
Their host, Chaz, was a total dickwad, but Trick could’ve kissed him on the mouth right then as the strains of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” poured from the speakers.
Grace tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and let out a weak chuckle. “Well this just got sorta weird.”
Weird was one way to put it. He would’ve said f**king awesome. He held out his arms and hoped he looked harmless. No easy task when he wanted nothing more than to flip her around and bury himself into her sweet heat from the back until she screamed his name.
He closed his eyes and forced the images out of his head. “I think it’s a great song. Don’t quit on me now.”
“Okay, Catman.” She nodded and took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
…
Coming home. That’s what it felt like. The tingles were firing like Donald Trump on double-elimination day, like pistols at a redneck family reunion, like hippies at a ceramics convention, as his arms wrapped around her, one hand cupping her hip, the other resting lightly on her waist. He smelled like pumpkin beer and vanilla soap, and she leaned in closer, circling his neck with her arms. Luckily, the boots she wore gave her a couple inches, or she wouldn’t have been able to reach. He was almost as tall as Tr—
“Your hair smells nice. What is that?”
“Gardenias. It’s my, uh, shampoo. I—I got it at Bath and Body Works.” Because that part was important to note? He tilted his head closer, and she thought she felt his chest rumble against hers. Was he laughing or purring? She swallowed hard, choking back the nerves that had resurfaced the second he spoke.
Don’t sell yourself short, Grace. He picked you out of this room full of beautiful women.
Besides, when was the last time she’d felt like this around a man? Probably never. Sure there were the weird misfires around Trick, and Victor had inspired some sort of visceral reaction the day she’d met him—although in hindsight she wondered if, in her desire to find a boyfriend at the time, she’d mistaken agita from a Chalupa earlier that night for tingles. Either way, this was major progress. Maybe tonight, with this nameless hottie, she could get the confidence she’d let her ex rob her of. It didn’t matter if her mystery man was a forever kind of guy. This was about finding someone who made her pulse skip and wasn’t her best friend. That was enough for now. She was only twenty-seven, for God’s sake. Surely that was still young enough to do something impulsive and fun?
And if he called tomorrow, all the better…
As Marvin begged his lady to “wake up, wake up, wake up”, she tucked in closer. Close enough that her br**sts pressed lightly into his muscular abdomen. Oh, that was nice. Her woefully neglected ni**les pebbled against the stiff silk of the corset and she drew back instinctively, hearing Victor’s annoyed rasp in her head.
“Is that all you ever think about?”
“Don’t pull away.” The gravelly voice dragged her back to the present. “You feel so good.” Her dance partner loosened his hold, giving her the freedom to back away if she chose. She liked that, and his earnest, sexy encouragement. Instead of backing up, she mustered her courage and pressed even closer.
They swayed to the groove until the crowd seemed to fall away. She let her eyes drift shut and the nice mellow of the wine take over. When she felt the need to run her hands down his shoulder to trace the hard contours of his chest, she didn’t let the voices in her head stop her. His fingers flexed on her hip and sent a bolt of heat to her belly. He liked it. He liked her. When the urge to stand on tiptoes and line her hips up with his slammed into her like a sumo wrestler, she didn’t think. She just acted, tilting her pelvis into his, nearly groaning out loud at the sweet pressure.
“Jesus,” he muttered, low and close to her ear. “If you keep that up, we’re going to need a cool down period before I can hobble off the dance floor.”
Joy bubbled through her like freshly poured fountain soda, and his warning felt more like a dare. She pulsed her hips against his, once…twice, and his growl felt like victory. The heat between her thighs spread, and she became aware of the thickening ridge in his pants, pressing insistently against her pubic bone. Every instinct clawed at her to grind against him, to take what shimmered so close she could almost touch it. She lifted her head and looked around. No one was even looking at them, and with the number of people and the dimness of the lights, even if they were, they wouldn’t see anything. Maybe—
“And if you do that exact thing right there one more time, we’re looking at a possible cleanup on aisle seven.” The Batman voice was gone. This one was straight Joe Manganiello. All warm, gritty need, and made her feel like the sexiest woman in the world.