I wasn’t wearing a tie, but if I was, I would have had to loosen it. That familiar knot of desire was tightening, twisting and making everything below the belt feel heavy and a little achy.

I cleared my throat and looked at my watch. “Well, let’s get this cocktail shindig over with.”

“We have enough time to get back to the hotel and change clothes. The reception is at the hotel.”

I smiled. “Even better then. If it’s boring, I can just bow out.”

“Or you can pull that move where you get the hot babe’s room key.” Her blue eyes glittered. “I won’t wait up.”

I already have the hot babe’s room key…and it’s the same as mine. I fought saying it but, oh, I thought it. April didn’t know about Friar Jordan’s New Law of Celibacy, so she threw out the occasional, sexy little snark bomb.

Two could play at that game, though. “Well, ya know, I’ve got condoms in my pocket at all times…just in case.”

I hadn’t brought condoms. Too tempting to carry them around. With those suckers handy, I’d know there was always a chance I could use them. Not having them accessible would help me stay on the straight and narrow.

“Of course you do.” She primly wiped her mouth with her napkin and stood.

Forty-five minutes later, I was pouring myself a mineral water from the minibar in the hotel room when April stepped out of her cubbyhole, fully dressed. She paused when she saw me, running her eyes over me from head to toe. I tried to ignore how much it turned me on when she looked at me like that. And, of course, she looked elegant and regal in her party attire.

She wore a light blue cocktail dress that came to just above her knees. It had a strap over one shoulder and fell down in waves around her breasts and hips like a Roman toga, only artfully tailored to show her feminine curves. She wore silver high-heeled sandals and jewelry to match. Her long hair was brushed out, shining around her shoulders and down her back. She looked like a million bucks, and I could have a lot of fun spending every dime of that.

I took a deep breath and jerked my attention away, taking a long gulp of my drink before I actually started drooling.

“You look very dashing,” she said.

“Thanks,” I grunted. She was probably waiting for a compliment in return, but I didn’t want to chance it. I already wanted to slip that toga off her shoulder and taste every inch that it covered. Shit. Even the thought of it was getting me hard. I didn’t even have to look at her. Goddamn it. Friar Jordan was struggling.

“Well, let’s get this bullshit over with,” I said and April nodded, tucking her phone into her sparkly clutch purse. “You need to be back before midnight or your carriage will turn into a pumpkin.”

She darted a look at me out of the corner of her eyes before slipping out the front door ahead of me. “Wrong princess. I’m supposed to eat an apple and fall into a death coma ‘til my prince comes around and wakes me up with a kiss.”

“It’s always a kiss that wakes them up…did you notice that? Snow White. Sleeping Beauty. Why a kiss?”

“Because the right kiss from the right person can wake anyone up.” She pressed the button for the elevator to take us down to the ballroom level where the reception was being held. “A touch of lips is such a simple thing…but ‘where heart, and soul and sense, in concert move, and the blood’s lava and the pulse ablaze, each kiss is a heart-quake.’”

I watched her lips, those full, ripe lips as she recited each and every word. “Is that from one of your books?”

“Don Juan. A poem,” she said simply, as if everyone should know that.

When we entered the reception room, April encouraged me to mingle, though I was reluctant to leave her side. I knew it was expected of me to mix with conference attendees, TED employees and journalists, but I had no real desire tonight. Plus, this was hardly my kind of scene. Too sedate.

There was no shortage of beautiful women, though—I did notice that. A few gravitated to me rather quickly and struck up conversations, but the minute April peeled off from my shoulder and went to stand at the edge of the room, I found myself seeking her out regularly, no matter who I was talking to, no matter what was said.

I refused the glasses of wine and cocktails being passed out on trays and did my duty while resisting the urge to look at my watch. What I couldn’t resist was watching April, who had found a group of people to stand with, one of whom seemed to be having the same problem I was.

And I couldn’t even get mad at the guy who was chatting her up, stroking her generously with his gaze. Because who could blame him? That ice blue dress, her shiny dark hair, those full, pink lips—she was a knockout.




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