regarding her with unsettling intensity.
“Scared?” She laughed. “Now who’s playing at mind reader? You don’t know the first thing about Brit Patterson, do you? And if anybody, including you, thinks I’m going to put my heart and soul into Heavenly Treats, and then lose it over a little detail like the fact I’m not married, they can think again.”
The speech, she realized would have been more effective without the embarrassing hiccup in the middle of it.
She managed to restrain herself from blurting out the rest of her plan. After all the hard work she’d already invested in the place, her ad was going in the paper next week. Husband Wanted.
“I think it’s our turn.”
His voice was deep and sexy and full of authority. He was standing, his hand held out to her. He was such a commanding figure. He had loosened his tie, and she could see the strong column of his throat, the beginning of springy, dark hairs on his chest.
It would be nice if he was asking her to dance out of anything but a sense of duty, but of course that wasn’t the case. The rest of the wedding party was joining the bride and groom on the dance floor.
Brittany put her hand in Mitch’s.
Another shock of awareness shivered through her as his hand, warm and dry and infinitely strong, closed around hers.
A moment later they were on the dance floor. The band was playing a waltz.
He danced very properly. No pulling too tight and groping for him. A good-sized gorilla could have inserted itself in the space between them. She glanced up at his face. Remote. Nothing in it to suggest he shared her feeling of wanting to move a little closer, hold a little harder.
She decided, just a touch fuzzily, that it should be a criminal offense to be as good-looking as he was.
She would have to tell Abby, at some more opportune occasion, that this was the kind of surprise she did not need in a life that was already thoroughly and not always pleasantly surprising. Still, she supposed it was the kind of thing sisters did, and she knew Abby had meant well setting her up. But then who could have guessed he was such a grouch?
Mitch danced flawlessly, which did not surprise her. Everything about him would be flawless. He probably ironed his underwear.
Suddenly, she had to be looking anywhere but at him. What if he looked in her face and saw how hopelessly chaotic he made her thoughts? What if he saw that as effortlessly as he had seen she was scared?
“Lucky guess,” she muttered.
“Pardon?”
“Lucky dress,” she said. “The one my sister Corrine is wearing. She told me.”
He looked like he thought she was drunk, which she wasn’t. She was only the tiniest bit tipsy. He was the one making her act impaired. His presence, his hand intertwined with hers, the aroma coming off him of soap, and aftershave.
The attraction felt like a beast within her, leaping, hurling itself against a chain-link fence, frothing at the mouth, completely ignoring her feeble commands to get in control.
By now, if Mitch had an ounce of good old hot, red blood flowing in his veins, he really should have noticed how terrific she looked beyond the paint.
She decided, abruptly, that she had had it with Mitch Hamilton and his indifference to her considerable charms.
She felt cut to the quick, hurt beyond reason.
She wanted to tear herself away from him, run and hide in the bathroom. And then after everyone was gone, she could come out and limp home in her high-heeled shoes in the darkness.
Pathetic, she told herself. She would not be pathetic. Besides, if she did that, if she ran away and hid, he would know he could affect her. And she wasn’t going to let him know that.
She knew she had to do the exact opposite of running away. Her life depended on it. Her whole sense of her self.
She closed the distance between them, pressed herself into the long length of his body. Remain indifferent to that, she challenged him silently.
At first he went very still, and then his hand found the small of her naked back and pressed her into him, yet closer. His body was somehow more than she had expected. Harder. She could feel the ridges of his muscles against her own softness.
She hadn’t really expected this. To feel as if she had been born to dance with him as surely as Abby had been born to dance with Shane. She hadn’t expected to feel powerless instead of powerful.
Stunned by the feelings shooting through her, and by how vulnerable and needy they made her feel, she committed more deeply and more desperately to convincing him the exact opposite was true.
She kissed him.
At first his lips, tasting of raindrops and honey, were motionless, absolutely still, beneath hers. She registered, in slow motion, how soft they felt, when they looked so hard.
Have some pride, she ordered herself, pull away.
But her lips mutinied and did exactly as they pleased. The beast howled happily within her. She wanted to taste Mitch, could not get enough of the taste of him, would forgo champagne forever in favor of this much headier blend. Her lips nudged his, slid across them, coerced, begged.
And when his lips answered, her world exploded, was annihilated. Her whole world became sensation, the touch of his lips on hers. Everything and everyone else faded.
They were alone, their world only this.
The kiss was like a rocket ignited, that soared heavenward and exploded into tiny fragments of delight. She could feel the fragments of that kiss float through her, until not one part of her was left untingling. Her whole body seemed to shake and shimmer, to take on an almost iridescent quality.
He pulled away first, and she stared up at him, dazed, shell-shocked from the abrupt transition from one world to the other. His blue eyes were dark and unreadable, but she could feel the faintest tremor, desire leashed, where his hand rested on the small of her back.
She laughed, shakily. She’d blown it. How could he remain unaware that he affected her after that?
He did not return her smile.
Lightly, she said, “How much do you know about the gifts my sisters and I are receiving?”
“Enough.”
You’re playing with fire, her mind warned her, but the champagne kept her going.
Why not him? She needed a husband, and he could kiss like a house on fire. That could certainly make up for his lack of a sense of humor. She could ask carelessly, she could appear not to be the least concerned about his answer.
“You might want to think about the conditions of my receiving my gift.”
“Conditions?” he asked, his voice smooth and unperturbed, those ocean foam eyes unsettling in their steadiness on her face.
“You know what I’m talking
