I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about him.”
I didn’t have a chance to respond before he continued talking.
“He was a funny kid. Stubborn as hell and a pain in the ass. He’d do the dumbest things. He’d go out back and touch our cactus and then come inside crying because it hurt. Arlene would calm him down and then he’d go do it again.”
I giggled. I could imagine Cole as an adorable little boy just learning how to be the stubborn man he eventually grew into.
“When he was little, he used to take off his clothes all the time. It started when we’d gone to a deserted beach and he was wearing jeans. He didn’t have his swim trunks, so we told him to go in the water naked. Well then he thought it was okay to do it whenever he wanted. Once he even took off his clothes in the middle of a department store.”
My giggles turned into full on laughs.
“I’ll save myself from further embarrassment by cutting in.” His voice was deep, and I caught his scent before I saw him. Jack smiled at me and made a face like he’d gotten in trouble.
“I’m off to get Arlene some more wine.” He elbowed Cole in the ribs. “She gets a little randy after she’s had a few.” He laughed and scampered away to find his wife while Cole rolled his eyes in disgust.
He took my small hand in his big one, and my entire body flushed with heat at his proximity. Our hands had never touched before. If anything, he did his best to avoid any sort of contact with me.
His skin against mine was electric.
Just our hands touched, but it felt as if he was touching me everywhere.
He laced one arm around my waist as the notes of another ballad filled the room. We were dancing like old people, my hand in his, his arm around my waist, and my other hand resting on his shoulder.
That big, broad shoulder hidden behind his tuxedo coat.
My fingers flexed involuntarily, and I couldn’t help but notice how hard his entire body was beneath that sexy tux. My mind wandered and my mouth watered as I thought back to that picture I’d seen of him wearing just his swim trunks. That mental image mixed with the man in the flesh sent an aching need right to my core.
He pulled me just a bit closer to him, surprising the hell out of me, and I felt something rigid pressing against my hip.
Holy. Shit.
Was he as hot for me as I was for him?
No way. There was no possible way.
But his erection digging into me told a completely different story.
“What was my father telling you?” he asked in a deep rumble. I looked up into his eyes.
God, he was handsome. His milk chocolate irises had golden flecks in them that I’d never been close enough to notice before, and his breath smelled of peppermint.
I couldn’t think when I was this close to him. Words caught in my throat.
“That bad?” he asked. I sensed his nervousness.
I cleared my throat and broke our eye contact so I could think. “Just a proud father bragging about the time his son took off his clothes in a department store.”
“God. He tells everybody that stupid story. I’m surprised this is the first time you’ve heard it.”
I smiled. “It’s not so bad.”
“I was ten.”
I choked on my laugh as I tried to hold it in.
“It’s okay. You can laugh.”
I didn’t hold back, and even Cole chuckled along with me. I couldn’t help the joy that filled my heart in hearing even a small chuckle out of the man who was in a perpetual bad mood.
I made the mistake of looking up at him as we both laughed. When he smiled, adorable little crinkles outlined his eyes and he had a tiny dimple in just his left cheek. He looked carefree and young, ten times more beautiful than he had just moments earlier.
But when our eyes met, the mood instantly changed.
Neither of us was laughing anymore. Instead, an intense heat passed between us and the air around us filled with a raw and savage tension.
Cole cleared his throat and looked away first.
“Your speech went really well,” I said softly.
He