“No.” Her voice shook. “No.”
“That’s why you slipped Golden Boy’s key into your purse right in front of me with all the subtlety of a high school marching band. You expected me, wanted me, to stop you. How am I doing?”
She felt sweat beading her forehead. Legs shaking beneath her, she didn’t have the ability to do anything but tell the truth. “I-I kept thinking you’d follow me. Stop me from going inside. When you didn’t…I pictured you anyway. Touching me.”
“Goddamn right you did,” Reed growled, cupping her mound and squeezing. “You thought I’d let someone else touch this? Not a fucking chance.”
Cool air washed over her bottom as he lifted her skirt over her hips, leaving her backside completely exposed to him, save her cotton thong. She’d never behaved so provocatively in private, let alone in a public place. As the restaurant didn’t open until dinnertime, they were alone in the empty lounge area, but people would be arriving soon to prepare for the evening. The encompassing heat turning her limbs to liquid battled with her ingrained sense of propriety. “Reed, someone might see us. Please…”
“I wouldn’t allow anyone to look at you like this.” His deeply aroused voice sent a shiver racing up her back. Very slowly, he nudged aside the material of her panties and sank his thumb inside her, pressing firmly against her front inner wall. She gasped at the unexpected pressure, her thighs tightening around his hand reflexively. “No, no. Keep them open. Let me find your spot. I’ll be the first to touch it, won’t I?” He gave a low groan as he rotated his thumb. “I bet in college you barely ever let anyone under those too-short skirts. Dying for a man, weren’t you?”
His thumb brushed over some hidden part of her and with a throaty cry, she nearly toppled from the ladder, but caught herself on the wooden beam at the last second. “Reed. I’m…I’m going to fall.”
“No. You will not fall. You will stay right there until I’m finished.” His thumb found the sensitive area again and smoothed over it, once, twice, as if coaxing it to life. Then he began to stroke it rapidly with the pad of his thumb. Julie couldn’t form a single thought as the orgasm came hurtling through her system, blasting her with such blissful heat she became unaware of anything but the place Reed made contact with her body. Her head fell forward as she rambled unintelligently, eyes blind as the area between her legs contracted and released over and over again. She felt his teeth sink into the flesh of her ass, then his tongue lick over the spot to soothe the sting.
A door slammed somewhere out in the main dining room. Before Julie could process the sound or what it meant, Reed pulled her off the ladder and tucked her against his chest protectively.
His mouth brushed over her ear. “Think you can stand, baby?”
The teasing hint in his voice stirred her temper. She’d just experienced an exceptionally intense climax. With someone she had no business making time with. Didn’t even like. And he had the nerve to make jokes. She squirmed out of his embrace and smoothed her dress down over her legs hastily. “Oh, I think I can just about manage. If I swoon, there are smelling salts in my purse.”
“A few more minutes on that ladder and they might have been necessary.”
“Didn’t your mama ever teach you arrogance is a sin?”
“You love the way I sin.”
Julie opened her mouth to respond when Christine breezed into the room and came to an almost comical halt, flushing a deeper red than her hair. “Oh. Uh…I just came to see if I could help with the dickorating. I-I mean…decorating. Oh, God. Am I interrupting something?”
Without breaking eye contact with Reed, Julie answered brightly. “You’re not interrupting, sweetheart. Mr. Lawson here was just about to take himself off.” When Reed’s jaw flexed in irritation, Julie smiled, let her gaze drop for a split second to his jeans. She had the sudden urge to put him in his place, throw him off-kilter like he’d so effortlessly done to her. “I’m guessing he needs to go stroke his ego in private for a while,” she whispered for his ears alone.
He shook his head once, slowly. “That’s a dangerous game you’re playing.”
Feeling bold, Julie shrugged with indifference. “Yet I appear to be winning. Two to nothing.”
“Not for long.”
“I guess we’ll see.”
Reed leaned in so close, his breath fanned across her lips. “Oh, don’t worry, pixie. When this week is over, I’ll have seen every inch of you.”
With a nod in Christine’s direction, he turned and left.
Chapter Seven
Reed sat alone in the corner of Spago, animated conversation and scraping silverware creating a noisy void around him as he watched Julie flit about the room, practically sprinkling pixie dust everywhere she went. She hadn’t sat down once in the last two hours, nor had she stopped to eat her plate of duck confit salad that still sat untouched at her table. As if salad were a meal. Being in law enforcement, he observed people for a living and he had to admit, he’d never watched someone quite as interesting as Julie. He’d concluded during the earlier cocktail reception that she must possess a built-in mechanism for homing in on guests who were having a less-than-perfect time. Within seconds, she’d have them dazzled with some amusing anecdote, introducing them to another guest with whom they magically seemed to have something in common.
She signaled waiters to refill drinks, straightened tablecloths, and gushed over everyone’s outfit, whether or not it was warranted. She listened to boring stories from Colton’s grandparents with nothing short of captivated interest on her pretty face. She lowered the music. She turned it back up.
Yet she refused to sit the hell down and eat something. For the life of him, Reed could not understand why he cared that she was likely starving. Or that those silver high heels were surely doing a number on her feet. Or if her face was going to crack from all that smiling. It shouldn’t make a damn speck of difference to him. Only something continued to bother him about that phone call with her mother he’d overheard this afternoon. The one that had filled her big blue eyes up with tears and made her go pale. Not everyone can be that perfect, she’d said. How much more perfect could one get? Oh, he knew what lay underneath the bright, shiny surface. He could hardly stand waiting to glimpse it again. But this on-the-surface Julie? He couldn’t find one single imperfection. Not one flaw that hinted at the vulnerable girl beneath. Obviously, she felt the need to keep up the illusion of perfection around the clock. He suspected there was more to the reason than simply a desire to decorate and make folks happy.
Damn it if he wasn’t impatient to find out the reason. So he could tell her it didn’t preclude her from sitting down and letting everyone else fend for themselves for ten goddamn minutes while she ate a plate of fancy lettuce.
Without a single glance in his direction, she slid into the booth behind him where an older couple sat eating braised short ribs. Reed didn’t recognize them but he suspected they were related to the bride. He sighed as she launched into another excited greeting wherein he already knew she wouldn’t pause for breath once.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, is that you eating over here all alone, bless your hearts? I’ve been looking high and low trying to find you two. Just how big are those grandbabies now? Strapping young men is what they are. I’ll tell y’all a secret, they look just like you, Mr. Wilcox, and doesn’t that just spell trouble for the young ladies in their class? You best keep an eye on him tonight, Mrs. Wilcox. He’s got the look of a smooth operator if I ever laid eyes on one. A plain old fox in a henhouse. Let’s get you a refill on that champagne.”
By the end of her speech, Reed was massaging his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. How did she do it? Her bubbly energy was inhuman. She’d done her part by decorating the whole damn place, which even Reed had to admit looked pretty damn spiffy. Now she had to go around making sure everyone felt warm and cuddly, too?
Reed slid out of the booth and crossed the room to lean against the bar next to Brock, who sipped his beer pensively as he watched Rega
n on the other side of the room.
“Seems I might have to make an effort with that one,” he said sourly.
“Welcome to my world.”
“Blondie causing you trouble?”
Reed grunted as he tipped back the beer the bartender placed in front of him. “I wouldn’t call it trouble, so much as an ulcer.”
Brock laughed. “Sounds promising.”
“I guess we’ll see,” Reed responded, grimacing as he heard himself repeat Julie’s earlier words. He didn’t like their ring of uncertainty. It had been a long time since he’d been uncertain of anything. Perhaps it bothered him even more at that very moment, surrounded as he was by some of the only people in the world who knew so much about that uncertain period of his life. When, as a kid, he hadn’t known where his next meal would come from. Whether or not he’d make it through to next week. If his father would come up with the rent money gambling, or they’d once again be forced into a shelter until he hit another “lucky” streak.
Brock nudged him with an elbow, dragging him from his dark reverie. He jerked his chin toward a corner of the lounge where large poster boards had been set up, cluttered with pictures of Kady and Colton, encompassing their lives from birth to the present. Staring up at them was Sophie, Colton’s little sister and thus, their surrogate sister, looking lonely and out of place in workout pants and an oversize T-shirt. Nodding in unspoken agreement, he and Brock made their way toward Sophie, coming up on either side.
She jumped at their sudden appearance, and tugged self-consciously at her shirt. “Oh boy. You guys aren’t going to give me a noogie, are you?”
Brock smiled and tapped her on the nose. “Rest assured. I’m on my best behavior. I can’t speak to Reed’s intentions, mind you.”
He felt a smile threaten when Sophie quirked a censorious eyebrow at him. He’d always had a soft spot for the shy, slightly pudgy girl who’d shadowed them during those hot summers in Manchester all those years ago. She’d lost the pudge sometime since he’d last seen her, but the shy had stuck around. Like her brother and Brock, she’d never judged him or made him feel like he didn’t belong with the well-raised children. Even though he probably hadn’t belonged, despite their assurances. “I ought to noogie you, Miss Sophie. I thought we had a deal. You don’t tell anyone about that issue of Penthouse and we let you come swimming at the lake on Tuesdays.”