She returned his handshake, gasping when he raised her palm to his lips and pressed a soft kiss on her flesh. “Err…” Her cheeks flooded with warmth. “How do you know Mason Xavier?”
Blue eyes danced with open interest. A grin pulled at Thomas’s lips, flashing a hint of a dimple in his right cheek. “Who?”
“Okay.” James appeared at Thomas’s side, dropping a hand onto the other man’s broad shoulder. “Time to go.”
“Yeah, yeah, in a second.” Thomas barely tore his stare from her face. James scowled. “So tell me, goddess, where do you get your inspiration from?”
“Goddess?” Zach’s bray of laughter echoed through the converted warehouse. “Now you’ve got two billionaires drooling over—”
“That’s enough, Zach.” She tugged her hand free of Thomas’s grip with a backward step and stumbled sideways as her heel slipped on the wooden floor.
Both Thomas and James moved fast. James got to her first, his gaze unreadable as he smoothed a firm hand up her back, his other circling her wrist. “I’ve got you.”
She swallowed, unable to look away from his stare. “I…”
“Stilettos are the invention of a cruel male.” Thomas’s rich American accent played with her frazzled senses. “But if it helps, so are tuxedos. That’s why I’m going to this shindig dressed as I am now.”
She blinked. “You’re coming tonight?”
Thomas dropped her a wink. “Now I’ve met you, goddess, I’m not leaving your side.”
James groaned. His grip around her wrist grew firm before, with a strained breath, he tucked her hand on the crook of his bent elbow and scowled at his friend. “Sienna’s not interested in your overt charms, St. Clair.”
Thomas chuckled. “Says who?”
“Can I come tonight?” Zach piped up, swinging his grin back and forth between the two men. “This looks like it will be fun.”
“Zach.” A prickling heat razed over her body. James toying with her emotions was one thing, seeing him jealous over Thomas flirting with her? Whole other ball game. And he was jealous. The tension in his jaw, the way his nostrils flared every time his friend called her goddess gave it away.
The way he drew her closer to his body, as if claiming ownership with his proximity.
She swallowed. She should be furious. He had no damn right behaving so possessively. If she wanted to take Thomas up on his very obvious offer of a good time, she could. James was not her boyfriend. Hell, he wasn’t her anything except the man she was going to paint to rescue her from financial hell.
Says the deluded idiot.
Grinding her teeth, she withdrew her hand from James’s elbow and crossed to where Zach stood grinning at her. Before he could stop her, she dropped a brief kiss on his cheek and pointed a finger at his face. “No parties while I’m out.”
If her unexpected kiss took him by surprise, he didn’t show it. Perhaps he was still too starstruck by Thomas’s presence. “Yeah, yeah. Got it. Don’t worry about me. Just go have some fun.” He grinned. “And try to keep it quiet when you kiss him good-bye at the door later.”
“Kiss who?” Thomas asked.
Zach smirked. “That’s up to my sister.”
James stepped up beside her, a serious scowl on his face. Once again, he smoothed his palm over her back. “Time to go.”
The warm summer evening breeze caressed her bare limbs as they approached his Aston Martin. “Nice car.”
He beamed, opening the passenger door. “Thank you.”
“I have one just like it at home,” Thomas interjected, dropping into the backseat. “And a Ferrari. And a Bugatti. And a boat. Do you like boats, goddess?”
She smiled. “I get seasick, I’m afraid.”
James chuckled. “Nice try, St. Clair.”
“My father had an Aston Martin, once.” She turned her smile to him. “Totally pretentious veh—”
He kissed her; a soft brushing of his lips over hers that promised more. A kiss hinting at tenderness and want and desire.
A kiss that shook her to the core.
Thomas whistled, low and drawn out. “Is it really that way, dude? Or are you just throwing down the gauntlet?”