Unable to drag his gaze from her, he drank in every delectable inch. “Let’s forget the reunion and stay here, so I can prove to you how not nice I am.”
Because her nice comment stung. What guy wanted to be described as nice?
Laughing, she rolled her eyes. “Be serious, Blake.”
He was serious.
He wanted her. Enough that he was tempted to push her onto the bed, push up that silky hemline, remove whatever skimpy, groan-worthy scrap of silk she was wearing, and kiss her until she begged him to take her.
Which drew him up short.
This was Darby, not some flavor of the month. Despite the fact he’d been pretending to be in love with her all weekend, he wasn’t. Acting on the sizzling attraction he was feeling toward her would ruin their business relationship, would ruin their friendship. A smart man would remember that.
Standing from the bed, he sighed with an exaggerated heave of his chest, determined to keep the mood light. She had enough on her plate tonight without having to deal with his unwanted sexual attraction. “If you refuse to stay here and let me see how few seconds it takes to get that dress off you, then let’s go before I do my best to change your mind.”
Her eyes gleaming with delight, she moved to the end of the bed. Her hips swayed, courtesy of her heels. “You’re good for a girl’s ego.”
“That’s me. Nice, and an ego booster.”
“Don’t make my compliment sound like a bad thing,” she admonished, checking her appearance in the mirror. “It’s not.”
“Because that’s how every man wants a beautiful woman to think of him. Nice, and her personal ego-fluffer.”
She laughed nervously, smoothed her hands over her skirt. “We’re alone, Blake. You don’t have to say things like that.”
He eyed her curiously, wondering at her uneasiness. “Like what?”
“That I’m beautiful.” She looked away, pink tingeing her cheeks. “Or that you want to get me out of my dress. You don’t have to pretend when we’re alone. Actually, I wish you wouldn’t, because when you do I start believing things that aren’t true.”
Pretend? Was she kidding?
He walked around the bed, lifted her chin to force her gaze to his. Staring down into her blue eyes, he resisted the urge to kiss her until there was no doubt about what was pretense and what wasn’t.
Instead, he stroked his finger along her jawbone, caressing her delicate features. He turned her toward the dresser, toward their reflection in the mirror. He stood directly behind her, close enough to feel her body heat, close enough to tease his senses with the brush of her dress against him. He was so hard he hurt, but this wasn’t about him. This was about Darby.
Even with her high-rise shoes, she barely came up past his chin, but they looked good together—her blonde, blue-eyed perfection next to his dark Italian features.
“Look in the mirror, Darby,” he urged, his gaze locked with hers. “See the woman I see. She’s beautiful. Every red-blooded male is going to envy me tonight because they’ll all know you’ll be coming back here with me.” He placed his hand on her bare shoulder, his fingers stroking over her soft skin, toying with the thin blue spaghetti strap of her dress. “You are a beautiful, intelligent, witty, desirable woman, and any man would count himself lucky to know you. I do.”
Wordlessly, she stared at their reflection, her eyes big, blue, searching his. She swallowed, inhaled a quick breath, and her lips parted. “Blake, I—”
He couldn’t breathe, thought he might suffocate at the heaviness that had come over his chest with his admission, with the way Darby was looking at him with a mixture of confusion and desire.
In that moment he knew he had to get out of the hotel, away from the queen-sized bed that called to him. He had to get air. Now.
Otherwise he’d forget thousands of years of human refinement, go Neanderthal, scoop Darby into his arms, and take what his every instinct dictated he possess.
“Come on, Dilly.” He grabbed her wrist. “Let’s go get this charade over with.”
Before he forgot to be nice and was as bad as he wanted to be.
“We sure could use a doctor in town,” the slightly over-weight brunette intoned, giving Darby a dramatic look as they talked over the band playing Lynyrd Skynyrd in the background. “Just think what might have happened to poor Bobby’s arm if you hadn’t been here. Cindy said the doctor told her what a great job you did splinting his arm. Thank goodness you were here.”
Darby smiled at Leah. They’d known each other since grammar school, but had never been close friends. The closest friend she’d ever had had stabbed her in the back. Over Trey.
“I second that,” a tall, nice-looking man said, stepping up to where they talked. He shifted his beer to his other hand and stuck his hand out to her, then to Blake. “Mark Lytle—nice to meet you. Hey, Leah.”
Darby shook his hand, trying to place him in her memory and coming up blank.