But wasn’t pretending to be lovers in the company of others worse? At least if they were alone the pressure would be off. They could just hang out as friends and enjoy each other’s company without worrying about giving off the wrong vibe or something. Besides, the more he acted like a lover around her, the more he wanted tobeher lover. He was wary of allowing the charade to go too far, to drift from an act into reality. He was aware of how slim the divide was between pretending to feel passion to actually feeling it. And he did feel it. He had not stopped feeling it from the moment she’d turned up outside his office that day. The trick for him was how to turn it off before someone got hurt.
Aerin turned to face him and he had to force his hands away from her shoulders, when all he wanted was to bring her closer. He opened and closed his fingers to try and stop them from tingling from touching her silken skin. But touching her had sent his blood on a low simmer and he knew it wouldn’t take much for a flame to leap into life.
‘Drake, you’ve been so good about this situation. It’s a perfect solution now that I think of it. It will reduce the risk of one of the girls taking photos that end up on social media. We can explain we want some time alone before we make any announcement about our relationship to our friends and family.’
Drake was glad she couldn’t read his mind at that point. He was still wondering how he was going to get through the night in this room with her. He prided himself on his self-control, but she was a temptation he had not been prepared for.
And he wasalwayssomeone who was prepared.
But this time...not so much.
CHAPTER FIVE
AERINENJOYEDTHEdinner dance much more than she had in years gone past. It was lovely being part of a couple, even though she and Drake, strictly speaking, were not a couple. They were acting. But every now and then he would glance her way and smile and her heart would lift like a helium balloon in her chest. Everyone was in a joyous mood and the chatter around the table as dinner was served was lively and convivial. Drake occasionally contributed in his charming and relaxed way, but for the most part he quietly observed the others without revealing too much about himself.
Chantal leaned close at one point to talk to Aerin, while her partner Taddeo chatted to Drake about a business investment he had planned in the IT sector.
‘Aerin, I’m so thrilled you and Drake got together,’ Chantal said. ‘How long have you been seeing each other? What does your brother think? Tom must be feeling pretty chuffed about you two hitting it off at last. And your parents. You’ve always had such high standards when it came to men. I thought you didn’t even like Drake. You used to turn your nose up whenever his name was mentioned in the past.’
Aerin decided it was best to stay as close to the truth as possible because Chantal, as a long-term school friend, knew a lot more about her than a casual acquaintance, even though they were not as close as Aerin was to Harper and Ruby. ‘It’s too early to say where our relationship is going but that’s why we’re keeping it quiet for now.’
‘Well, I think he’s gorgeous,’ Chantal said. ‘And the way he looks at you just about melts my heart.’ She gave a dreamy sigh and added, ‘God, I love seeing a man fall and fall hard.’
Mmm... Well, it did seem Drake was doing an award-winning performance of playing the besotted man in love. Aerin only hoped she was doing an equally stellar job. She cast her gaze in Drake’s direction and smiled and he smiled back and gave a cheeky wink that sent a hot wave of colour through her cheeks, not to mention her lower body.
But how much on her part was acting?
Aerin was starting to see him in a new light. The more time she spent with him, the more she realised how she had misjudged him in the past. His cynicism hid a sensitivity he didn’t want anyone to see. His determination not to fall in love hinted at a man who was shy of commitment because he wanted to avoid the pain of a break-up. It didn’t mean he couldn’t love but rather he chose not to.
Finally, the dinner was over and the dancing began. And instead of being a wallflower as she had been every year in the past, this time she was in Drake’s arms being spun around the floor as if they were the star performers at a dance academy.
‘I didn’t know you could dance so well,’ Aerin said, somewhat breathlessly as they did a fast-paced circuit of the floor, somehow, rather miraculously, she thought, avoiding colliding into all the other couples.
‘Look who’s talking.’ Drake drew her even closer to the hard frame of his body, his pelvis flush against hers. Hot tingles shot down her spine and her heart rate picked up, which had nothing to do with the energetic dancing. Being close to him stirred sensations in her she had never felt before. It was as if he lit a fire in her blood, a fire that smouldered and simmered and flickered with hot flames of lust. A lust she didn’t know how to control. It had never been part of her plan to have a fling with someone. She wanted to fall in love with the love of her life. Flings were temporary and casual, and nothing about how she envisaged her life going forward was temporary or casual. She wanted for-ever love. Total commitment, till death do us part love. But being with Drake made her question the strict code she had lived by. Maybe it was time for her to loosen up a bit. To explore the chemistry that had fired between them.
Aerin laughed. ‘You’re way too generous in your praise. I stepped on your toes at least three times back there.’
He grinned down at her. ‘I didn’t notice.’
The air was suddenly charged with a current of electricity that seemed to pulse between their locked gazes.Fizzzt. Fizzzt. Fizzzt.A current Aerin could feel in her body from her head to her toe and to each of her fingertips.
Aerin was aware of the broad span of Drake’s hand resting on the small of her back, the heat like a brand searing her flesh, warming her blood to boiling. A low deep throb drummed in her body, a call of nature so primitive and primal it was overwhelming.
Drake’s eyes darkened to obsidian and he bent his head lower, so his mouth was within touching distance of hers. He hovered there for an infinitesimal moment, which only ratcheted up her need to feel his lips on hers.
‘Kiss me...’ Her words came out on a barely audible whisper that, given the loud music playing, he couldn’t possibly have heard with any clarity. But then his mouth came down and set hers alight as if he sensed her need for him.
Drake’s lips closed over hers in a light press of flesh on flesh that sent a rocket blast through her blood. One of his hands came up to cradle the side of her face, the other remained in the small of her back, holding her to the burgeoning heat of his hardening male body. A blooming spreading heat that ignited her feminine flesh like a match on tinder, flames of need racing out of control to every erogenous zone in her body.
Drake finally lifted his mouth off hers and gazed down at her with a lopsided smile and glittering eyes. His hand still cradling the side of her face, his thumb stroking her cheek in a gentle caress that made her spine turn to liquid. ‘Would it upset everyone if we left tonight instead of in the morning? I know a place only an hour or so away but it’s completely private and that way you can have your own room.’
Aerin knew she shouldn’t be feeling such a deep pang of disappointment about him insisting on her having her own room. For close to thirty years she had never shared a room with anyone other than the occasional sleepover with a girlfriend or two. But at the heart of his suggestion was his concern for her comfort and that meant a lot to her. ‘But what will we tell them? I mean, about why we’re not staying here?’
‘I’ll tell them I’ve planned a romantic getaway for the two of us. A remote cottage near a loch and no neighbours for miles around.’
Aerin tilted her head on one side, studying him as if he were a complicated puzzle. ‘It does indeed sound very romantic. But aren’t you worried they might think you’re taking me away to propose to me or something?’
Drake shrugged one broad shoulder. ‘We both know that’s not going to happen.’