“Tell me more. Tell me more.” She slammed her hand over her mouth. What was wrong with her?
He reached up and removed her hand from her mouth. “You want to know more? I’ll tell you more. If you were to break those rules, then you’d need to be punished.”
Holy. Crap.
No way should make her feel as hot as it did. Her panties were growing damp with her arousal as she pressed her thighs together.
“P-punished?”
“Yes. Punished.”
“How?”
“Well, it would be something that we’d both have to agree on. I’d never harm you. But my choice would be to take you over my knee and spank that gorgeous ass of yours.”
It was a like a glass of water thrown over her fantasy. He was obviously completely drunk. There was no way he’d do that to her.
“My ass isn’t gorgeous.”
His gaze narrowed, anger filling his face. What had she said?
“Don’t speak about yourself that way. And when I give a compliment, I mean it.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I don’t say anything I don’t mean.”
Someone walked through the door but didn’t look their way. However, Butch still stepped back. Great, was he ashamed to be seen with her? She swallowed heavily, dropping her gaze to her feet. She winced at the state of them. Great. They were filthy.
After the person stumbled down the passage, he turned back to her.
“I need to go. I don’t have any shoes on.” She tried to slip past him into the bar, but he grabbed her arm.
Her breath stuck in her chest as a zing of pleasure raced through her. “Lara?”
“Yes.”
“Look at me.”
Awesome. She glanced up at him quickly. Why didn’t someone else walk in? Or out? What was taking Emily and Bianca so long?
Probably had to fix their makeup and hair. She knew all too well how long that could take. She’d had to share a bathroom with Emily when they were younger.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a low, cajoling voice that nearly had her spilling every problem she had.
There were a lot.
“I’m just tired. I want to go back to the motel. So if that’s all . . .”
“What time is the wedding?” he asked abruptly.
Huh? Why would he care about that?
“Um, it’s at four.”
“Next Saturday, right?” he asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“Because I’m going to come with you.”
“What?”
She heard some voices coming from behind her. Shoot. Was that Bianca and Emily? Butch took hold of her hand and led her further down the other hallway they were standing in.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
Was he taking them somewhere quiet so he wouldn’t be seen with her?
Don’t be silly, Lara.
He’s not Axel.
Asshole.
They ended up at a fire exit.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to call you a taxi and make sure you get into it safely.”
“But what if I don’t want to go?” she asked. She did. She just wasn’t sure that she was okay with him making those decisions for her.
Ah, who are you kidding? You are loving this dominant side of him.
He seemed very different from the man in the bar, though.
“You don’t have any shoes. You can’t go through the bar or somewhere else with no shoes. Besides, you said just before that you wanted to go back to your motel.”
She glanced at her feet. “You make a valid point. Also, the floor won’t stay still. Is there an earthquake?”
“You’re the one moving, not the floor,” he said dryly, pulling out his phone. “Where’s your phone?”
“Oh, is yours dead? I hate when that happens. Here you are.” She drew her phone out of her handbag.
“This is your phone?” he asked, staring down at it like he’d never seen something like it before.
“Yeah. Why is it dead too?” She leaned against him, peering into the phone. “Wow, you smell good.”
“Thanks, I showered.”
“I can tell. Kudos to you on the showering.”
He gave a small chuckle that made her smile. “I’m putting my number into your phone.”
“You are? That’s nice. Why?” she asked.
“Because I’ll need details about the wedding. And if I’m gonna be your fake-boyfriend, I might need some details about you.”
Damn. She wished he wanted those details because he wanted to be her actual boyfriend.
“Ugh, you don’t want to go to the wedding. I don’t want to go. Unfortunately, I have to. But you don’t. Save yourself!” she cried dramatically.
“I didn’t know people still had phones this old,” he muttered, ignoring her.
“It’s old but it works. Well, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s a bit temperamental. Why would you want to go to the wedding with me?”
“Maybe it’s because of the free booze and food. I might be a serial weddingist.”
“Weddingist? Is that a word?”
“Doubtful. Here’s your phone.” He handed it back.
“Oh, how did you get it? Did it fall out of my bag? Sometimes I accidentally leave stuff places. Drove Axel nuts.”
“Who’s Axel?”
“My boyfriend.”
He stiffened, but she had no idea why. It was hard to catch a thought right now. Those Tingles had really gone to her head. And the rest of her body. Hmm, how had her phone gotten into her hand? Was she supposed to be doing something with it?