One Funeral (No Weddings #2)(25)
As we stood amid all those women in the flesh, I felt a little bit like a wallflower in the midst of royalty of the female species. The world’s most desirable sexual temptresses mingled around us, every one handpicked by Cade.
But all night, he’d only given cursory glances at the girls. In his mind, they were hired help. His only priority was making sure they made the client happy. Beyond that, he only looked at them with cool disinterest.
Lost in my mid-party analysis, I startled when Cade pressed into my side. When I glanced up, his eyes blazed with heat—for me.
His intense gaze roved down to where my breasts swelled above my low-cut top. He growled as his attention drifted back up, inch by slow inch. Without trying to hide our close contact beside the cake table, he pressed closer and slid his hands around my waist, dropping his head down to my neck. His lips dragged hot across my skin to just below my ear, and I shivered.
“You look amazing tonight, Maestro.”
I smiled, pushing at his arms with no real effort behind the gentle shove. “You’re just horny with all the tits and ass on display.”
He chuckled. “My eyes don’t see anything on display anywhere but here. I love your outfit. Tiny top, tight jeans, high heels” —he placed a soft kiss on my ear— “but it makes me imagine you in nothing at all.”
Even though he’d given me no reason to think otherwise, I couldn’t help but tease him. “You’re telling me not one of these girls meets your standards? Not even your ‘list’ standards.”
He pulled away, turning back toward the room, but kept one of his arms wrapped around me, a possessive hold on my hip. “Well, let’s see. Number twenty-three was perky, if I remember correctly.”
“Which one is she?”
He nodded in Dwight’s direction. “The one bent over, trying to get him to pull a cherry out of her tits with his teeth.”
I coughed, trying not to laugh. “So what exactly attracts you to twenty-three?”
His gaze swung back toward me. “Nothing. I played along to answer your question about my ‘list’ standards, which are now obsolete.” Heat sparked in his eyes. “The only woman I see, the only woman I want, is you.”
I sucked in a deep breath at his words, but before I knew what hit me, Cade crowded me back and tackled us hard into the wall behind the bar. A large potted palm was the only thing obscuring us from most of the room.
He growled low into my ear. “Don’t doubt what I feel for you.” Soft kisses dotted up my neck, teeth tugged at my ear. He pressed his groin into my hip, making evident countless hard inches of masculinity. “God, I’ve been dying inside to touch you, taste you.”
Trembling at the sudden flood of sensation, both physical and emotional, I nodded, swallowing hard. “Me too,” I murmured, running my hand up the back of his neck through his hair, confused at his sudden semipublic display of affection, yet too overwhelmed and turned on by it to care.
Aching heat speared between my thighs, and I groaned. Yeah, whatever the reason, the whole no-touch thing between us had been obliterated. And I didn’t want to reconstruct it.
I shuddered, pressing into him, needing more of his lips on mine.
But right as I committed to going further, he pulled back, sucking big gulps of air into his lungs.
I caught my breath too, staring into his wild eyes.
His gaze intensified. “The list was only a temporary placement card, names of attractive girls agreeable to my no-strings-attached terms. Not one of them looked like the parade of pinups here tonight, but none of them needed to. They only needed to be warm bodies, willing playmates.” He paused, grasping my chin between his finger and thumb when I began to turn away. “No girl on Earth will ever hold a candle to you, Hannah. You draw me in with real beauty. I’m blind to anyone else.”
My eyes widened. In a room full of sex kittens, with his pick of any girl anywhere in the world, he chose me. He wanted only me. The secret knowledge made my heart soar.
I smirked. “So you don’t want to see me in a bunny costume?”
He laughed hard, releasing my chin as his head fell back, rich sound booming out. Then he dropped his gaze back to mine, amusement glittering in his dark blue eyes. “Seeing you in a common bunny costume would be entertaining as hell, but it would be demeaning. I never want you in a bunny costume. Understood?”
I grinned, nodding.
He trailed a finger down my neck, across my collarbone, and down the outside of my bared shoulder. “But you know, I am partial to burlap bags…”
The mention of our inside joke, where he’d said I would look sexy as f*ck in nothing but a potato sack, made me smile.
“Cade? Hannah? That you guys hiding behind the plant?” Kristen turned the corner as Cade pulled away from me. She sent me a pointed look, then slid her attention to Cade.
A hot flush crept up my cheeks, guilt twinging through me over how he’d been hiding things from his sisters. We’d been hiding things. A part of me wanted to protect Cade, assuming there was a good reason he didn’t want them to know anything. But another part wanted him to stand up for us and stake his claim of me.
In the tense few seconds, I waited, needing to see what Cade would do. Cade and I hadn’t discussed sharing our situation with his sisters, and there was no way in hell I would cross that line on my own.