Best Man with Benefits (Wedding Dare, #4, McCade Brothers, #3)(13)

The chore took no time, and soon enough she was back in the room, sipping champagne and trying to look casual and relaxed. She wandered over to the reading area, sat in one of the two cushy armchairs, and placed her feet on the ottoman. The chair seemed to swallow her. She felt like a four-year-old sitting in her father’s recliner. Not sexy. Not seductive.

She climbed out of the chair, opened the curtains, and attempted to look absorbed by the natural beauty on display through the floor-to-ceiling French doors. Unfortunately, even with the enormous moon glowing down on the pine-studded peaks, there wasn’t much of a view at night. The pose felt contrived.

Her gaze wandered to the bed. Did she dare? She glanced at the bathroom door. The sound of the shower pattered behind the wooden barrier. Give it a try, her inner vixen insisted. She put her glass on the nightstand, shucked off her slippers, and crawled onto the bed, then leaned back against the pile of pillows stacked at the headboard. Okay, that felt fairly normal. She looked down at herself. Her arms lay by her sides and her legs stretched straight out in front of her. More virgin sacrifice than va-va-voom. She adjusted the front of her robe so it wasn’t bundled up all the way to her throat, and bent one leg until the robe draped to either side and left everything from mid-thigh to ankle exposed. For a minute she wished for a mirror on the ceiling, so she could see if she looked sexy or just plain stupid.

She took a fortifying gulp of her champagne and considered the room. Maybe she’d feel less on display if it wasn’t so darn bright in the suite. The entryway light burned, plus the nightstand light, and a standing lamp by the chair in the reading area.

The shower stopped.

All right, she couldn’t reach the entryway light without getting out of bed, and she might not have enough time to get over there, flip the switch, and jump back into bed looking casual and relaxed before he came out of the bathroom. The nightstand light was too small to make much difference either way. The standing lamp had a switch on its cord. If she stretched her arm, maybe she could—

The lock on the bathroom door clicked as the knob turned. Okay, don’t panic. Maintain the pose, just stretch a little farther. Hurry. Her fingertips brushed the cord, made a grab…and missed.

The bathroom door opened.

Gravity tackled her and dumped her onto the floor.

Ohmigod! So much for seductive, unless Logan had a thing for Humpty Dumpty. Of course he was at her side in an instant, all careful hands and concern, but the only thing she could think of was the sight she made, facedown on the low-weave, with rug burns on the heels of her hands. She started to push up onto her knees, but Logan got a grip on her upper arms and in one smooth, seemingly effortless move, lifted her and plopped her down on the bed. The tie around her waist failed in the face of all the movement and her robe gaped precariously.

The instinct to hide a part of her that had been the bane of her existence since puberty asserted itself, all the stronger because Logan crouched in front of her, his eyes basically level with her chest. She scrambled to pull the front of her robe together. He did, too, and their hands tangled for a minute.

His long, capable fingers seemed to burn right through the terry cloth. She inhaled sharply, from mortification, but also the pure, unadulterated thrill of the accidental contact.

His fingers stilled. “Sorry.” Slowly, he lowered his hands and let her do the honors. He occupied himself smoothing the robe down over her legs. She re-tucked and retied her robe, but couldn’t help noticing that his crouched position did all kinds of interesting things to his robe. The front hung open to show a smooth expanse of bronze skin and a sculpted groove been his pectorals that came from having amazing musculature and a BMI of zero. The bottom of the robe formed a vee between his parted thighs, but left a shadowy question as to whether he wore anything underneath.

“No, really, it’s my fault. I’m sorry I’m so”…horny…“clumsy.” She pushed her hair back with a shaky hand, and hoped if he noticed he’d assume the fall left her less than steady, and not the feel of his palms running down the fronts of her thighs and over her knees.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, until an exasperated inner voice spoke up. Stop acting like a bobblehead. Use your words. “Yes. Of course. The carpet is surprisingly soft.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Is that what you were aiming to do? Give the carpet a bounce test?”

She fought back the urge to say, I was aiming to give you a bounce-test. “If you must know, I thought it was bright in here. I was trying to turn off the lamp without getting my lazy butt out of bed.”

“Ah.” He reached over and turned the light off, and then looked at her. “That better?”

The “better” sent a puff of breath along the sensitive skin at the base of her throat. She couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth. The shape of his lips, their smoothness juxtaposed against the rough texture of his five o’clock shadow. She licked her suddenly dry lips. “Uh—hic!”

Good God, the hiccup blasted out of her like a bazooka and reverberated in the otherwise silent room. She covered her mouth with her hand and stared at him in horror.

The corners of Logan’s eyes crinkled and the groove beside his mouth appeared. “Tell me something, Sophie.”

“What?” She said the word quickly, to avoid another cataclysmic hiccup.

“How much have you had to drink tonight?”