Sinful Desire (Sinful Nights, #2)(8)

“Be sure to be backstage at nine forty-five so we can stay on time.”

“Absolutely,” she said then headed to the steps, ready to chitchat and socialize. As she reached the ballroom floor, though, she nearly froze.

She wasn’t sure if she saw him first or merely sensed him. If perhaps her body had installed some sort of homing beacon to detect the presence of Absolutely Delicious Male in the ballroom. She turned her head, and goose bumps rose on her bare arms as she drank him in.

In the distance, he leaned against the big doorway to the ballroom, looking cool, sexy and debonair, wearing a dark gray suit that fit him like a glove—tailored, and snug where it needed to be, revealing strength and tone. His light brown hair was messy, but not sloppy. It was the type of hair that was too thick to be contained, that couldn’t be combed into submission, but instead simply invited fingers to run through it.

But then, if she was doing things right, her hands wouldn’t be free.

Across all the tables and chairs, past the dazzling chandelier lights, beyond the sea of designer dresses, he locked eyes with her.

His seemed to say I’m here for you. I’m coming to get you.

She flashed a smile, aware that it was a high-wattage one, but then that was how she felt—bubbly, buoyant, and powered by the thrill of possibility. She hadn’t misread the moment outside the municipal building. The chemistry had been electric and instant—and intense enough for him to come calling.

As she walked around the dance floor to find her way to him, a flash of gray hair appeared in the corner of her vision. Next came a phlegmy clearing of the throat.

Oh dear.

Not now.

Please not this second when her hormones were beating a path to Mr. Hotness Whose Name She Didn’t Know and Liked It That Way.

One of her regular donors placed a clammy hand on her bare arm—Clyde Graser, pushing eighty, sweet as could be, and more generous than virtually anyone.

He was also terribly out of touch with women.

“Sophie, how are you, my dear?”

He received one of her brightest smiles. “I’m very well, Mr. Graser. So good to see you.”

After a minute of small talk, he cleared his throat once more, a sign he had something important to say. “My grandson Taylor is coming back to town. He graduated from Harvard Law earlier this year and has been hired into a corporate practice here. I have a hunch the two of you would get along swimmingly, and I would love to introduce you to him.”

A newly minted law school graduate was probably all of twenty-five. Divorced and thirty-one, Sophie had a clear cut-off. You had to be over thirty to ride this ride. She simply wasn’t into cradle-robbing.

“I’m sure he’s lovely,” she said, doing her best to be kind but evasive.

Clyde’s matchmaking effort wasn’t the first she’d had to deflect. These sorts of offers had been happening with increasing frequency since she and Holden had divorced two years ago. With the money she’d socked away from the sale of her company—even after Holden’s cut of the profits—and the work she did now, many of the city’s old wealth wanted her for their sons.

She wanted no such thing.

“Wonderful. Then I’ll bring him to the Beethoven concert,” Clyde said. The law firm Clyde had founded was a lead sponsor of that upcoming charity event, and Sophie hoped to convince him to pour even more of his corporate cash into a community center that was being refurbished in a section of town that had been a hotbed for a local gang many years ago—a street gang that had been rising up again, which made it all the more important to revitalize the neighborhood.

“I can’t wait,” Sophie said as Clyde walked away.

Then her pulse suddenly quickened.

She knew.

Knew the sexy man had to be mere feet from her. She knew it by the way the little hairs on her arms stood on end. Sophie and this man were two elements smashing into each other and setting off sparks. There was no other explanation, because she’d never felt this kind of intense desire for someone she’d just met.

It was a riot inside her body.

He placed a hand on the small of her back—gentle, terribly gentle, and it unleashed an electric charge in her. “Can’t wait for what?” he asked.

Oh God, his voice. His deep, sexy voice that was an aphrodisiac. It was the opening act in the seduction of her.

“For the evening to turn more exciting,” she said as she came face-to-face with the man she knew nothing about. He was the sexiest stranger she’d ever met, and he wasn’t going to be a stranger much longer.

“Looks like I arrived just in time. Because that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Excite me?”

The first notes of a sexy ballad sounded from the stage. “Yes. That’s why I came here,” he said, gesturing to the throngs milling about around them. “Right now, however, I’d like to monopolize you on the dance floor, Miss Sophie Winston.”

“You know my name,” she said, shooting him a look that said she was impressed.

“I do,” he said, holding her captive with his dark blue eyes. “And I’d like to get to know more than your name.”

“That sort of intel might be obtained with a dance,” she said, clasping his hand and letting him lead her to the dance floor as the lights dimmed and the song wrapped itself around them.