“Neither would I, sweetheart,” I breathed.
Grant plucked a chocolate-covered strawberry from a passing tray.“If I’m not mistaken, I do recall that you like these…”
He placed it between my lips, and I flicked my tongue out over the chocolate, just brushing his fingers. His pupils dilated, and his other hand on my hip tightened.
I bit down on the berry, the sweetness and tartness of it making me close my eyes and almost swoon into his arms.
It was definitely the taste that was making me close my eyes and almost swoon into his arms.
“You’ve got a little something there,” Grant said, and his fingers gently wiped away a bit of juice from the corner of my mouth. Then, for good measure, he kissed away the rest.
I nipped his finger in reproof, trying to get my heart rate under control at the same time.“Grant, you’re the sweetest, but you can’t just feed me strawberries all night like we did on our anniversary. You’re neglecting your friends, talk to them!”
“Oh, don’t you mind us,” Patricia said, laughing.“It does my heart good to see you young people so in love. Gives me some hope for the rest of the world.”
“In that case,” Grant said,“I’ll go get Lacey some punch. And then just for you, dearest,” he added, squeezing me tight—he felt so good against me, so strong and reliable, and he smelled fresh and clean— “I’ll do my best to remember that there are other people in this room. Though you do make it hard when you outshine everyone around you.”
He dipped me into another kiss, and pulled me away to a chorus of“aaaaaaaawws” from the men and women around us.
“You’re not half-bad at this couple thing,” I said as we made our way across the room.“And here I was thinking you’d be completely remedial.”
“You wound me,” he said.
I smacked his arm lightly.“Big baby.”
“I’ll take the praise regardless,” he said.“You and I make a good team, you know.”
“Yeah, we definitely pulled the wool over the Rich Dude Brigade’s eyes, didn’t we?” I said.“They’re practically wearing wool sunglasses right now, we pulled that wool over their eyes so hard.”
“Such a way with words,” he teased, and stopped walking, reaching out instead to trace my lips.
I nearly forgot to breathe. I cast about desperately for something to say to distract him. Stock market tips? Wardrobe compliment? Speaking in tongues and prophesying the end times?
“You should do this for real, you know,” I blurted out to him.“Find some hot chick who can keep up with you and settle down. Or at least pretend to, for the company’s sake. People really seem to eat it up.”
He put on a puzzled expression.“Why would I look anywhere else?” he said.“You’re right here.”
Damn, he was much too good at pretending.
“I’ve—uh, I’ve got a busy schedule,” I said. I tried to laugh past the lump in my throat. Tried to tell myself I didn’t care where he looked, or at whom.“I can’t be holding your hand while I’m charging up the hill to take over the business world, can I?”
Grant’s mouth twisted upwards in a smile, but the light seemed to go out of his eyes. What had I said wrong?
“No,” he said softly, looking away so I could no longer see his face.“I suppose you can’t.”
TWELVE
Grant’s moodiness passed within minutes, though, and soon he was laughing again, fetching me drinks and whirling me about on the dance floor, introducing me to so many important people—who knew there were even this many important people in the world?—that their faces started to blur together, feeding me bonbons with his fingers when he knew Jennings was looking…well, I assume only when he knew Jennings was looking. After all, why else would he do it?
I tried desperately not to think about other reasons why Grant Devlin might like feeding me bonbons.
Or other places he might like feeding me bonbons. Like his bed. With red silk sheets. With both of us lying naked and spent on those silk sheets, and him feeding me one sweet at a time, his eyes darkening with lust as I licked my lips, his hands tracing my lips, sliding downwards to trace my curves, his hands—
Er, never mind all that. Carry on. Nothing to see here.
Despite my overactive libido and colorful imagination, I managed to have a good time. It had been nerve-wracking at first, trying to play it cool in front of all the movers and shakers of San Francisco, but Grant was right about one thing—we made a hell of a team. We teased, we schmoozed, we networked—sweet Lord, did we network—and I felt confident that before the night was through, we’d have converted quite a few of these folks into bringing their business to Devlin Media Corp.
Also, the bonbons were really ridiculously delicious.
A little before midnight, I excused myself to powder my nose. It took me awhile to find the bathroom—mostly because I kept assuming it was another ballroom, as that much polished marble and gently piped waltz music is wont to make you assume. I was so busy gawping at the sinks that I didn’t notice the woman behind me until she spoke:
“Well, well, well. So you’re the girl making an honest man of Grant Devlin.”
I jumped, saw her face in the mirror as she suddenly stepped out from behind me, and jumped again. Holy mother of horror movies, Batman! She was lucky she hadn’t sent me into the stratosphere.
“Oh dear, did I startle you?” she drawled coldly, her tone making it obvious that when it came to caring whether she had startled me, she fell somewhere on the continuum between ‘completely indifferent’ and ‘maliciously amused.’