His lips were tight, unresponsive, and a lump swelled in her throat. Twisting her hands out of his hold, she dropped them in her lap and turned her head away, the ache in her chest threatening to well her eyes again. “I’ll just…get dressed.”
Holding her hips to his lap, he helped her collect her clothes from the floor. As she dressed, he stared at the door behind her, his arm locked around her waist. He wouldn’t let her stand even as she dragged on her pants.
“I can’t decide if you’re mad at me or just appalled.” Her voice was so quiet, she felt it scratch more than she heard it.
He jerked his eyes to her and cocked his head, matching her volume. “What?”
She coughed. “We should go back to our seats. We’re probably missing dinner.” The thought of eating rippled nausea through her stomach.
“Bullshit.” He glared at her. “We’re going to talk about what just happened. Right here. Right now.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and mumbled, “Now that you have clothes on.”
Shame scalded her cheeks. Did he think she was dirty? She jumped up and he yanked her back to his lap.
She shoved at his arm. “If you find me so repulsive, let me go.”
His eyes bugged. “Repulsive? Good God, Charlee. Are you crazy?” He gripped her waist and scooted her to his knee, glaring at his erection and back at her.
Oh. “You still want me?”
“Of course I still want you. I’m trying to fucking restrain myself.”
“What I begged you to do…and I couldn’t…come…I thought—”
“That’s part of your problem.” He tried to work his zipper up and couldn’t stretch the fly over his dwindling arousal. “You’re thinking instead of feeling.” He gave up on his pants and fixed his eyes on hers. “I don’t know why you feel bad about what we just did.” His tone softened. “From where I’m sitting—” He shoved a hand through his hair, closed his eyes, and breathed, “It was really, really sexy.”
Sexy? She shivered with memories of her orgasmic screams piercing the walls of Roy’s stockroom. “It’s not sexy. It’s sick. As in Roy Oxford’s favorite flavor.”
He lowered his hand to hers with a delicateness that contradicted the emotions marching across his glare. “Yeah, we’re going to talk about that, too. Hand me my shirt.” He pointed at the floor.
Woodenly, she slid off his lap and tagged the shirt.
He rose with her, never breaking contact, his leg against hers, a hand on her hip, and leaned against her backside as he slid up his zipper. She felt him all around her, as much a part of her as her own skin. Despite the descent in his mood, his nearness comforted her in ways she was growing alarmingly addicted to.
Shifting to face him, she startled when his breath rustled her hair from behind. He brushed a wayward strand off her shoulder and replaced it with his lips. Heat radiated from his body and kicked up her pulse. With a sigh, she let her head fall back to his chest.
He walked his fingers around her waist and tugged the shirt from her hand. “Thank you.” His whisper sent tingles dancing over her skin.
She turned as he raised the shirt over his head and shoved his arms through. The muscles in his shoulders and chest expanded and squeezed. A bead of sweat chased the crease between her breasts. Had the air vents stopped working?
His head emerged from the neck hole and his eyes instantly found hers. He was so powerfully attractive, she couldn’t look away. In fact, no one could. It wasn’t just his fame that drew people. It was him.
Wrinkles grooved his forehead. “What?”
She put her hand on his chest, stopping him from lowering his shirt. “Even if you weren’t famous, you’d still be the center of female attention.”
The wrinkles deepened and he shook his head.
“You’re telling me that before you had a recognizable face, you didn’t draw women’s eyes everywhere you went?”
He sighed, watching her finger trace the dip between his pecs. Yeah, she was touching him and he wasn’t flinching. But her relief was buried under insecurity.
Could she deal with that? Constantly competing with women better looking and lower maintenance than her? “I don’t have a chance in hell,” she mumbled.
He snapped his head up and glowered at her. “I only want your eyes, your attention.”
“Oh, you have that. Trust me. You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever met.”
He scowled and shoved his shirt down the perfectly sculpted proof, knocking her hand out of the way.
“Your sex appeal won’t hold my attention forever though.” She bit her lip, trammeled by the kind of hope she hadn’t entertained since she was a child.
His frown fell away to blank confusion.
“This will hold me.” She poked him on the chest. “You have the heart one expects to see at the center of a fire, bending and twisting like steel, but never breaking. If something happens to mine, yours would be stubborn enough to beat for both of us.”