“Wow,” he said.
She searched for a word to describe how he looked. She found many: sinful, delicious, forbidden…a walking wet dream. But she couldn’t use those, so she decided against returning the sentiment and instead fanned out her dress and went with, “Not too shabby, huh?”
“God, Julie, you’re breathtaking.”
A pleased flush warmed her skin. Tommy had complimented her many times over the years, but breathtaking was a new one, and she loved hearing it come out of his mouth.
As he walked toward her, his hand outstretched, time slowed. The sexy lift of one corner of his lips and the appreciative shine in his eyes as he took her hand held her captivated.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t turn away. Couldn’t stop her body from willingly going forward as he tugged her against his chest, his other arm slipping around her waist to hold her close.
As he swayed them, he whispered, “Save a dance for me?”
Words refused to squeeze past her tight throat, so she simply nodded. Then he lowered his head and she thought her lungs would explode from the air trapped inside them. When his lips brushed her cheek, scorching her skin, she closed her eyes, a stuttered exhale finally shooting past her lips.
She instinctively rubbed her face against his as he drew her closer, his cheek resting against hers. The heat of his skin felt so good. She absorbed the feeling, wanting to press her body closer to his. Without thought, she slipped her fingers from his and slid both hands up his arms to wind around his neck.
He skimmed his palm over her waist, then her hip, to join his other hand resting above the curve of her butt. He’d never held her like this before, like a lover, hands touching areas never touched before. It was enthralling. Enticing. And, heaven help her, she couldn’t get enough.
When he pulled his head back, she tilted hers up to look at him. Their eyes locked, mouths slightly parted, mere inches apart. Her breath hitched, her body frozen, waiting for him to close the distance between their lips—to really kiss her.
But he never moved, just gazed down at her.
The doorbell rang.
He blinked, cursing under his breath as his arms tightened around her waist for a brief moment before he stepped back. “Your date is here.”
She stared at him. Seriously? She was so ready to forget Brody was standing right outside the door, ready to forget the wedding altogether. So how could Tommy simply step away and let her leave? With another man?
Oh God, he hadn’t felt it. The sizzle. The connection. The rightness of them in each other’s arms.
It had all been a figment of her vivid imagination. While she’d formed an elaborate romantic scenario that fed her forbidden desires, he’d simply been dancing with his best friend, completely oblivious to her as a woman. He hadn’t closed the distance because it hadn’t occurred to him to do so. And it never would.
At what point would that sink into her thick skull? What more did he have to do to prove he didn’t see her that way? If giving her a passionless kiss wouldn’t do it, shouldn’t the horror on his face when he’d seen her naked have done it?
It was as if she was desperate to find something…anything…that belied his words, because it was simply pathetic for her to be so deeply in love with someone who couldn’t even see her as a desirable woman. The truth of that thought hit her like a hundred pound Great Dane.
In one fell swoop, Tommy had blinked away all the years she’d spent accepting her platonic role in his life. The years he’d always treated her as just his best friend. He had never tried anything intimate with her. But with one horrible, lackluster kiss, she was back to being that lovesick teenage girl, wanting desperately to be wrong about his feelings for her.
And it made her so furious she wanted to cry.
When the doorbell rang again, she spun and answered the door.
Brody stood there looking devastatingly handsome in a charcoal suit, but nothing could compare to the devastating sight of Tommy his.
“Wow.”
He repeated Tommy’s words with the same appreciative tone, but she didn’t get the same warm flush, and right now she needed that reaction more than anything. Needed any kind of reaction from any man other than Tommy. She forced a smile. “Wow yourself.”
“You ready?”
As she grabbed her purse off the table by the door, she glanced toward Tommy standing in the living room. Their eyes connected, and she was stunned by the anger she saw simmering in them.
Had he realized how much she’d wanted him to kiss her—really kiss her? Was he angry at her for making things awkward between them? Was he finally putting together how she felt about him?
God, she didn’t need that humiliation on top of everything else. Not because he’d changed the rules and kissed her. She’d been fine. They’d been fine. And then she’d gone and messed it up.