“Casse-toi,” J.C. growled in Luc’s direction before heading toward the bar.
Swirling the ice in the bottom of his glass, he shook off the awkward exchange with his cousin, waving to a friend with whom he’d been at Princeton but not bothering to stop and chat. He ordered a scotch on the rocks, then pivoted slightly to find the frosty maid-of-honor standing to his right with her back to him.
Turning back to the bartender with a grin, he ordered a lowball glass full of ice.
“With…?”
“Nothing,” said J.C. “Just the ice.”
The bartender gave him a look but filled a lowball glass with ice cubes, placing it on the bar beside the scotch. J.C. nodded his thanks and picked up both. As he passed by Libitz, he “accidentally” spilled several of the cubes into the concave of her back.
“Ah!” She gasped in shock, whipping around to face him. “Did you do that?!”
“What?”
Her eyes shot to the glass of ice in his hand, wiggling to release the cold cubes from where they must have lodged between her lower back and the dress.
“Did you just put ice cubes down my back?!” she asked, her voice just shy of a shriek, intense in expression but low in actual decibel.
Damn, but she’s fiery.
He shrugged, taking a sip of scotch. “One might have slipped from the glass as I turned around, but I certainly didn’t—”
“Save it,” she hissed as two cubes plunked on the ground by her satin shoes. “Follow me.”
Without excusing herself from her friends, who had watched the exchange with interest, she hustled away, her heels clacking furiously along the edge of Le Chateau’s ballroom. Without thinking, J.C. followed her, barely able to conceal his grin as she made her way through a set of open doors at the end of the room that led outside. She didn’t stop until she reached the ornate cement balustrade of the West Terrace. When she turned to face him, her arms were crossed, her face fierce.
He placed the glasses on a table just outside the door, then straightened, staring back at her in the moonlight.
“What do you want from me?” she demanded.
“What do I…want?”
“You’ve been staring at me and coming on to me for two days. And despite the fact that I’m clearly not interested, you show no signs of stopping. So what’ll it take? What do I have to do to get you to cut it out and leave me the fuck alone?”
It was a good question.
Such a good question.
But unfortunately, he was too distracted to give her a quick answer. Her huge spirit was in such contrast to her tiny body, for a moment he wondered how she contained it. This close and this alone, the physical differences between them were startling: she wasn’t more than five feet tall and couldn’t weigh much more than one hundred pounds, while J.C. cleared six feet and weighed in at almost two hundred pounds.
Reminded of a line from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he whispered distractedly, “Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
She dragged a sharp breath through her lips, and her eyes flashed and narrowed, but she didn’t respond, holding her pose, staring up at him, waiting for him to answer her question. He chuckled softly at her bravura. If he wanted to, he could break her in half like a twig, and yet there she stood—eyes furious, arms crossed, so fucking pissed, so fucking indomitable and strong, she was…magnificent.
And again he wondered, as he had last night, What would it take to make an impression on you?
Without consciously coaxing the image to mind, he had a sudden mental fantasy of tongue fucking her—of her laid out, spread eagle–style on his bed, her tawny skin bare, her smart mouth open in a perfect O as he razed her tender clit with his teeth then shoved his tongue between her legs to lave the inside of her sex until she screamed.
That would make a fucking impression, ice princess, wouldn’t it?
Two fingers appeared an inch shy of his nose and snapped twice. “Earth to Jean-Christian.”
Merde. He flinched in shock, stepping back from her. “Don’t fucking snap at me.”
Her hands landed on the nonexistent flare of her hips as she fearlessly stared up at him. “Then answer the fucking question!”
His cock jumped at her bossy fucking tone, blood sluicing from all over his body to unexpectedly stiffen it. Letting his eyes drop to her breasts, which looked slightly bigger because her arms were crossed under them, he deliberately gaped for several seconds before raising his glance slowly and smirking at her.
“Ask me again.”
“What. Will. It. Take. For. You. To. Leave. Me. Alone?”
This time his eyes fixed on her pink lips, which were glistening and glossy in the dim light.
“A kiss,” he murmured, the words coming from nowhere.
“What?”