“It’s making me uncomfortable,” she confessed without thinking. Her words stilled his hands, and he gazed at her for a long moment.
“I make you uncomfortable?”
“The situation does. And the touching . . . and stuff.” Her voice petered out, and she cleared her throat awkwardly. His eyes narrowed as he kept her pinned beneath his gaze for a moment longer.
“I’m a tactile guy. It’s natural for me to casually touch someone when I’m talking to them.”
“It is?”
No. It was complete bullshit. He didn’t go around sucking people’s fingers, or brushing his knuckles against their cheekbones . . . he wasn’t wired that way, but he could think of no other way to divert her from the fact that he was a touchy-feely fucker around her. And her alone. How could he explain that to her when he couldn’t make sense of it to himself?
“I’ll try to curb my natural instincts. But I can’t make any promises. It’s what you signed up for when you asked me to be your fake boyfriend.”
“Fake date. Not fake boyfriend. There’s a difference.”
“Other people won’t see it that way. If they’re not used to seeing you date, they’re going to assume that this is serious between us.”
“What makes you think they’re not used to seeing me date?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you’ve roped me into doing this for you?” Her teeth nibbled at her soft lower lip as she considered her words. Mason’s eyes dropped to that lip; her teeth were making little white crescents in the soft flesh, which almost immediately darkened into a deeper shade of red when the teeth moved on to a different location. It was distracting as hell, the tug and release of her teeth on that soft, juicy-looking lip. How was he supposed to concentrate on this conversation when she was doing that?
“Stop that!” Daisy jumped at the sudden harshness in Mason’s voice. Why did he look and sound so angry?
“What?”
He reached over and shockingly dragged his thumb down over her lower lip, tugging it from between her teeth and brushing the pad of his thumb over the sensitive surface.
“Stop biting your lip.”
“It’s a nervous habit.”
“I make you nervous?” His brows slammed together, making him look even scarier, and she shook her head.
“No. Yes . . . I mean, maybe a little.” He reached over again and his thumb gently rubbed back and forth across the surface of her bottom lip, one end to the other, and it felt . . . much too good. For a brief, crazy second she leaned in to his touch before sanity reasserted itself and she pulled her head back and out of reach.
She sucked her lip into her mouth, trying to rid herself of the residual sensation of his rough thumb so gently caressing her skin.
“Don’t do that again.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, devoid of the commanding edge she’d hoped for.
“I can’t make any promises,” he muttered, and she sighed impatiently. He was just being difficult again. “I start having X-rated visions when you do that thing with your mouth.”
“Stop being a smart-ass, Mason. I’m serious.”
She thought he was kidding. She’d probably head for the hills if she knew that he was as serious as a heart attack right now. He forced a grin and shrugged.
“You’re getting a little too good at reading me.”
“You’re making it easy,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
Chris chose that moment to return, holding two plates of the most beautiful-looking food Daisy had ever seen.
“I present to you, my version of twice-baked goat’s cheese soufflé with an accompaniment of arugula, fig, and roasted almond salad.” He placed the plates in front of Daisy and then Mason with a flourish.
“It looks amazing and smells even better,” Daisy enthused, her mouth already watering as she stared down at the perfectly baked soufflé, next to a beautiful, fresh-looking salad, on a plate garnished with artistically sprinkled tiny purple and yellow flowers.
“Bianca,” he called to the sweet-faced young woman hovering behind him, and she shuffled forward to place a couple of flutes of brightly colored drinks in front of them. “Mimosas with my compliments. Enjoy.”
“Thanks, Chris. Looks good,” Mason said, and Daisy sent him a disbelieving look. His returning gaze was perplexed, and Daisy sighed. Men were seriously clueless sometimes.
“It looks more than merely good, Chris,” she corrected, and Mason made a sound that was somewhere between exasperation and laughter.
“You already said that,” he pointed out.
“One can never receive too much flattery,” Chris said calmly. “But I’ll leave you to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Bon appétit.”
He left with a flourish—she guessed he was the type of guy who added flourish and flare to everything he did—taking Bianca along with him.
“You could have asked him to join us,” Daisy admonished, picking up her fork and sending another admiring glance down at her plate. It was almost criminal to eat something so beautiful.
“He wouldn’t have,” Mason said, having no qualms about completely destroying the work of art on his plate. He had two huge bites down before she even had time to gently prod her quivering soufflé with her fork. “Besides, it’s bad form to just insert yourself into someone’s date.”
“Mason.”
“Yeah, yeah, not a date,” he said from behind a mouthful of salad. “Got it. Point is, Chris doesn’t know it, so bad form.”
Daisy took a small amount of the soufflé onto her fork and sighed when the rich, tart flavor burst across her taste buds. She couldn’t quite contain the tiny moan of appreciation that slipped out. Her eyes slid shut to fully appreciate the taste.