Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ben
M y hand rested on her lower back, the smooth velvet of her dress the best thing I’d ever touched. She was smiling, stopping every once in a while to chat with someone who flagged her attention. She’d introduce me, I’d shake hands or nod, but I never moved that left hand.
She’d seemed thrown after the kiss, more discombobulated than put together, and for Whit Grantham, that was rare. In fact, I’d never seen her anything but on her game. So it gave me no small thrill to see her flustered, especially since it felt like my blood had turned to lava.
But when I came out and met her in the living room, fully dressed in my black suit, dark gray shirt, and black tie, she’d met me with a warm-ish smile that hadn’t quite reached her eyes. It was then I’d started questioning the memory on repeat in my mind since the moment she’d walked out of the bathroom.
No. It had been her hands running over my skin, her tongue responding to mine, her lips moving against mine, her body pressing closer, her cheeks flushed, her balance off-kilter. I hadn’t imagined it.
But every polite smile she gave to someone else, every small laugh she gifted out, every simple nod or handshake, felt like a test. It wasn’t, of course, but ultimately, it still felt like it. All I wanted to do was pull her into a corner and take up where we’d left off. And the brutal part was, Nikki had tasked me with doing just that.
But when? Where, exactly? And how to get back the Whit I’d had earlier today and not this polite, accommodating one now?
After probably the twentieth mini-conversation, schmoozing like she’d taught a master’s class in it, she excused herself to the bathroom. I was left to sip a cocktail—something over the top and too sweet for my taste, so I was barely sipping—and talk to a nice couple who’d paid whatever it was people had paid to come here.
Then up sidled two younger couples who surrounded me.
“So you’re with Whit Grantham?” one of the men, decent-looking and slugging away at a martini, asked.
“I am.” I’d learned quickly that keeping my responses minimal was the key to not getting too wrapped up with any given conversation too long—a tip Whit had given me the first time we went out, and I’d stuck to it with great success.
“I can see why,” the man’s date, a glamorous-looking woman said as her eyes took me in from head to toe, then she tipped her drink to me and drank some down.
The other couple both chuckled gamely, but the other woman said, “And how do you feel about her being with Jamie Morris whenever you’re not around?”
I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a microphone shoved into my face, but so far, no sign of one. I took a sip of my too-sweet drink to buy time.
“He must be fine with it,” the other guys said. “I’ll admit I’d take what I could get from Whit Grantham if she wanted to give me some.”
He raised his eyebrows at the other guy, and they laughed like old friends.
“Hey, I would too. The woman is?—”
“I’m honored to be with Whit,” I cut in, not interested in what descriptors these two would use. My neck was getting hot, my jaw tightening.
“You sound thrilled, yeah. So what’s she like?” one of them asked.
“Yeah, does she use that voice in bed? My God, that’d be enough to?—”
“Excuse me, folks. I’ve got a call.” I waved my phone and hoped I could make it across the room and away from these idiots before my temper exploded. My heart racing, my jaw clenched, I went to find Whit and see how much longer we’d have to stay.
I didn’t want to be a creeper, but I wanted to make sure she was okay while I also made sure I was okay. I didn’t want to stage the kiss if she was upset, or concerned, or… anything other than ready for it. But if those jerks were questioning me about Morris, then obviously, we had work to do. I took a slow breath in through my nose, held it, let it out.
The restroom doors were tucked away in a dimly lit alcove. Just as I turned the corner, Whit came out of the bathroom, and her brows jumped at the sight of me .
“What’s wrong?” she asked, coming right to me, right into my space.
I shook my head once. “Nothing. I think I’m just tired—too much touristy stuff today, I guess.”
I wasn’t about to complain to her that the room was full of vulgar idiots. She’d come here to do a job—charming people for some reason or another, which I dumbly didn’t even remember.
“I don’t buy it, Holder,” she said softly with a half-smile on her glossy lips.
Something about that dulled the edge of my frustration.
I grabbed for her free hand and slid the other one along her neck and into her hair. “Some of the guests here are idiots.”
She chuckled, even though her eyes were flickering all over my face, likely trying to read where this intensity was coming from. “That’s almost always true.”
“How do you stand it? How can you stand people speculating about you and every part of your life?”
I wanted to press my lips to hers, to back her up against the wall and run my hands over all that dark green velvet. But I stayed standing right in my spot, watching as she responded.
One bare shoulder shrugged, and my heart skipped a beat at the sight, my eyes sliding along the slim line of her collarbone and up to her neck. My thumb stroked along the side of that graceful column, and I pushed my hand a little farther into the hair at the back of her head.
“You just do. I try to keep the main thing the main thing, and all that… it’s not the main thing.” She squeezed my hand and then dropped hers.
I stepped back to give her some space, reluctantly letting go of her .
“You ready to go?”
I nodded. She led the way, and I placed my hand on her back again. She stopped by the organizer’s small circle and said thanks but we had to run. She waved to a few of the people she’d chatted with, and then we were moving to the exit. A whirlwind of people scuttled up to her to say one last thing, get her attention one last time, her wide smile flashing at everyone.
And then, I remembered I was supposed to kiss her. Here. Tonight.
I slid my hand around to her side and tucked her body a bit closer as we approached the doors, but stopped her right in front of them. We could see the crowd outside the restaurant on the sidewalk and the crowd gathering inside shoving to the front to watch her leave.
I turned her to me, there in front of everyone, and ignored the fizzing in my chest. She blinked, realizing what I was doing, and stepped closer. I leaned down, pulled her flush against me, and kissed the hell out of her.
Really. I’m not being arrogant. It was a great kiss. I didn’t leave the Earth and start floating above myself, letting sensation fill me and overwhelm every sense like our kiss earlier, but it was damn good and would have looked like a passionate kiss between lovers.
After a minute or so, I pulled back. My eyes took in the woman in front of me, looking thoroughly kissed, her chest and cheeks a touch red, even in the dim lighting.
“Ready?” I asked, admittedly feeling incredibly smug.
She nodded, biting her lip to hide the smile I knew wanted to escape.
We pushed through the doors, the flashes burning our eyes, and the shouting began.
“Whit! Whit! Over here! How does Jamie feel about your relationship with Ben?”
“Ben! How do you feel about Whit and Jamie working together again?”
“What’s it like dating a soldier, Whit?”
“When’s the wedding?”
It was amazing how entitled everyone felt to the personal details of her life. It hadn’t bothered me early on, but the stiffness registered in my neck, in the pull between my shoulders, as we hurried into the waiting town car.
I pulled the door shut behind me, and before I could do anything else, she pulled my face to hers, and her mouth was on mine as we sped away. She slid her hands from my cheeks to my neck and scooted closer as I savored the feeling of her fingers gliding into the short hair at the back of my head, of her smooth lips moving with mine.
Finally, I pulled back. My pulse was pounding, and I could barely find my voice. “We’re gone. No more cameras.”
I watched as her eyes flickered back and forth between mine, her chest rising and falling in a torturous way in that sweetheart dress, and then, it happened.
Whit Grantham didn’t pull away, tidy up her hair, and replace her lip gloss. No.
She shook her head just once, like she’d decided something, and then she pressed her cool hands against my neck and guided my head back to hers. She nipped at my top lip, then the bottom, while my mind resembled something like a record scratch, scrambling to make sense of what was happening.
This wasn’t for the cameras. This wasn’t for the PR. This wasn’t to clarify that she wasn’t cheating on me, hadn’t done anything wrong.
No. This was for her.
And let’s be honest, for me, too.