Chapter 18 #2
She was there. She came. His mind, his dirty mind, instantly thought, but did she?
Or did she do as he asked? Had she touched herself in the bath?
Had she put lotion on and pretended it was his hands?
Had she sprayed the perfume in a single spot that only he would be able to smell?
Was she wearing only what he provided? That would mean she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
Which he couldn’t think about right now, otherwise, he’d embarrass himself or maybe even get arrested for indecent exposure because if he really thought about it, he wasn’t sure his pants could hold him.
He didn’t know, and he couldn’t think about it, but he hoped before the night was over he would find out.
Jenna’s legs were shaking as she walked up the steps of the newly renovated Hope Falls Concert Hall.
She couldn’t believe she was there. She couldn’t believe the dress and the shoes fit.
And she couldn’t believe she’d followed Deacon’s instructions.
All of them. To a tee. She was currently in public with no undergarments.
Thankfully, the dress was designed to be worn without a bra, so it had a structured top, otherwise, that would have been impossible.
But as far as underwear, this was the first time she’d ever gone commando.
It felt…dangerous. Wild. Naughty. She probably shouldn’t like it as much as she did. It was ridiculous at her age.
As she handed over her gala ticket to the usher at the entrance, her hand was shaking. This was the final instruction. After this, she was flying by the seat of her pants, except she wasn’t wearing any pants.
When she arrived at the large double doors to enter the ballroom, before the attendant pushed it open, she took a breath and paused. “One second.”
He waited. If she walked through those doors, she would be relinquishing control. Number nine, I will do the rest. What was she agreeing to? What if he made a scene? What if he told her to do something untoward in front of people?
Untoward?
She’d been reading too much historical romance lately.
He would never do those things. Why was she thinking the worst of him?
He hadn’t even outed that they knew each other to a single soul.
He sent her the dress she was wearing. The jewelry she was wearing.
The shoes she was wearing. The perfume she was wearing, Baccarat Rouge.
Which, holy moly, smelled amazing. She didn’t even know perfume could smell that good.
Behind her, she heard voices coming, if she was going to do this, she needed to put her big girl panties on, metaphorically, of course, and do it.
Her eyes opened and she nodded to the kid who looked maybe two years older than Blake.
He pushed the door open, and she walked inside.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see, but she was immediately surprised at what she did see.
The room was packed. There were probably a thousand people there.
And she didn’t recognize a lot of them. It wasn’t just Hope Falls’ residents.
The majority were non-townees. Which made sense.
This event was being hosted by Niko Costas, Tiana’s fake boyfriend, and Brock Bartlett, Tiana’s ex-husband, and three other sports stars, including a world champion boxer, MMA fighter, and Super Bowl MVP quarterback.
Jenna wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that she was surrounded by so many strangers. Probably better, hopefully no one would notice her. She scanned the crowd and was relieved when she saw one familiar face and walked straight towards it, grabbing champagne on the way.
“Wow.” Tiana’s eyebrows rose, wrinkling her forehead. “Awooga!”
Jenna had gone all in with the old Hollywood theme, since that was the era the dress had pulled inspiration from. Her hair was down and in soft retro waves, she’d done a smoky eye and abandoned her regular nude lip color for a red to match the dress.
“What?” Jenna ran her hands down her torso, suddenly feeling very exposed. “Is it too much?”
“No!” Tiana grabbed her arm. “You look incredible! I thought you weren’t going to come.”
Tiana had asked Jenna about the gala earlier in the week, the day after she’d received the invite from Deacon, and she’d given her one of the random, bogus excuses she gave everyone else who’d asked, work or being tired, she couldn’t remember now.
“Yeah, I, um.” If she could remember what she said then she could tell her why that wasn’t the case, but she couldn’t remember, so she just had to go generic. “I changed my mind.”
Tiana’s head tilted to the side, and she studied her friend, suddenly seeming a little too interested in her life. She feared if she asked one question, Jenna would spill everything because she’d had no one to talk to about any of it.
“What’s—”
“Have you talked to him?” Jenna asked, interrupting Tiana’s inquiry.
The best defense was offense. Get Tiana talking about herself. Her friend was in a fake relationship, and communication was her downfall, her Achilles heel. It was a safe bet she was not communicating, so asking if she had talked to him was not crazy.
“Are you…is there something going on with you and…” Tiana glanced around the room, not taking the bait.
“No!” Jenna quickly squashed her line of thinking and redirected. “Don’t change the subject, have you? Have you talked to him?”
Tiana sighed, her shoulders dropping half an inch.
Ding, ding, ding. We have achieved distraction defeat.
Yes. Mission accomplished.
“No, he’s been busy.”
Tiana wasn’t the only person Jenna had noticed when she walked in.
Niko was directly in her line of vision and had barely taken his eyes off Tiana.
She was pretty sure he could spare a minute or two to talk to her about…
whatever she needed to talk to him about, which she was sure was important from the look on her friend’s face, and she would have remembered if she weren’t busy being dickmotized.
Her friendship was suffering, and she hadn’t slept with the man in a year and a half. That was a problem.
“He’s not too busy to look at you every five seconds.” Jenna tilted her champagne glass towards Niko. “Three, two, one…”
Sure enough, he glanced over on cue. Jenna caught his gaze flick in their direction, then away, as if he’d caught a sunbeam and needed a second to blink and see straight.
At almost the same moment, a trio of bells sounded on the stage at the far end of the massive hall.
It was a gentle, musical chime, insistent, designed not to shatter conversation but to nudge it, redirecting the collective current toward something new.
There was a subtle but immediate shift in the room, a ripple of anticipation.
A soft glow spilled from the art deco chandeliers overhead, tinting the hundreds of faces below in gold and rose and a little bit of blue, depending on where you stood, brightened and then dimmed again.
The light flashed seconds before Mayor Henry Walker took center stage and welcomed everyone before instructing, “Tonight, as we lift our glasses for a worthy cause, please make your way to your assigned tables. Dinner will be served in just a few moments, and, there will be a short program featuring some very special guests. Don’t worry,” he winked, “we won’t keep you from the dance floor for too long. ”
There was a polite stampede, a bustle of good-natured shuffling and direction-seeking as the crowd funneled toward the rows of round, immaculately set tables encircling the dance floor.
“This is where we part.” Jenna gave her friend a quick hug, her nerves went into overdrive as she headed to table forty-five.
She still hadn’t seen Deacon, and she hoped to sit down before she did.
Because after seeing all these men in tuxes, she didn’t trust herself not to swoon when she saw him.
And if that happened she didn’t trust herself in these Christian Louboutin’s—And Just Like That season one episode five to remain upright, she was already feeling wobbly.
Unfortunately, she didn’t make it to the table. Within five steps of Tiana, she felt Deacon coming towards her. Goosebumps lifted on the bare skin of her arm and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up straight.
When she looked up, her suspicion was confirmed.
He was stalking, she did mean stalking, towards her like a lion after his prey.
The crowd was just parting for him. He wasn’t doing anything, not saying excuse me, or elbowing them, but they were just moving out of his way, clearing a path.
They must have sensed his alpha energy. She could certainly feel it from where she stood.
Jenna’s heart was pounding a million miles per minute, and she immediately regretted coming.
Mainly because the second she’d seen him across the room, she nearly came.
Each step he took towards her felt like her vagina was a homing beacon sending a signal out, calling to him.
It was throbbing, and the closer he got, the more intense the signal became.
“Are you okay?” Deacon asked, stopping just a few inches in front of her but looking past her with a concerned expression, his head moving back and forth a little bit. “How did you manage that?
“What?” Jenna glanced over her shoulder, confused. She didn’t see anything except people going to their tables. She had no clue what he was talking about.
When she turned back and looked up at him, his head was tilted down and he was examining her knee, the one that was visible from the high slit.
“How did I manage what?” she asked.
“How did you manage not to trip over all the tongues that were hanging out when you walked through the room?”