“Getting away from the office is a good thing,” Lennon said, daring Harley to disagree.
Harley didn’t reply to that. Not with Josh peering down at his wife with one of those expressions, a look that wouldn’t change even if Lennon turned blue and started gibbering in an incomprehensible alien tongue.
Harley had witnessed this phenomenon firsthand more than once, a phenomenon that never failed to take her by surprise. She’d watched Josh draw down on a gang, without blinking, to extract information on a missing kid, yet he softened around the edges whenever he gazed at his wife.
“Don’t harass her, Mac,” Josh said. “Or she won’t make it through the reception without drawing her gun.”
Gerard laughed as Josh danced Lennon away. “He thinks you’re armed, too.”
“Keep harassing me, and you’ll find out.”
With undisguised amusement, Gerard leaned into her, forcing her into a dip. She had no choice but to bend or fall on her butt in this tight dress.
“I’d rather be dancing and holding you close.” Looking down at her, eyes smoky with promise, he pressed his thigh between hers, so she had to hang on to keep her balance.
Heat pooled deep inside and she fought the impulse to ride against that hard muscle, feed the ache awakening inside her.
“Gerard,” she growled.
He held her for another beat, two, just long enough to prove he had the control, a petty power play that convinced her he was very aware of how she reacted to him. And he made his point loud and clear when he lifted her out of the dip and brought her against him so hard she gasped.
His body enveloped her as he moved her around in the dance, his strong arms too solid, his hips anchored against her much too close for decency. They swayed together so erotically that she imagined they must look like two lovers who needed a room.
She knew he wanted to provoke her and she refused, absolutely refused, to give in to an almost overwhelming desire to fling him off her and knock him on his ass for good measure.
“The pulse jumping in your throat is very attractive,” he said, and to her utter horror, he lowered his mouth to her skin.
Flames licked in the wake of his touch, making her insides tremble with excitement. Damn man. Damn dress. And she’d even questioned the low cut of the neckline.
“Just stop it,” she said, and Gerard smiled.
“I’m not harassing you. I’m being honest.”
It took a moment to manage her breathing and find her voice. “Honest? You expect me to believe this three-hundred-and-sixty-degree change of attitude isn’t anything but harassment?”
“I would understand you feeling that way, except for the fact that we kissed.”
“It wasn’t a real kiss, Gerard. It was being here at the plantation. That ridiculous murder-mystery corporate training. All that rich food and stupidity about pirates falling in love. We got…caught up. Let me remind you we agreed to forget that inexplicable lapse of impulse control ever happened.”
“You suggested. I never agreed. I liked kissing you.”
He might have been smiling, but there was nothing amused about his expression. His jaw set in a hard line, his gaze as no-nonsense as she’d ever seen it. The man wasn’t lying and that realization came at her sideways.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you, Harley. You’re haunting my dreams.”
“Get over it.”
“Come at this from a purely pragmatic standpoint.” He ground against her, enough to share the growing erection he hid inside his expensive suit. “We’re attracted to each other. Ignoring the way we feel isn’t working. Our feelings are interfering with our jobs.”
The instinct to deny his claim hit her hard, but Harley didn’t do denial. No matter how much she might want to. She was attracted to him, and everyone within a twenty-mile radius of Eastman Investigations knew they didn’t get along. Josh had even set up the teamwork training session exclusively to help them work together as a team.
“It was one stupid kiss!” she said.
“It was one awesome kiss.”
“Did Lennon put you up to this?”
He lifted a silky dark brow as if daring her to think anyone could possibly make him do something he didn’t want to do. Well, no argument there as she’d had daily proof.
“We need to work through these feelings, Harley, so we can get on with our lives. It’s the only thing to do.”
She would have disabused him of that notion, but he chose that exact moment to bend her back over his arm again when the music slowed to a bluesy tune. Her heart countered by mimicking the tempo with lazy, aching beats.
“We need to explore this attraction to get it out of our systems,” he said. “We need to have a fling.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“No. I want you, me, in bed, naked.” His smoky gaze raked over her face as intimately as a caress.
“Just because you want something doesn’t mean it will become reality.” She arched upward, desperate to get away.
He wouldn’t let her go.
Short of throwing him off balance and causing a scene, she had no recourse but to wait until he decided to pull her out of the dip, which didn’t look like it would happen anytime soon. “Forget the damn kiss, Gerard. End of discussion.”
“Let me sweep you off your feet. You’ll like it.”
Unfortunately, she might, and Harley couldn’t live with herself if she did. “Who do you think you are, Prince Charming?”
“You won’t be able to resist me.”
She could only marvel at the man’s arrogance, and his luck. He was beyond lucky that she wasn’t armed. She honestly didn’t know if she could have controlled herself.
“I will resist, trust me. You aren’t Prince Charming and I’m not Cinderella. If I were, you’d turn back into a mouse and this ball would be over.”
“Hello, Ms. Price, Mackenzie,” a deep male voice said. “Enjoying yourselves?”
They both glanced around to find Gerard’s grandfather and his bright-eyed dance partner, Quinevere McDarby.
Gerard had the grace to pull her out of the dip and she sucked in an audible breath that made Miss Q, as she liked to be called, smile.
“Of course they’re enjoying themselves, Stuart,” she said. “If you could just see yourselves, my dears, you look as if you were made to be together.”
As Lennon’s great-aunt and Josh’s great-aunt-in-law, Miss Q had diplomatic immunity from Harley’s opinion. But Gerard, unfortunately, never knew when to keep his mouth shut.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been telling Harley,” he said. “She’s a tough sell.”
“What’s to sell?” Miss Q raked those big baby blues over Gerard approvingly. “Look at him, Harley…he’s perfect.”
For what? To use as a practice target?
She kept her mouth shut. Not only were she and Miss Q clearly of two minds regarding the definition of perfect, but like her great-niece Lennon, Miss Q was one of those impossible-not-to-like types. Hands down, she was the most outrageous woman Harley had ever met, which said a lot since she’d met some real characters in her twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight years.
The way the talk on the street went, Miss