Читать книгу 10 Ways to Handle the Best Man - Heidi Rice - Страница 9

I don’t believe it! She rearranged our carefully considered seating plan to sit me next to Connor and his foot-long cock.

Sabrina stared in disbelief at the board displayed outside the elegant private dining salon in Rules, the historic Covent Garden restaurant Jamie’s parents had booked for the rehearsal dinner. Her scalp burned, while a disturbing heat smouldered much lower down.

I’m going to throttle my best friend less than a week before her wedding.

She tried to catch Libby’s eye as their party of sixteen filed into the room—but the bride-to-be was busy ignoring her, all her attention focused on her fiancé. Jamie looked suitably debonair in his dark grey single-breasted suit—until his hand strayed to Libby’s backside and squeezed in a very public display of affection for the centuries-old establishment. Sabrina spotted Elizabeth watching her son and future daughter-in-law, the lift of a perfectly arched eyebrow telegraphing her disgust.

Sabrina glared at the back of Elizabeth’s perfect chignon as the exquisitely dressed woman swept ahead of her into the salon, her resentment spurred on by what Libby had told her the day before about the woman’s treatment of Connor.

Lighten up, you snooty cow. Libby and Jamie are in love with each other. Why shouldn’t they show it?

Some of the tension in her shoulders released. She needed to lighten up, too. Sitting next to Connor didn’t have to be bad. Libby’s hidden agenda wasn’t a problem as long as Connor never found out about it. And there was no reason why he should, as long as Sabrina remembered to breathe and remained focused on their collaboration at the wedding—instead of his awesome cock.

‘You better watch it—Elizabeth can strike you cross-eyed if you look at her the wrong way.’

Sabrina swung round at the intimate whisper over her left shoulder. To find Connor smiling at her, his deep blue eyes hooded.

She swallowed down the foolish pang of sympathy at the thought of him as a teenage tearaway, subjected to Elizabeth’s constant disapproval.

He certainly wasn’t a teenage tearaway anymore.

A crisp white shirt and expertly tailored dark blue suit did nothing to disguise the exceptionally well-developed body beneath. Sabrina’s assessing gaze roamed down his torso entirely of its own accord—only coming to an abrupt halt when it landed on the pleated crotch of his trousers.

Stop staring at his lunch box. Are you bonkers?

Her gaze shot back to his face. ‘I beg your pardon?’

She didn’t just want to throttle Libby now, she wanted to eviscerate her—for putting speculative thoughts about Connor McCoy’s size into her head.

Strong white teeth flashed in his tanned face. ‘You can beg if you want to, Sabrina.’ His voice came out in a husky rumble. ‘But I’m not sure I’m going to pardon that. Were you just checking out my junk?’ The smouldering blue of his irises sparkled with amusement.

A guilty flush blasted up to incinerate the tips of Sabrina’s ears.

‘Of course not.’ She stepped away, planning to march into the salon and hopefully stop her radioactive cheeks from giving her away.

But he gripped her elbow, bringing her getaway to an indignant halt. ‘Hold up.’

The rest of the bridal party walked past them as he held her anchored to the spot.

‘We got off to a rocky start a couple of days ago,’ he murmured. ‘Which was mostly my fault.’

She faced him, prepared to accept his apology graciously, so they could move on—preferably into the crowded salon and away from the secluded alcove.

But the apology didn’t come. Instead his thumb caressed the inside of her elbow, making tingles radiate up her arm.

‘It’s okay…’ She tugged her arm, but his grip held firm. ‘After speaking to Libby about your history with Jamie’s family, I totally understand now where your hostility was coming from. So your snit is forgiven.’

‘My snit, huh?’ Anger flickered in his eyes, but he masked it quickly.

Hmm, so conversation about his family was off limits. The telltale dart of sympathy resurfaced.

‘You’ve got a hell of an attitude on you.’ Cynicism edged the word and a muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘But then, I like attitude in a lady.’ The tingles in her arm sunk beneath her belly button at the heat in his voice. ‘Especially in bed. It gives me that much more to tame.’

She jerked her elbow free this time, her sympathy evaporating—unlike the bloody tingles.

Tame, my arse.

‘I’d strongly suggest you don’t try to tame me. Or you’re liable to get more than you bargained for.’

He laughed. ‘Is that a promise, Sabrina?’

‘Hardly,’ she mumbled, the pithy slap-down she wanted eluding her while his gaze, bold and deliberately insolent, drifted down to her cleavage.

She’d chosen the electric-blue silk jersey dress because it was the perfect combination of chic and sexy, and yet sophisticated enough for London’s oldest eating establishment, where everyone from Dickens to Betjeman had dined over the past two hundred years. But as her nipples swelled into hard peaks—poking out through her bra and the clingy silk—she felt about as sophisticated as Lady Godiva.

‘I guess we better get this shit out the way first.’ He glanced towards the salon—where everyone was now seated, and waiting for them. ‘We can discuss your attitude problem later.’

He took her arm again in the same firm, proprietary grip—which she couldn’t get out of without causing a scene.

‘I don’t have an attitude problem,’ she hissed, as he escorted her into the salon.

Holding out her chair, Connor leaned over, crowding her while she took her seat. ‘Behave,’ he murmured ominously, before tucking the chair under her butt.

She caught Libby’s cheeky grin from the head of the table as Connor sat in the chair beside her, his muscular thigh touching hers.

Libby demonstrated a length of at least a foot between her two index fingers—like a fisherman exaggerating his catch—her grin going from cheeky to naughty. Then she mimed the word Awesome.

Sabrina mimed the words Piss off back.

And decided evisceration was far too good for her best friend.

* * *

‘Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to play with your food?’ The husky comment shivered down Sabrina’s spine.

She put down her fork as her gaze connected with the mischievous blue twinkle in the eyes of the man beside her—who had been tormenting her with a series of similarly whispered criticisms through five never-ending courses of cordon bleu cuisine.

‘Didn’t your mum ever tell you not to harass women while they’re eating?’ she countered through the lump of something hot and unyielding in her throat—which had stopped her from swallowing more than a few bites of her meal.

The sensual line of his lips curled and his gaze sharpened. ‘My mom wasn’t real big on rules.’

‘Why does that not surprise me?’

He lifted his arm in slow motion, moved it beneath the table and a warm palm landed on her knee.

Sabrina jolted, shocked not just by the contact but the answering spike in her pulse rate.

‘Surprised yet?’ he asked.

‘Not at all,’ she said, but her knee trembled as he squeezed.

‘Liar.’

She shivered, sure she could feel the calluses on the ridge of his palm as it moved up her leg.

‘You seem kind of jumpy, Sabrina.’ His palm slid under the silky material of her dress. ‘Why is that?’

‘I think you know why, Connor.’ Delicious tingles radiated up the inside of her thigh under his trailing fingers.

Fine, if he wanted to play, she’d play. They were in a restaurant, surrounded by his family and her friends–how far could he go?

A lot further than you’d anticipated came the indisputable reply as his palm rose higher in devastatingly slow increments, undaunted. The flickering candlelight seemed to cloak them in a strange sort of anonymity in the crowded room—plus nobody was paying them any attention.

Even Libby, who had been checking up on her and Connor with alarming regularity throughout the evening—and sending not-remotely-subtle encouragement via her hyperactive eyebrows—was busy ignoring them while she fed Jamie spoonfuls of white-chocolate brownie.

‘Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me,’ he taunted as the rough palm climbed perilously close to the juncture of her thighs.

Sabrina shuddered—and clamped her knees together, trapping his wandering fingers before the hot, unyielding lump in her stomach plummeted any further south.

One dark brow lifted fractionally, his thumb stroking in slow circles as he made no move to remove his hand. But then she had to admit she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted him to. The slow curl of his lips as he watched her reaction was an impossibly tempting invitation to sin.

‘I don’t remember giving you permission to touch me.’ She squeezed his trapped fingers to emphasise the point. Given all the spin classes she did religiously he ought to be feeling quite contrite by now, but he didn’t even flinch.

‘And I don’t remember asking for it.’ His fingers flexed as his thumb slid perilously close to the sensitive seam of flesh at the top of the thigh where the edge of her knickers lay.

Her lungs clogged, electricity shimmering towards her already throbbing clitoris.

‘Surely your mother must have mentioned the rule about not groping women in public?’ she demanded, disguising her breathlessness. She hoped.

The glint in his eye took on a feral gleam. ‘Open your legs, Sabrina.’

Her thigh muscles quaked at the command, but she shook her head. ‘I think that would be dangerous.’

‘What are you so scared of? That you’ll like it?’

The challenging taunt struck right at the heart of all her insecurities. Carl had always accused her of being too safe, too boring. And her parents had told her on numerous occasions she lacked fire, lacked courage.

Her muscles loosened and she spread her knees to make a point. But before she had a chance to rethink the sudden burst of recklessness, his hand cupped the damp gusset of her panties. And all thinking stopped.