She nodded absently, scooting closer to him as a few more people piled into the elevator. She didn’t even mind when he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. Actually, it was rather nice being held by him . . . She hated that they had to keep their flirtation a secret. It would be fun to prance around the convention as his girlfriend, showing off how incredibly hot her man was to all the other girls at the con. Not that she was the type to brag, but . . . well, Loch was exactly the kind of guy you wanted to brag about.
“You like these sorts of parties, I thought?” he murmured into her braided hair. Her costume today was of Asara the Magickal—the guild trainer for the mage guild. She was wearing a mage’s purple robe with a bright red corset over the waist and a low-slung ribbon belt. Still sexy, but not showing nearly as much flesh. And while it did give her a chance to wear her fun costumes and hang out with people she saw online every day . . . she was actually having a lot of fun living in the “real world” with him. As another couple crowded onto the already-packed elevator, she thought wistfully of the beach again. Going there with him would have been just as fun . . . and a lot more private.
But here she was feeling ungrateful when he’d gone to great expense to take her on this awesome trip. She was a jerk, wasn’t she? Taylor leaned against him and decided to make it up to him later that night. Her thighs clenched at the thought of how much fun all that making-up would be, too.
They headed into the main ballroom with a crowd of other laptop-toting gamers, and searched for the section of tables reserved for her server. Once they found it, someone waved at them and she recognized several of her guild-mates—Madrigal the jongleur, PatsySue the mage, WangGus the Cutpurse and OuiBabyShaman, their healer.
“We saved you seats,” PatsySue called out as she and Loch approached. “Glad you could make it!”
“Glad to be here,” Taylor said, grinning. Loch held out her chair for her and she sat, trying not to blush as PatsySue gave her a few nosy looks. PatsySue was the guild gossip, and if she thought there was something going on, she’d make sure everyone knew about it. Taylor would have to be careful and make sure that Loch remained most definitely in the friend-zone when PatsySue was around. Loch pulled up a chair and sat down next to Taylor, and they both opened their laptops. “Loch’s got a baby toon so I’ll partner with him and pull him through any sort of dungeons they toss our way.”
“A baby toon?” one of the men asked. “What do you play?”
Oh, hell. She couldn’t remember if they’d mentioned that he was playing a female toon and pretending to be her roomie instead of her boyfriend. “You know what? I have a second account for when we need a tank. You want to play my Battlemage, Loch? She’s max level.”
“No thanks, I can play my warrior.” He pecked in his password with two fingers. Someone at the table snickered.
“Warlord,” someone corrected. “Warriors are in WoW.”
“WoW?” Loch looked up.
“World of Warcraft,” Taylor murmured. “It’s another game.”
“Ah.” He peered at his screen, concentrating as he logged on. “I’m not familiar with these games.”
“No kidding,” PatsySue said dryly, watching him hunt and peck at the keyboard.
“Warlord’s easy,” Madrigal said. “You just hit the Attack button and face-roll on through.”
“Face-roll?”
“I’ll explain later,” replied Taylor, giving the others a warning look. Were they deliberately trying to intimidate him? She felt protective of Loch for some reason. He was an adult and could take care of himself, but she hated the way the others sniggered as they watched him type. He played polo and rugby, damn it. He didn’t spend his time behind a screen pretending to live life. He actually lived it.
In that moment, Taylor wanted to get up and drag Loch out of the room and go somewhere—anywhere—but there.
“I’ll meet you in Cityport,” Madrigal offered, and Taylor shot him a grateful look. At least someone in her guild wasn’t being a douche.
Taylor logged in to her Dragon Rider, quickly scanning through the Message of the Day and the emails in her guild leader inbox. Sigmund started sending her messages right away, and she quickly got buried in the minutiae of Excelsior life. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that she’d forgotten about Loch.
“What’s that you just did?”
She glanced up and looked over at him, but he wasn’t speaking to her. Instead, he was looking over at Madrigal.
“I had my character bow to yours,” Madrigal said. “There’s an entire list of commands available that will let you do actions.”
“Where?”
“Click over here,” Madrigal said, pointing at Loch’s screen.
She really was going to have to promote Madrigal in-guild. He was always so helpful, and the time he was taking with Loch just confirmed what a genuinely nice guy he was. “I’ll run over to Cityport and meet you both,” she told them. She launched her character onto the back of her dragon and aimed it toward the city. “Be there in a jiffy.”
“Mmm,” Loch said, clicking away and peering at his screen. “I think I just danced at you, Mad.”
“You did,” Madrigal said with a chuckle.
Taylor glanced up and saw PatsySue smirking again. Ugh. Why was she being such a jerk? Everyone started out new at some point. Her dragon zoomed through a portal and appeared over Cityport, so she peeked at Loch’s screen to see where they were. Both his character and Madrigal’s were dancing in the courtyards. Smiling, she turned her dragon in that direction and landed. “I’m here.”
She piloted her character toward the two dancers. One was Madrigal’s short little gnomeling. The other dancer was Loch’s female Warlord, dressed in a few cast-off pieces of newbie armor. To share in the emote fun, she parked her character in front of them and waved in-game.
Loch’s Warlord waved back. Then, he/she dropped to a knee in-game and spoke:
TAYLOR, WILL YOU MARRY ME?
“Psst, you have the caps-lock key on, buddy,” Madrigal whispered to Loch.
“Shit. Right. Sorry.” He began to retype slowly, while Taylor stared at her computer screen, jaw hanging open.
The words eventually crawled onto her screen:
Taylor, will you marry me?
She looked over at Loch. “Like . . . in-game?”
He frowned at her, and shook his head. “I suppose I need to do this right.” He got out of his chair and went to one knee.
The breath left her.
Loch pulled a small box out of his pocket and held it out to her. “Taylor,” he said in that lovely, accented voice of his that made her knees weak. “Will you marry me?”