If she was single.
If he had a shot.
If he wasn’t the single biggest fool on the face of the planet for falling like a Sub-Zero fridge over the edge of a cliff the first moment he heard her brain at work.
“So,” he said, grinding out the single word without unclenching his jaw, desperate to hold on to the little bit of dignity and self-respect he had left—the effort of which turned his tone hard and mean. “The waltz is just a box step with turns.”
She didn’t even flinch at his harshness, just bit down on her plump bottom lip and cut her gaze to the floor. “I don’t know—”
“Look at me,” he interrupted.
She did, tilting her chin up and looking at him with wide, wary eyes.
“I got you.”
And right at that moment, as the music looped back to the beginning of the clip, he started the waltz. He went forward with his left foot and she went back with her right. Then he went right and she stayed with him as they continued the box step. They continued several more times along with the song that had become one of the most popular TikTok dance challenges before he felt her relax in his arms.
“Get ready,” he whispered, his mouth close enough to her ear that his lips nearly brushed against her soft skin. “We’re gonna turn.”
Before she could freeze up or he gave in to the heat and kissed her right there in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, he swung her around. He repeated it again and again as they rounded the small dance floor. Then, just as the song was ending, he dipped her and she went with it, bending back until he brought her up again, holding her so she was pressed against him. Their faces were so close, all he had to do was dip his head lower and kiss her.
There was nothing in the world he wanted more.
There was nothing in the world he could have less.
He dropped his hands abruptly and stepped back, flexing his fingers to try to ease the ache of not touching her anymore, ice the burn of wanting nothing else but the one woman he couldn’t have. Frustration and desire slamming against him, banging him up with more force than Mac’s fists in the ring, he dragged his attention away from Kinsey over to their dance instructor.
“We danced,” he said, snarl dialed up to a hundred. “Is the date over now?”
Wide-eyed, the instructor nodded.
Great. He’d never been more fucking glad in his life to get exactly what he didn’t want.
Chapter Twenty
Kinsey
Kinsey was going to hell in a very tiny, very scratchy, very uncomfortable handbasket, and she was taking Todd with her.
Making up a fiancé had made sense at the time.
Now, when she was in this way-too-small-for-comfort elevator with Griff, still feeling the weight of his hand on the small of her back and her lips still tingling from that shoulda-been-but-wasn’t kiss?
It. Made. No. Sense. At. All.
But here she was. Standing next to a guy who growled as a form of communication, looked like he could be a tattooed Captain America body double—especially the butt, oh my God, his butt—and had Bruce Banner’s brain. It was too much. She was in sensory overload. Even worse, the horny part of her brain would not keep its shit together.
She couldn’t even look over at Griff as the elevator climbed its way to the penthouse level because every time she did, she imagined running her fingertips over the line of buttons on his shirt, slipping each one free. She’d like to imagine she’d have the control to go slowly, revealing his colorful, muscled chest one leisurely inch at a time. A kiss here. A flick of her tongue against his warm skin there. Spreading his shirt wide and running her palms over the broad expanse of him and kissing her way down as she went to work unbuttoning his pants.
In reality—not that this was ever going to happen—there wouldn’t be any slow-mo speed at all. It would be lust tingled with desperation sending buttons flying across the elevator, pinging against the walls with the force of her need to get him naked right the fuck now.
Whew.
Okay.
Deep breaths, Kinsey. In and out. There you go. You can breathe the horny away.
Ha. Yeah right. Keep dreaming.
“Are you all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your breathing.”
Oh. God. She was more obvious than neon at midnight. “I’m fine.” He lifted an eyebrow, and she kinda melted a little at his nonverbal communication skills. Fine. A lot. She melted like the ice cubes in a glass of sweet tea left out on the porch in August. “Really. I’m perfectly okay.”
“Your cheeks are pink, and you’ve got a splash of color right here.” He reached out and touched a fingertip to that spot at the base of her throat right above the notch in her collarbone.
Kinsey couldn’t breathe and, for the first time in her life, she wasn’t even thinking one step ahead, let alone her usual three.
Griff’s intense gaze went from her eyes to her parted lips. He took a step forward. She didn’t have anywhere to go in the elevator even if she wanted to. He slid his finger from her throat to the scoop neck of her dress, tracing the line of fabric as if he were trying to memorize every thread.
“Kinsey,” he said, her name coming out all rough and hungry.
She would have answered if she could. Instead, all she could do was stand there, her entire body electrified with need and want and a building ache that only Griff could ease. His eyes lifted to hers again. Lust, hot and heady, steamed through her as he pinned her with a look that held so much dark promise, she wasn’t sure she’d make it another minute.
Griff lowered his hand as he dipped his head, then took her hand—her left hand. She knew the second he touched her fake engagement ring. It was as if something snapped and the whole moment changed in a heartbeat. Guilt flashed in his eyes as he let out a harsh breath before dropping her hand and taking a step back.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned so he was facing the elevator doors, tension emanating from him strong enough that it could have acted like a force field.
“Sorry,” he said, low and angry.
Damn it. Damn it all right to the bottom of Meemaw’s nonfunctioning water well.
Meemaw had warned her the whole fake engagement would come back to bite her in the ass. Kinsey’s overly confident response at the time was that she was always three steps ahead so not to worry about it. Well, she sure wasn’t in front of the eight ball now, because it had just run her over and left her flatter than her hair after three days of not washing it. There was nothing she wanted more at that moment than to tell him that there was no Todd, but she couldn’t. The only way she could get her last fling with a lie to work was to make sure that no one in the small-and-still-gossips-a-lot cosmetics industry let slip her secret shame.