CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Gabi, I meant what I said,” I mumbled around my last bite of pizza. “This is seriously a good idea.”
She met my eyes with a glimmer of hope. “I thought so,” she said. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long, and when I saw this spot, it just—” She sighed. “Of course, I also thought it belonged to Sully and would be an easy in. And now I have to do a business plan? Gah.”
“Well, it sounds like if you’re a friend of his or anyone in the Barrett-Greene world, you might have that in,” I said, shaking my head. “How weird is that?”
She pointed at me around a massive bite of pizza. “Did I not tell you? This town is so odd.” She put her pizza down and turned to relocate the oar out of her way. “Speaking of which, what’s up with you and big brother hottie?”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah, it’s not reading ugh,” she said, trying to balance the oar on the side.
“I kind of kissed Leo,” I blurted.
Gabi’s head snapped around.
“You—what?” she said, drawing out the word as she scooted back around to face me. “When?”
“Last night,” I said, covering my face with my hands.
“When?” she repeated. “Where was I?”
“You weren’t outside behind the bathrooms,” I said, peeking between my fingers.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Tell me!”
“Well, I was escaping the weird guy I told you about,” I said.
“Right.”
“And—Leo was out there. And I might have left out the part about straddling his lap and face-planting him when the guy came looking for me.”
Gabi grabbed for the oar as it slipped from her hand and set it in the bottom of the boat. Laughing. Hard.
“Holy shitwaffles, girl!” she sputtered.
“I know.”
“Seriously!”
“I know,” I repeated.
She dropped her hands and looked at me expectantly.
“Well? Was it hot?”
I chuckled. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s sex on a stick, and you need to tell me every detail,” she said, holding up her hands when I widened my eyes in amusement. “Hey, I’m not off men. I’m just off dating them. Throw a girl a bone.” She laughed. “No pun intended.”
“I was in a wedding dress less than a week ago,” I said.
“So?”
I chuckled. “So, what does that say about me?”
“It says that the asshole holding your car hostage never deserved you and the hot guy who whisked you away does,” she said matter-of-factly. “Seriously, Micah, he made you pull your shit out of your own car while he watched.”
The memory of that indignity heated my blood a little.
“True.”
“I wouldn’t be worried about him,” she continued. “Mr. McKane, now, what did he say? Or do? Or either?”
That memory warmed me in a whole different way. The feel, the taste, the smell of him—they were still all over me. I still felt the trail of his hands, felt his body as he pressed me to him. Those full, delicious lips of his taking my mouth like a man starved.
“He participated,” I said.
“I’ll bet he did,” she said, laughing again.
“No, I mean he—” I stopped. “It was—”
My mouth worked, but I couldn’t find the description.
“Oh,” Gabi said, her tone changing as she drew the word out.
I met her eyes. “Yeah. Like as if we’d thought about nothing else for days, and now—”
She narrowed her eyes. “Christmas?”
I loved that she got me.
“So much Christmas,” I said. “Because—I might have maybe not been thinking about much else for days.” I covered my face. “I suck so bad.”
“So—then you—” she inferred, her tone lilting up.
“No,” I clarified. “And he made sure to tell me it was all for show.”
“Did it feel like it was all for show?”
I thought of his reaction when I’d touched him. The way he’d inhaled sharply and curled his fingers into me. When we’d almost kissed again. Hadn’t we? Had I imagined that?
“I’m not the greatest judge of anything, anymore,” I said. “What do I know?”
“Are you coming out here tonight?” she asked. “Because you know these women here are going to kill each other bidding on him.” She took another large bite and gave me a knowing smile. “If it really was just all for show, then you’re okay with that?”
The thought of his hands sliding along another woman’s body like that, of him kissing someone like that, sent spikes of not-so-pretty jealousy zinging through my veins. Not that bidding on him automatically meant a romantic date or a sexual encounter, but what if it did? What if someone straddled him like I had and he thought, Hey, here’s another woman sitting on my dick. Let’s do this.
“Here’s the flip side then,” she said, continuing while I was silently ranting.
“What?” I asked.
“If it wasn’t for show,” she said. “If it was real. Are you okay with that?”
Why was that scarier?
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want to find out?” she asked.
I looked her in the eye. “I don’t know.”
* * * *
It was like being in high school. Or hell, not even that mature. Let’s go with junior high. When you kind of avoid the guy you’re obsessed with, so he won’t see that you like him—not that you like him. More likely, you don’t like him because he can be an arrogant ass who drives you bat-shit crazy, but yet then he does these things and says stuff and looks at you all…like that, and you can’t think and you can’t make any sense and you can’t adult. But wait—we were talking about junior high school—sigh—okay, so then you make sure you aren’t where he expects you to be, and then you accidentally-on-purpose place yourself where he doesn’t expect you to be, and he can’t help but see you so he’ll have to talk and you can then analyze his reaction for the next three hours.
Yep. That’s where I was. Envious, anyone?
Gabi had something come up with her family that she had to run off and deal with, so I was left to my own devices. My own devices were proving to not be very trustworthy of late, and without a wingwoman to keep me on the tracks, I just held back. Watching.
Tables and chairs had been set up on the grounds around the pavilion, oddly transforming the very casual park into something formal. I had to give Katrina this one. Black tablecloths and candles under the stars was a weird mix that worked.
Leo and the other guys were gathered around the pavilion stage across the park, talking to people and generally schmoozing and working the crowd. Well, the other guys were doing that, at least. Leo was sitting on the edge of the stage, dressed in all black, scrolling on his phone, looking up occasionally to smile and talk to the women who came up to him, but mostly looking pretty annoyed.
It was the time for my junior high school moment, to go up to the guy. Except that I had no business liking this one. It was stupid and crazy and really probably just sexual chemistry and bodies wanting each other, but—but that would make more sense if we’d had blindfolds on and those eyes hadn’t—
“Micah!” Katrina Bowman’s shrill voice intoned behind me. “Of course you’d be here.” She was smiling, but her expression and body language hinted that she’d rather I be anywhere else. “Need to ‘blow off steam’ again tonight? Looking through your choices?”
My choices looked up from his phone, and the look on his face before he shut it down nearly took out my knees.
Fuck.
He wanted it as much as I did.
But what? We wanted what? Sex? Gabi made the separation sound so easy, but that had never been my strong suit. Sex was emotional for me.
Which greatly explained my choice of a red strapless dress that I rarely ever got to wear in public because Jeremy found it too revealing and sexy. He didn’t like other men looking at me that way. So here I was, very much in public in the dress that hugged every curve and flared out flirtatiously above my knees. With cork wedges to dress it down and my hair swept up in a messy updo to dress it back up. Because I wanted nothing to be sexy or emotional tonight.
Yeah, I couldn’t even sell it to myself.
“Are you bidding tonight, or are you just stalking?” Katrina asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said, grounding myself by latching on to a nearby chair. “I’ll see how I feel when it begins.”
“Well, just so you know, Leo will likely be the big ticket, so don’t expect to win him,” she said, throwing me a look over her freckled shoulder as she walked away.
“Oh, what a bitch,” I said softly, not even realizing that the subject matter had walked up slowly to me and was only feet away.
“Problem?” he asked.
The lack of blood to my head, maybe. Leo wasn’t just in all black. He was in black dress pants and a silk button-down.
“Sweet Jesus.”
His eyebrows raised, and I realized my mouth had once again overridden my brain. “I mean, you look nice.”
“You look—stunning,” he said, his eyes taking me in.
That was it. We were toast.
“How was your picnic today?” he asked.
“Can’t go wrong with pizza,” I said. “And if Gabi gets her deal, then…” I poked at his arm. “Didn’t realize you were part of the cool crowd.”
He huffed out a breath. “Neither did I,” he said. “Inclusive only by means of a brother who doesn’t speak to me.”
“You can work on that, Leo,” I said. “It just takes time.”
“We’ll see,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. Dear God, he looked good like that. “I didn’t know if you’d be here tonight.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t either.”
“We’re okay, right?” he asked. “I mean, nothing’s weird after that—”
“No!” I exclaimed, way too animatedly. Calm down. “Of course not. That was just—” The hottest kiss I’ve ever had. The thing that I’ve obsessed about all day. “That was just craziness.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“Right,” I echoed.
His eyes on mine were intense, and I had to do something in that heated What the fuck are we doing? pause. Something to keep me from crossing that small space between us and climbing him like a monkey.
“Katrina just told me you’re going to be the big ticket,” I said, for lack of better words. “You up for having a hundred women salivating over you?”
He grinned lazily before shaking his head and rubbing at his eyes wearily. “I’ve had worse evenings.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course.”
“But this is about as stupid as the speed dating,” he said. “I’m doing it only because Rojo’s is sponsoring it, and it’s for a good cause.”
It had been rumored that the week’s proceeds from all the activities might be going to build an epic playground in the park very close to where we now stood. Something magical for the children of Charmed, and call it the Tiny Charm. As if growing up with a theme park down the street from you wasn’t magical enough.
“So, just being a dedicated employee?” I asked.
“Why else?”
He almost looked dead serious.
“Maybe you’ll get your own stalker,” I said. “Your own version of Jeffrie with an ie.”
“If I get a Jeffrie, I’m out of here,” he said. “You could rescue me.”
“I could,” I said slowly, watching his eyes process that. “But then again, I don’t think I can afford you,” I said. “Have you seen the money walking around here? These women are hard core.”
“They scare me,” he said.
I laughed, and he did a double-take on me, his eyes going soft.
“You really do look beautiful tonight,” he said, his eyes staying on mine instead of my body.
It stole my breath, that simple choice. It was so—intimate. Real. Foreign.
That wasn’t pretend.
“Thank you,” I managed, the words coming out breathy. My hands flitted to my cheek. “I—managed to cover up the bruise pretty well.”
“Can’t even see it.”
My gaze dropped to his lips, and every sensation from the previous evening washed over me. My head was dizzy with the need to be all up in that again.
“Okay, guys, let’s rally up,” Katrina yelled into a microphone, startling us both back into reality.
“Well, go do your thing,” I said, clearing my throat. “Work up that money for the greater good.”
“Good grief,” he muttered.
“Let’s see you strut,” I said as he turned around to walk off, ignoring me. I watched the really good back and ass saunter away all swathed in black perfection. “Yep, you’ve got it.”
I breathed in deeply as he left, sinking into the nearest chair. Humor was easier with us. We could go there. It was safe there. This other—whatever we were doing—it was dangerous and exhausting. Had it really been less than a week? It felt like we’d been doing this dance for an eternity.
Men pranced throughout the evening, and women acted like they’d never seen one before. Seriously, it was as if some invisible switch was flipped and normally intelligent people turned into the worst version of any stereotypical horndog you’d ever seen. Catcalls, whistles, body shimmies, anything to draw attention to themselves—it was entertaining in a somewhat horrifying way.
Even men who wouldn’t normally be viewed as studly—put them in a suit and march them around a stage, and the female feeding frenzy below did not falter.
I nursed my one glass of wine, laughed with the other people at my table, and did my best to blend. For once, I wasn’t the focus of anyone’s attention. No one at my table knew me or remembered me. I was just one of the masses. It was heavenly.
And then it was Leo’s turn.
“Okay, ladies, we saved the best for last,” Katrina said with an eyebrow wiggle. “No offense, all you other hotties!” She giggled. “But you’ve all met our newest resident, Charmed’s very own drink slinger, Mr. Leo McKane!”
She drew out his name in a ridiculously long manner, and I covered half my face with my hands in anticipation. Part of me was sympathetic and embarrassed for him, knowing how uncomfortable he was about this. And part of me was hideously turned on.
Leo came out on stage from behind a red partition and stopped short when a spotlight landed on him with the brightness of the sun. He held up a hand, and they backed it off. Yeah, this isn’t Project Runway, people. Let’s keep it real.
Cheesy music played, and he walked the stage from one end to the other, one hand in a pocket like he’d come out of the womb meant for this. The females lost their minds, a couple of them climbing over each other, not caring about decorum or proper behavior. They had been primed and readied with the other bachelors and now were pulling out all the stops. Bidding cards were popping up everywhere, and Katrina had her work cut out for her, keeping up with them.
A woman with long immaculately curled blonde hair raised her card repeatedly, getting up from her table, even, as the bidding went higher. Katrina zoned in on her, working her bids against the others as people methodically bowed out of the rising price. It was down to her and one other older woman in a red netted hat that looked to be pushing sixty.
“One night with the handsome Mr. McKane,” Katrina said. “We’re at four hundred ninety dollars. Do I hear five hundred?”
Five hundred dollars.
For a date with Leo.
It was insane.
But the blonde sleeper cell hell-bent on going home with him didn’t think so. She was walking steadily closer to the stage, looking up at him like she wanted to do five hundred dollars’ worth of nasty. Leo smiled down at her, and my nerve endings twitched.
She held up her card. “Five hundred twenty,” she called out.
“Who is that?” I asked the woman next to me.
She shrugged. “Never seen her before. Must be from Denning or somewhere.”
“We have five hundred and twenty,” Katrina said, as blonde-woman strolled ever closer to the stage.
Leo walked to the other side of the stage again, and the woman slowly mimicked his direction. He glanced down at her again, and in that second it became a sexual dance. A game. And my blood went sharply south of warm. My image of another woman on him now had a face and a body and a little black dress that would too easily be shoved out of the way.
No one else was bidding. Red-hat lady shook her head. That was out of her budget for a dinner with a handsome hunk, but blondie was willing to shell out her life savings. I was pretty sure dinner wasn’t anywhere in her plan.
“Going once,” Katrina said, holding up a hand. “Going twice—”
Leo’s gaze landed on me, and in that microsecond we were back in the chair.
“Six hundred dollars,” I blurted out, grabbing my unused card and holding it over my head.
Katrina widened her eyes in a mixture of euphoria and irritation, as all eyes swerved to me. Including Leo’s, still hardwired into mine, now with a spark of amusement added.
“Six hundred,” she echoed, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “To the lady in red at the back table.” She glanced around the room. “Anyone for six fifty?”
There were mumblings and murmurings, but no other cards went up.
Please, someone, bid me out.
“Six hundred, going once,” Katrina said. “Going twice.”
What did I do?