Too bad that rather than leaving, he led her back to the table where their friends were, because escaping became almost impossible.
Where had the bottle of Jack Daniel’s come from, anyway?
Peyton poured a measured amount into the glasses of everyone at the table. On a high from her dance with Cole, Amelia upended her shot glass and lifted it to the cheers of her tablemates.
They were drinking like the sailors they were.
Round after round, they drank, laughed, recounted tales of shared experiences, pranks pulled and personal blunders.
Amelia sat next to Cole, plastered to his side, their hands locked beneath the privacy of the table, although they probably weren’t fooling a soul.
She laughed, shifted. Their hands slid across her lap. Cole tensed next to her with the awareness that his hand lay across her leg with only a thin scrap of silk between them. An awareness they both felt.
An awareness that was burning her up from the inside out, waiting, burning, building, growing hotter and hotter until she felt she was about to burst into uncontrollable flames.
Without letting go of her hand, he gently raked his fingers over the material, bunching the cloth higher, slowly exposing the flesh beneath. Other than a quick glance his way, she didn’t externally acknowledge what he did, just carried on the conversation without skipping a beat, much as he did. Beneath the table, a whole different conversation was taking place.
One without words. One that didn’t need words.
Cole’s fingers did the talking, praising the toned lines of her thighs, telling her how much he wanted her, telling her all the things he planned to do to her before the sun came up.
They spoke volumes to each other, conveying all the things words couldn’t.
Even when she was at the point of squirming in her seat, he didn’t move to the damp juncture of her thighs. She wanted him. Desperately wanted him to touch her there. But he didn’t. Just traced delicate lines along her inner thighs to almost the brink of where she craved him most.
Over and over he drew the path, circling, toying, rubbing over her skin in teasing little movements, his hand dragging hers along for each erotic stroke. His fingers touched her, but he also played her own fingers against her flesh, guiding each teasing touch. Each movement tugging her insides out until she reached the point she fully expected her skin to retract.
What was he doing? How could he stand it? Oh, God, she couldn’t take much more without climbing into his lap.
Or dragging him under the table.
She glanced at him, her brow furrowing at how relaxed he looked, at how little he seemed affected by his tantalizing caresses. Her gaze settled on the rapid little beat pounding at his neck and she felt the beginnings of a smile.
Mr Hot Shot Doctor could act as if he were immune to what he was doing, but that jumping carotid pulse told a different story. One that emboldened Amelia.
Wiggling her hand free, she began an exploration of her own. One that involved her hand on his rock-hard thigh. Seconds later she discovered his thigh wasn’t the only thing rock hard about his body. Had he just groaned or had she imagined that guttural sound?
No longer able to fake an interest in the conversation going on around them, she lifted her glass to her lips with her free hand and drank deeply. Her other hand remained on him. On the very male part of him that just touching had her panties going damp.
Through his pants, she cupped him, taking slow measure of his girth through the material. Impressive. Wow.
He swallowed, forgot what he was saying and laughed roughly. “Somebody pour me another drink. I need another.”
“That’s funny,” Amelia said low next to him, quite enjoying herself. “I’d say you need something else entirely.”
He turned to her and stopped. He swallowed. Hard.
“Never mind,” he told no one in particular, his gaze not leaving Amelia’s. “I’ve had enough anyway. I’m going to head back to the hotel. Anyone else ready to go?”
“Already? It’s too early to turn in, man,” Peyton denied, glancing at his watch. “The night is barely getting started.”
A perverse part of Amelia wanted to deny Cole, to stay here and torture him, to make him beg her to come with him. But to do that would torture herself.
She’d been tortured two years too long already.
Although she liked the idea of Cole begging. Begging her to open her mouth to his kisses. Beggin
g her to touch him. Begging her to strip off her clothes so he could—