“I’m not drunk.” She stared at his mouth. “But take me upstairs, please.” Her long lashes brushed her cheeks. “What would you like to do to me first?”
Blake almost tripped over his feet. A million different items volleyed for first place in the “what he’d like to do to Darby” list. He wanted to do them all. He wanted to act on each and every vivid thought in his head. With Darby.
He gulped. “Maybe going back to our room isn’t such a great idea.”
Darby’s lower lip pouted. “Why not?”
He tried to laugh off the way he felt, as if he didn’t believe she was serious. “I might take advantage of you.”
“Isn’t that the idea?” Her fingers tightened in his hair. She stood on her tiptoes and looked deep into his eyes, her expression inviting. “Let’s go. Take advantage of me. Now.”
There she went, getting Darby bossy again.
Didn’t she know that turned him on? That she turned him on? More than any woman. Her earlier words seared through his mind. She’d told him to butt out of her life. Words that had cut deep. Words he should heed rather than the ones she currently shot at him. A smart man would butt out of her life.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Yes, I do.” She tugged on his hand, moving against him in a slow sway. “I want to make love with you. Now.”
She spoke loud—loud enough that the couples around them heard and snickered.
“Guess we know for definite that Dilly didn’t die a virgin.”
Blake wanted to assure them Darby was the least likely woman to die a virgin. But, although Darby had occasionally dated, she’d managed to keep each of the boyfriends at arm’s length, never really letting them close, finding faults in each that allowed her to remain in control.
He’d always admired her control. Now he wondered if her control had been a safety mechanism, a way of making men butt out of her life when they tried to get close.
He suspected he knew more about her, that he was closer to her than any man she’d dated, and until today he’d never so much as kissed her. Was she a virgin?
The idea was impossible for his brain to wrap around.
No way was the hottest woman he knew a virgin.
Still, the possibility struck him and he couldn’t let it go—no matter how many times he tried to dismiss the notion as ridiculous.
“Are you?”
She rested her head against his shoulder, swaying in rhythm with him on the dance floor. “Am I what?”
“A virgin?”
Still punch-happy, she smiled up at him, her eyes starry, her lower lip pouty, begging to be kissed. “If I was, would you promise to save me from my ‘most likely’ curse?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
DEAR Lord, had she really just asked Blake to make love to her? To save her from her virginity?
Darby giggled to cover her nervousness.
She was nervous. For the first time she’d asked a man to make love to her. Not just any man, but Blake Di Angelo—the man she’d been waiting for her entire life.
Because she loved him.
Had always loved him.
“Is that what you want, Darby?” His hands brushed across her cheek, cupped her face so he could study her so intently she wondered what he saw. “For me to make love to you?”
More than her next breath.