Undercover Engagement (Private Pleasures 5)

He winced. “I just want to take those dreams down a notch.” His wince deepened. “Or two.”

“Why don’t you have the wedding and reception at your house?” Kenny suggested. “Totally free venue.”

Her “fiancé” shot her a look. She dodged it and leveled her gaze on Kenny. “Have you seen our rental? I am not getting married in that shithole.”

“Choux—” Swain rubbed her arm. “C’mon now.”

She jerked away and straightened her spine. “No. No. I hate living there. I sure as hell don’t want to get married there.” A slow-tempo song she didn’t recognize flowed from the sound system. A raspy-voiced vocalist insisted his heart was a bar. Good enough. “Let me out.” She pushed her hip against his.

“Don’t get all het up, choux.” He pushed back.

“I said, let…me…out…” She finished each word with a bump of her hip against his.

“Okay. Fuck. Okay.” He slid out of the booth. “Jesus, go—”

“Oh, I will,” she assured him. Sliding the brim of her hat back, she took in the people around the table. “Dobie, do you want to dance?”

“Uh.” He blushed to the roots of his hair and aimed a nervous look at Swain. “I think that would be okay?”

“Uh-uhhhh.” Junior shook his head back and forth vigorously, in a “surreptitious” message to Dobie.

“It’s fine,” Swain said. “Dance some of that cranky out of her. Bring her back when she’s ready to be nice.”

She stuck her tongue out at him as she led Dobie to the almost empty dance floor. Without live music, the action at Rawley’s slowed considerably. She rested her wrists on his skinny shoulders and swayed with him. After a moment’s awkwardness, he looped his arms at the small of her back but kept about a half a foot of space between them. They were nearly the same height, so it wasn’t hard to look him in the eye. “What are y’all doing later?”

He looked dumbfounded. “Uh. Nothing.”

“You and Kenny should come back to our house. I bought a firepit for the porch.” She tipped her chin toward the ceiling, closed her eyes, and rocked her head from side to side, swaying her hair across her bare shoulders. “Drink some beers and convince Swain we should have our reception at the Riverview Inn.”

“Um. Okay. We’ll try. Kenny’s mom is the event planner for the Inn. We could see if she can work you a deal.”

Bringing her head forward again, she looked into Dobie’s sweet, open face, and felt the first stirrings of guilt. “That is so nice of you guys.” Her smile felt brittle. The song switched over to another slow number. She inched closer to him. “Swain loves a deal. It might persuade him to blow the cobwebs off his wallet, for once, and—”

“Mind if I take this one off your hands?”

At the sound of Swain’s voice over his shoulder, Dobie stepped away from her like a thief caught in the act. “Sure, man. Sure. Hey, thanks for the dance, Eden.”

“Thank you,” she called after him as Swain swept her up into the kind of body-to-body slow dance an engaged couple would have. Automatically, she lifted her arms to loop them around his neck and rest her forearms on his linebacker’s shoulders. So drastically different than Dobie’s. Tipping her head back, she looked at him. She expected the cocky grin, but he stared down at her with serious eyes. Drawing her closer, he murmured, “Don’t start feeling sorry for him.”

“You don’t? Goal accomplished, by the way. They’re down to come over. Like we’re friends. But we’re not.” The basic drugstore soap in their shower smelled unaccountably enticing on him. “We’re using them.”

“Goes with the territory. He’s a means to an end—hopefully—and it’s our job to get to that end. It’s nothing personal.”

“That kid is the human equivalent of a beagle. We’re going to feed him, play with him, and then kick him when he least expects it. Kenny, too.”

A wide hand meandered up her back. Long fingers caught the rim of her hat and slid it off her head, held on to it as he resumed their dance. He brushed his lips over her earlobe. “That kid is your age, Eden. He’s a grown man. They both are. My conscience is clear.” He kissed the sensitive skin beneath her earlobe, which caused her to fight off a shiver, and then breathed, “And it won’t be such a hard kick, so don’t feel sorry for them. Feel sorry for me.”

Drawing back, she looked at him. “Why?”

Now came the cocky smile. “My fiancée won’t be happy ’til she bankrupts me.”

“You knew what you were getting into when you hooked up with her.”

“I was distracted by her charms at the time.”

“Oh. But now you’re not?” She ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. The military-short style he’d maintained at the academy had grown out some over the last couple weeks. It moved like velvet under her fingertips. His eyelids lowered over those deep blue eyes. He brought his face close to hers.

“You tryin’ to distract me, choux?”