A long, cold shower.
…
Hours later, Dominic was tossing and turning on the torturous pullout couch in the living room, trying once again not to think about the soft, sweet-smelling woman in the bedroom.
Kate had looked beautiful tonight and the hour she’d spent putting on the finishing touches had been worth it. Walking into the ballroom with every man turning to stare at her had filled him with contrasting feelings. Pride that this creature was there with him, and the urge to punch every guy throwing salacious grins her way.
Especially Michael. What a freaking weasel. He’d cornered Dominic when he went to get Kate a drink, practically demanding to know how serious things were between them while his fiancée waited across the room.
“I’m not quite sure what business it is of yours, bud,” Dominic had said. “Isn’t that your fiancée watching us at the next table?”
“Kate is a good friend. The fact that we had…complications in our own relationship doesn’t change that we still care about how the other’s doing.”
Complications, his ass. Michael had been an idiot to ever let Kate go.
The squeaking of the mattress in the other room told him Kate was still awake. He could almost picture her now. Probably in some silky nightgown, maybe a number with a long slit up the thigh. Her full breasts heavy and pressed against the fabric. That red hair cascading on the pillows under her, her body soft and waiting for his touch.
He muffled a groan and nestled farther in his pillows, willing himself to shut the crazy thoughts away and get some sleep.
“Are you awake?” Kate asked softly from the other room.
Hell, if only he was. Instead, he rasped, “Nope.”
“Me, either.” He heard her toss around again. This was torture. “But I think the pain meds are working. I don’t feel like I’m as stiff as I was before.”
That made one of them. “Good.”
“I think I should take some more ibuprofen, though. Want to be able to walk tomorrow.”
This time he could hear her rise from the bed, and then it was quiet.
“I’m just going to get some water,” she said from the doorway. The carpet must have muffled her footsteps.
He pressed his eyes even tighter. Not trusting himself to look over to see what, if anything, she was wearing. “Be my guest.”
…
Kate stood in the doorway for a few seconds, adjusting her eyes to the dark, until she could recognize the pullout bed and Dominic’s figure thanks to the light streaming in from the window above the kitchen sink.
Gaining her bearings, she walked into the small studio kitchen and grabbed a water from the fridge and set it next to the medicine bottle.
She should be tired, and Lord knew she had been exhausted when they’d arrived back at their room after skiing earlier. But between then and now, she felt energized. She laughed out loud as an image from earlier came to her. “I’m still remembering that look on Michael’s face when you took me out to the dance floor before the dancing had even started and swirled me around. He never was much for dancing.”
Not to mention the giddy emotions that she’d experienced when Dominic had held her so expertly, her hand in his as he whirled her around. It had been like a dream. For a minute she’d forgotten everyone else in that room save her and Dominic.
Until she had spied Michael sitting there, his mouth hanging open.
“You certainly left an impression on him,” Dominic said after a moment.
“I think you’re the one who left the impression. Who knew how powerful the pull of jealousy could be,” she mused.
Dominic was quiet and didn’t move. Finally, he tossed the pillow that he’d had over his head and rolled over to prop his arm up underneath him. Kate’s stomach dropped as she realized that his shoulders were bare. Maybe coming out here hadn’t been such a good idea. What did he have on underneath that sheet?
“Is that part of your angle here?” he asked. “To make Michael jealous?”
Concentrate, Kate.
She forced herself to drag her gaze from where he was lying and grabbed the ibuprofen bottle and twisted. “Honestly? It wasn’t part of the agenda when you first proposed the idea of posing as my boyfriend, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind recently.”