‘Helen has requested photos of us dancing, so I suggest we provide them. She’s not a fool. Plus, she can hardly have missed how jumpy you are.’
‘Of course I’m jumpy. Posing as your date isn’t easy on the nerves. Especially as I haven’t been briefed. I don’t know the first thing about you.’
Brown eyes crinkled in sudden amusement. ‘Most of my dates don’t; I wouldn’t worry about it.’ He held out a hand. ‘Come on, Olivia. Will you dance with me? One dance. It might be fun.’
Now, that really wasn’t playing fair.
He’d knocked the moral high ground from under her feet in one deft manoeuvre. As for his smile... A curl of heat spread through her midriff right down to her toes.
She tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. ‘I truly can’t dance.’
‘Just follow my lead.’
‘I wish you’d stop saying that.’
‘Come on,’ he urged again. ‘We need to lull Helen’s suspicions.’
Unfortunately Adam was right. ‘I’m not sure her watching me stumble round a dance floor will help anything,’ Olivia said as she stood up. ‘But, hey, what’s a little public humiliation?’
‘You can’t be that bad.’
As though on his say-so she would suddenly develop balletic ability. Olivia huffed out a sigh. ‘Yes, I can. I’m totally uncoordinated. Penguins dance better than me. Don’t make me make an utter idiot of myself.’
‘Hang on tight and you’ll be fine.’
Yeah, right. Hang on tight to which bit, exactly? Hanging on tight to any part of Adam seemed a terminally bad idea.
What was the matter with her? Her body had never, ever reacted to a man like this. Sure, her relationships had entered the bedroom, but the va-va-voom hadn’t really revved up until... Well, quite a long way into proceedings. If she were brutally honest her bedroom dealings had been mostly va rather than va-va, and voom had rarely been accomplished.
Whereas now they weren’t even in the vicinity of a bedroom, they were in public, and they hadn’t even kissed. Yet her body was accelerating forward, fuelled by high-octane desire, and she couldn’t find the brake.
Now they were on the wretched dance floor and Adam enfolded her waist, his fingers burning through the silky thin material of her dress. The breadth of his palm imprinted on her like a brand as he pulled her closer. Heat scorched through her; he was so close.... Firm, hard muscle pressed against her. His breath tickled her newly sensitised earlobe.
‘You need to relax.’
As if that was going to happen; a bucketload of Valium wouldn’t relax her.
‘Arrgle...’ The noise was all she could achieve.
She could see Helen seated at a table on the edge of the dance floor, directing the photographer.
‘You’re doing fine,’ he murmured. ‘But help me out a bit more here. Maybe put your arms round my neck.’
She did as he suggested and came flush up against his wide chest. Her breath caught in her throat and she watched his brown eyes darken, his pulse throb at the base of his neck. Olivia tangled her fingers in his hair and her lungs went on strike.
Suddenly an inability to dance was no longer her prime source of concern. There were more pressing worries. Literally. Her brain issued commands at military speed. Don’t melt. Don’t dribble. Don’t stroke. Don’t lean your head on his chest. Do not get too close.
It was all too late. Her eyes closed. Her body moved tight up against his. Her hips circled. Searched. Needed. Found an unmistakable reaction.
Her eyes flew open as a shiver shot through his broad frame; exultation flamed that she had caused it.
Olivia had forgotten where she was. Who she was. What she was. All she knew was this. This was real. Bone-meltingly real.
The music came to a stop.
Mortification loomed as she remembered exactly where, who and what she was. She was plastered to him; they might as well have been having sex on the dance floor.
For a timeless moment she felt the accelerated thud of his heart against her palm, looked up into eyes that had deepened to molten copper. Then he blinked, his eyelids lifting to reveal nothing more than speculation in their brown depths.
‘That should do it,’ he said.
‘Do what?’
‘Lull any lingering doubt in Helen’s mind. And free me from any unwanted attention from other women.’
Humiliation arrived and encased her with an icy dose of reality.
Adam had orchestrated the whole thing—staged a scene designed to convince the most sceptical of reporters. But it couldn’t all have been an act. No way had he faked what had happened in his trousers. What was still happening in his trousers. Whilst she was still glued to him.