Best Man with Benefits

His warm breath tickled her ear and every erogenous zone in her body sat up and begged for the same treatment. Unconsciously, she scooted a little closer to the wall, and then bit back a moan because shifting around only intensified the distracting pressure between her thighs. She glanced at him and hoped he couldn’t tell how turned on she was, just from sitting beside him. “It’s not?”

He smiled, and a groove appeared at the corner of his mouth. Her tongue tingled with an urge to trace the tempting little bracket.

“You wouldn’t want to disappoint Colt and Kady. They love you, and they want you to be part of their celebration, regardless of the dress code. Deep down, you would have felt terrible if you’d skipped out on tonight.”

Yeah. There was that. As her mom frequently pointed out, cowardice lay at the heart of shyness. Every time she caved in to her desire to run and hide, she forfeited self-respect.

“You’re right. Thank you for convincing me to come, and being my partner in fashion crime.”

He tapped his glass to hers. “I’ll be your partner in crime anytime.”

She laughed and tipped her head to sip her drink. For one long, suspended moment their eyes locked, and something in his gaze sucked all the air out of her lungs. Finally, he blinked, smiled a smile she could only call bemused, and shook his head. “Sorry for staring. It’s just…you look so different. You’re not a cute little kid anymore. You’re a beautiful woman. I almost didn’t recognize you in the lobby.”

Logan McCade just called you beautiful! Her heart nearly raced right out of her chest, even though he meant it in a damn-it’s-shocking kind of way. She opened her mouth to say thanks, but the perverse idiot inside her who could never gracefully accept a compliment immediately blurted, “Your mental picture of me probably includes braces, bad skin, and a misguided attempt at a Halle Berry pixie cut, which my mother correctly predicted would be a disaster. Anything would be a step up from where I started.”

His smile faded and she immediately wanted to bite her tongue. The shy girl’s other natural gift besides hiding in plain site? Always saying the wrong thing. The pathetic, self-conscious thing. He scratched his chin and gave her a measuring look, starting at the top of her head and ending…she didn’t know where, because she turned and stared down at the table rather than blush for him yet again.

“Nope,” he said after a moment, “it’s not debatable. You’re beautiful.” His fingers toyed with the fringe of her chin-length bob. She turned her burning face back to him. “And it’s not because you’ve grown out your hair and gotten your braces off. Those are superficial things. It’s more like…I don’t know…you’ve got secrets and a hint of determination hidden behind those soft brown eyes. Makes a guy want to figure out what’s going on in your head.”

“You’d be—” God, was she really going to say this? “You’d be running for the hills if you knew what was going on in my head.”

His mouth kicked up at the corner, and the sexy groove made an encore. He trailed his finger along the edge of her hair again, making her shiver, and then leaned closer. “Try me.”

Here? Now? Her last semi-functional brain cell took a minute to realize that “Try me” meant “Talk to me.”

Right. Conversation. “Oh-kay. Six months ago I challenged myself to accomplish three things.”

“Very adventurous of you,” he teased, reaching out and tucking her hair behind her ear.

Possibly, but the resolutions had been prompted less by a sense of adventure than overwhelming frustration. Colt and Kady had just announced their engagement, and happy as she’d been for them, the news had prompted her to take a good, hard look at herself.

The woman cringing back at her seemed pretty pathetic. An introvert who preferred to fly under the radar at work rather than muster up the courage to tackle a client-facing role. A wallflower living in bulky sweatshirts and baggy jeans, clinging to an extra twenty pounds like a buffer against the world. An unfulfilled woman who wouldn’t know passion and excitement except through the racy text accompanying the erotic product offerings of the spicy website she designed and maintained for her firm’s biggest client, Eve’s Closet. Eve’s Closet was the J. Peterman of adult toys. Every product told a story, and somewhere between Eve’s kinky adventures with riding crops, blindfolds, wrist restraints, and all sundry of clamps and rings, Sophie had realized how small and dull her world had become.

She was tired of lurking on the sidelines, observing life instead of participating, reading about passion and excitement rather than experiencing any firsthand. Deep down, she wanted what Colt had found—a life partner. Unlike her brother, she’d always dreamed of meeting that special someone, falling madly in love, and having the object of her affection love her back with equal intensity. Achieving her dreams meant making some changes. Mark, her neighbor and self-proclaimed “fairy godfather,” had summed it up best. “Want a life partner? Sweetie, the first thing you gotta do is get a life.” She’d promptly devised a three-step plan to New Sophie.

“So tell me, what are you hankering to do?” Logan’s question broke into her thoughts. “Skydive? Swim with sharks? Bike down the slopes of Haleakala?”

She bit back a laugh. “None of the above. I think we have very different ideas of challenge. I wanted to lose weight—”

“Why?” His brows drew together. “You don’t need to lose any.”

His response made her want to hug him. “Thank you for saying that, but six months ago I needed to lose a bunch. The process took more determination than I’d given myself credit for.” Discipline, too, but she’d learned to exercise every morning, and stop filling the voids in her life with mac ’n’ cheese and brownies.

Hazel eyes appraised her in a way that made her pulse quicken. “I think you can consider that particular goal achieved. What else is on your list?”

He angled his body toward her as he spoke. His forest-after-a-rainstorm scent seduced her just as effectively as his hard thigh brushing against hers. She clamped her fingers around the edge of the table to keep from shooting straight out of the booth like one of the homemade match rockets Colt, Reed, and Brock had loved to set off as kids.

“I wanted to advance at work.” She threw the words out a bit desperately and silently ordered herself to settle down. “I’ve been a web designer for the same firm for almost three years. I like the job, but it’s time for me to make the jump to lead designer and start managing client projects. Last week my supervisor told me they’ve opened up a new lead designer position, and asked if I’d be interested in applying.”

“And you said…?”

“I looked him square in the eye and said yes.” Her chest swelled just thinking about it. “I put the finishing touches on a proposal for our firm’s most important client before I left for Beaver Creek. Hopefully, I’ll hear something from my supervisor while I’m here, but…” She shrugged. “I think it was good. I think I have a shot at getting the promotion.”

Logan nodded. “Your supervisor wouldn’t have asked you to apply if he didn’t think you were ready. You’ve got lead designer in the bag. I promise. So, what’s goal number three?”

That brought her to the whole passion/excitement thing. The only area where she’d made absolutely no progress unless the inaugural bikini wax she’d subjected herself to before she left for Beaver Creek counted. And now that the moment of truth had arrived, she wasn’t sure she was bold enough to mention goal number three to him after all. But hey, here she was, sharing an intimate booth with the man she secretly cast as the lead in every erotic adventure she’d ever uploaded to the Eve’s Closet site…and she’d uploaded a lot. Sitting beside him, tingling from head to toe each time their bodi

es brushed, qualified as excitement and passion, didn’t it? She shifted closer to him until their hips touched, and prepared to speak, but the contact set off a flurry of vibrations along her leg.

Goodness, was he vibrating with need? For her?

He cursed under his breath. “Sorry, Soph. Let me take care of this.” Then he reached down between their bodies. His knuckles grazed her thigh. Oh, my heavens! She held her breath. Is he actually going to…?

He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

Oh. So much for vibrating with need. The tingling sensation had been his phone signaling an incoming message. Her breath leaked out her nose and she sagged with relief…or disappointment. It was a close call. A half-hysterical fit of giggles threatened until she noticed him wince at the screen.

“Something wrong?”

He sighed, and for the first time ever, she sensed weariness behind his Mr. Perfect facade. “Probably. Defy Gravity is in negotiations to acquire a surf company. I thought we had every issue tied down before I left, but things are starting to unravel, and now my CFO is blowing up my phone every hour with new problems, and my board is asking for an update, and”—he tossed his phone on the table—“I might as well have stayed in Boulder if I was going to spend the whole damn week a slave to this deal.”

“Sucks to be in charge, huh?”

The comment earned her a weak grin. “Sometimes it feels like the company owns me. Growing the business used to be fun, before the money guys and the analysts and the lawyers got involved. Fun or not”—he heaved out a breath—“duty calls. I hate to ask, but will you excuse me for a moment?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks. I’ll be right back.” He picked up his phone and card key before pinning her with a serious look. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Amazingly, she didn’t have an urge to flee. She felt radiant from basking in his attention all evening, and she didn’t want to lose the glow. But as she watched him weave his way through the crowded restaurant toward the lounge, she noticed female heads turn like flowers to the sun as he passed, including a couple of the other bridesmaids. Some of the warm feeling dissipated.