Bethany spotted him, said something to Kate, then both women, Kate with her tray which she seemed hard-pressed to set down, and Beth with a smile, began coming forward.
People circulated around the living room and the small dance floor, but the noise of them went distant, unimportant somehow.
Because Beth and Kate were coming over.
His pulse went haywire.
Someone slapped his back and stopped him in his tracks. “I noticed you haven’t kissed the bride,” Julian said.
Garrett was with him, and the three men stood watching the women wind their way across.
“And why is that?” This from Garrett. “Last time you celebrated this very wedding, you gave us all quite a viewing, Lan.”
Landon’s pulse jumped as it always did when Bethany stared at him with those big bright eyes. He lowered his voice so she couldn’t hear him. “It’s about time I kissed her in private.”
“I’m kinda put out you haven’t tasted my spinach rolls,” Kate said to Julian when they arrived, extending the tray.
But it was Garrett who instantly snatched one up, made an obliging sound and tasted it. Landon had seen Kate in ponytails—she was the closest to a little sister the Gages had—but it was Garrett who got five stars for sticking by her side when she grew breasts and a penchant for trouble. Poor Garrett.
“Well?” Kate prodded. “Good?”
Garrett said something, but Landon didn’t hear. He hungrily studied Bethany’s mouth. Her fragrance wafted into his lungs. Sweet and female, creating havoc with his insides. He didn’t know what it was about her. Something intrinsic in her, the sexual siren mixed with the fierceness of a mother cougar and the calm of an angel.
“There’s more where that came from,” Kate said. “And there’s dancing, too. You guys have heard of that, haven’t you? Something people do to have fun?”
Garrett muttered something to her, yanked the tray away and shoved it into a waiter’s hands, and dragged her to the dance floor. Julian took his exit cue when no one spoke a word. Bethany remained, uneasy on her feet, tucking her hair behind her ears.
Landon stepped closer, and before she could turn to leave, he reached out and seized her wrist. His voice sounded gruff even to his own ears.
“Do you want to dance?”
Oh, God, he was so sexy.
The offer—the low timbre of his voice and the rough way he’d asked her—sent a flock of winged creatures loose inside Beth.
She nodded before she realized what she was doing and allowed Landon to lead her past Kate, past Garrett, past their families, past their friends.
They’d organized only a small celebration, had already smiled for pictures for the press. Beth had met some of Landon’s Harvard friends, business colleagues. They’d done everything but dance. In fact, they’d done everything but act like a newly married couple.
Until now.
Her heart felt like a restless rabbit as they reached the farthest corner of the dance floor. Whomp whomp whomp.
This was probably just for show but the excitement swimming inside her was all too real. God, what was she going to do?
She felt his hands splay on her back and took a deep, ragged breath. The music flared and Landon drew her into the circle of his arms. The memory of the way he’d kissed her last night, the way the sight of her in this very dress had made him lose his normally sharp mind, made her stomach clench.
Striving to keep calm, she set her hands lightly on his wide shoulders and searched for chat topics in her brain but couldn’t find any except one. Suddenly, that reckless kiss they’d shared had become the proverbial white elephant in the room.
The tension crackled between them, and her nerves felt like electrical wires. “You kissed me.”
His eyes flashed. He tightened his hold around her, and her traitorous body molded against his lean, hard length. “I remember you kissing me back.”
His rumbling voice, so near, sent little tingles racing up and down her spine, and she didn’t want them to.
In a sleek black suit and silver tie, Landon was so arresting it took an enormous effort for Beth to focus on the matter at hand. Focus on anything but the rightness of being in her mock husband’s arms, with those piercing thick-lashed eyes on her face.
“Landon, I wanted to speak to you about the hearing,” she said.
“Beth, I don’t want to talk about this now.”
“But I do. I was going to bring it up tomorrow after you’d read the book but we might as well discuss it here. The sooner we get David back, the sooner we can get divorced, right?”
She just didn’t trust herself not to do something stupid while married to him. Enduring his proximity every day, knowing he was near every single sleepless night, was the slowest, most painful kind of physical torture she’d ever known.
She couldn’t take this much longer.
She licked her lips in nervousness. “The book’s upstairs—you could probably read it in a few hours. How soon could we schedule a hearing?”
His face was indecipherable, but the firmness of his arms around her gave her the sensation of being both trapped and protected. “We need to be married for a while before I request one. And before I do, I need to make sure we’ll win. I hate to say this, but you can’t afford to lose again, Bethany.”
She met Kate’s curious gaze as she danced by with Garrett, smiled a little at her, then sighed. “It’s just that every day that goes by I fear I’m losing him. What if he doesn’t want me anymore? What if it’s too late?”
“Your son loves you. How could he not?”
The words touched something hidden inside of her, places she dare not get into for fear of crying. She forced herself to face him. “What if he stops? What if he feels I abandoned him, what if he’s told I’m a monster and he believes it? I know I can’t see him but just the sight of him, to see him smile at me, that’s all I want. Just to know that he…that he’s still my little boy.”
The tenderness in his eyes loosened a ribbon of sadness inside of her. “You feel like you disappointed him,” he murmured, stroking his splayed hands up her bare back.
His warm, soothing caresses made her throat clog with emotion. “I probably did.”
“You feel like you should’ve seen it coming, should have protected him?”
His hair had grown longer, and the silky raven black tips curled playfully at his collar. Suddenly, disturbingly, she reached upward and delved her hands into the thick silken mass. He stiffened. His hands halted. His chest vibrated as though he’d held back a groan.