I keep my eyes on the ceiling, on the floor, on the other dancers around us—anywhere but on him.
“I like you, Carrie,” he says as he stares into my averted eyes. “I’d like to give you a promotion.”
This gets my attention and I look at him for the first time.
“In exchange for what?” I ask, looking at him skeptically. My sales numbers at work have been shit and I haven’t exactly been the model employee today.
“I like your style,” he says. “I’d like you to be my personal assistant.”
“Like your secretary?”
“No, I have one of those. This is more… personal. You’d be working in my office along with me. You’d be at my beck and call. We’d have a… special relationship that wouldn’t always be focused on work.”
“Ugh!” I say with a look of disgust as I step back from him.
“Can I cut in?” a deep masculine voice asks from behind me.
“Yes!” I say, practically jumping into Eli’s arms.
“Excuse me!” Mr. Miller shouts as his face turns an angry red. “We were dancing!”
He reaches for me, but Eli slaps his hand away. “And now it’s over. Go sit down. Now.”
I have to fight back my grin as Mr. Miller drops his head and sheepishly shuffles back to the table with his tail between his legs. Even a powerful man like him isn’t about to go head to head with Eli when he has that territorial look in his eyes.
“Thank you,” I say with a breath of relief. “You have no idea what that man was about to ask me.”
His eyes darken and I shift a little closer to his flexed body. “What was it?” he asks, looking like he’s about to punch out my boss in front of everyone.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say as I wrap my arms around his neck and breathe in his intoxicating cologne. “Just thank you for saving me.”
His strong arms are wrapped around me, his clasped hands resting dangerously close to the top of my ass. I don’t mind his hands on me as we sway to the music and stare into each other’s eyes.
“I’ve been kicking myself all day with the foolish way I’ve been acting around you,” he says. His gorgeous dark brown eyes are locked onto mine, making me tingle all over.
“I thought it was kinda cute,” I say as I smile at him. “Like a little kid with a grade school crush.”
I start to blush when I realize what I said. Maybe I’m being too forward.
“Not that you have a crush on me…”
“I do,” he says with a firm unwavering voice. “I’m already obsessed with you, Carrie. Is that crazy?”
“There can’t be love without a little bit of crazy,” I say. “Not that we’re there yet.”
“Right,” he says as he looks down at me with his smoldering eyes. “Not that we’re there. Yet.”
He looks like he’s already there with that heated gaze burning into me. We just hold onto each other for a little bit as the music plays. Everything else—the other guests in the hall, my asshole boss, the staff—it all fades away until it’s just the two of us dancing to the music.
“So, how do you act when you’re not a fool in love?” I ask him with a grin.
“I’m actually good at sports.”
I snort out a laugh.
“It’s true!” he says. “But golf is not a real sport unless you’re over sixty years old.”
“What do you play?”
“Anything with water. Water polo, surfing, white water rafting—”
“Pond wading?”
“Exactly.” Our smiles turn into laughs as we stare into each other’s eyes. “Chasing after you today has felt like a sport.”
“One more you’re not really good at,” I say with a grin. “Perhaps if I was in water…”
“I can get you into the shower if you prefer.”
“I’m more of a bath girl.”
His big chest rises with a couple of heavy breaths. No doubt, he’s picturing me naked in a bathtub right now. I stay silent for a bit to let him enjoy the image.
“Who is that guy?” he says, glancing at my table. My boss is watching us, looking pissed.
“My asshole boss,” I say, not wanting to ruin the moment by talking about him. “I’ve been there for two months and he’s already wanting to move me into his office.”
“If you worked for me, I’d want to move you into my office too.”
“If I worked for you, I just might agree.”
The air thickens around us as our heated gazes get a little hotter.
“What’s your deal?” I ask him. “Why are you here if you hate golf so much?”
He tells me about his family company and how he’s trying to save a huge deal that his brother fucked up. I’m laughing my ass off when he tells me how his brother Nolan got caught doing naughty things with his girlfriend on the hood of an antique car.
“And that’s Mr. Brown?” I ask. “Geez, he doesn’t look like a billionaire.”
“Well, he is,” he says with a shake of his head. “A very uptight billionaire.”
The music changes to something more upbeat and people flood onto the dance floor, throwing their hands and feet around like they’re deadly weapons. Meanwhile, we’re still gripping onto each other, not wanting this moment to end.
Time melts away as we talk and get to know each other. He constantly has me smiling and laughing, and I’m having the same effect on him.
This man is smooth. Very different from the lovestruck fool I saw on the golf course earlier. I guess all it took was a change from his Polo into his suit to find his real game.
“I want to see you again,” he says with his dark eyes brimming with intensity. “I need to see you again.”
“I’d like that,” I whisper as I lick my lips. “This has been fun, Callaway.”
“The night is not over yet.”
“It might be,” I say with a gulp as I glance over at my boss. Mr. Miller is standing up from the table and glaring at me. I’m guessing that my dance with Eli is ruining the narrative he set up with his friends of him being my sugar daddy. I think I’m embarrassing him.
Good. Fuck him.
“My boss is coming,” I say as he starts making his way over here. “I don’t think he likes me dancing with you.”
“If he touches you, I’m knocking him out.”
Eli’s body gets all flexed and rigid, and my heart starts thumping away when I feel how hard he is under this sexy suit.
“Come,” I say as I grip his thick wrist and pull him away. “Let’s go for a walk.”
He glances at Mr. Miller with his jaw clenched and then looks back at me. “All right.”
This man looks like he really wants to put my boss in his place, but I’m guessing he’s thinking what I am—that spending the night together would be much more fun than spending it explaining to police officers why there’s an unconscious seventy-year-old man lying on the ground.
I’m holding onto his wrist as we rush out of the hall. “Hold on!” I say as I make a detour by the bar. I grab a bottle of wine off it and then we’re running outside into the cool night air where anything is possible.