Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [70]
The women, it appeared, were already figuring it out. Much to my chagrin, my prediction about how popular he’d be with the ladies proved correct. Despite the clothes and silly mustache, Simon couldn’t turn around without tripping over some simpering young twit in an angel or Greek goddess costume.
Well, good. He’s popular. He’s enjoying himself.
But as I saw one woman in a devil costume get a little too close with her low-cut red dress, I couldn’t help wishing—just a tiny bit—that I’d kept the man all to myself.
12
Simon
IF IT DIDN’T SEEM so ridiculous—because he honestly couldn’t even see another woman when Lottie was in the room— Simon would have thought she was jealous. As they left the firehouse, having stayed until the end of the party so Lottie could shake her hot backside to one last song—Lord have mercy, the woman could move—he noticed the way she frowned at a couple of women who came up to say good-night.
When they got in the car and started driving back toward Seaton House, she remained quiet, peering out the window into the dark night, seeming to be enraptured by the lights going off one by one as Trouble rolled up its sidewalks for the night.
Reaching over, he put his hand on hers. “You okay?”
She said nothing for a second, then she turned in her seat. “No. I’m feeling like crap.”
Surprised, he just waited.
“I was jealous tonight.”
He knew better than to smile.
“Jealous of every woman who flirted with you or asked you to dance. I swear to God if that woman in the Aphrodite costume had asked you one more time if you could help her refasten her strap that kept accidentally popping open, I was going to find the nearest urn and really go Grecian on the bitch.”
Unable to help it, Simon started to laugh softly. He liked Lottie in this fierce mood and damned if he didn’t like her being jealous over him. Because it meant she felt something for him. Something beyond physical attraction.
A voice of reason quickly told him what. It’s protectiveness. She was worried about him, that was all. Other than sex, all they really had between them was her desire to nurture and an old murder case.
“I wasn’t even aware there were any other women in the room tonight,” he admitted, no longer laughing. “You were—and are—the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She seemed a little mollified. As they reached the turnoff for the private mountain road leading up to Seaton House, she unfastened her seat belt and shifted around. Wriggling closer, she put her hand on his chest and her head on his shoulder. “You really think I’m beautiful? Because honestly, in this outfit, I realized I have the Santori women’s butt. I’m lucky I didn’t split a seam.”
His mood immediately lifted as it so often did when something outrageous and unexpected came out of her mouth. He began to smile. Sliding his arm behind her, he reached down to squeeze her ass. “This butt is amazing. Everything about you is amazing.”
She wriggled against his hand, her breaths audibly picking up their pace. Simon didn’t move his hand, especially when she pushed back against it. With a little shiver of excitement, she leaned closer, rising to her knees and parting her legs.
“Do you know how much I love touching you?” he asked.
“Do you know how much I love having your hands on me?”
Shifting in his seat as his body reacted to her hot breaths against his neck and the warmth dampening her clothes, he couldn’t resist touching her more. Stroking his fingers back and forth across her cleft, he listened to her desperate whimpers in his ear.
Shifting even more, she reached down, stroking his chest and his stomach, then moved her hand to his lap. “Oh, God,” she whispered, tracing the outline of his rock-hard cock through his pants. “I have to feel that.”
“We’ll be home soon,” he said, forcing the words out of his suddenly tight throat. He wanted nothing more than Lottie’s touch, but he feared he might drive off the mountain