by Elena Armas
I had been so absorbed by this duel we had going on that I had almost forgotten about the man on the stage. I had barely checked on him since the bidding bloodshed started.
Just as I was about to turn my attention to Aaron, my hand rose in the air one more time—as high as the ridiculous amount of money we had reached—and this time, it did alone.
Angela waved in my direction. “Going once for the lady in midnight blue,” she called.
My heart thumped against my chest harder. I caught a glimpse of a gray-haired man beside a tight-lipped Lady in Red, who stood with her arms crossed in front of her chest.
“Going twice,” Angela continued as I watched the man whisper something in Lady in Red’s ear, to which she just sighed and nodded. Reluctantly.
Come on, come on, come on. Aaron is almost mine.
“And sold to the very lovely and very passionate lady in the midnight-blue gown.” Angela closed the bidding with a wink.
I felt the celebratory holler climbing to my throat as my head finally turned in Aaron’s direction. I wanted to do a little victory dance. To throw my hands in the air too. I also felt the urge to shout a couple of inappropriate words, which, in hindsight, I would have realized was extremely stupid and I would have immediately regretted it.
But as Aaron came into view, that whirling emotion that had been too loud a moment ago, fell silent on its own. He wasn’t even smiling. He simply … looked at me.
The disappointment at not finding that grin I had gotten a glimpse of earlier returned, and I wondered if it would be this way from today on. Me searching for Aaron’s smile and him keeping it locked away again.
I swallowed that up, shoving those stupid thoughts out of my head.
My lips tugged up regardless of all that, and I gave a halfhearted cheer. To which Aaron simply nodded, looking like he did when he had something in his mind. Something that bothered him.
Frowning, I watched Aaron’s long legs climb down the stage and walk to my side, all the while ignoring how the way he wasn’t even celebrating with me made me feel. Instead, I focused on keeping what I hoped looked like a genuine smile in place.
The blue-eyed man I had just bought for a date that would never happen stopped in front of me. He dipped his head, his chin almost touching his collarbone. I waited, but he didn’t say anything.
I reached for something to say and came up empty-handed, returning the silence.
That awareness I had been familiarizing myself with far too rapidly for my own good and comfort came rushing back, raising the short hairs on my arms. It hit me then how weird, how strange, and how shocking in many different ways it was that we’d found each other in this situation. How tonight didn’t even seem real.
Shifting on my feet under the weight of Aaron’s gaze, I swallowed. One more time, I wasn’t capable of taking in this heavy silence that settled between us. “I hope you come with a boat, Blackford,” I finally said, my voice sounding a little off. “Otherwise, I might regret not sticking with Patrick.”
Aaron’s eyes didn’t waver. They held mine. And just as they did, I watched how they warmed up for just a heartbeat. The skin around them wrinkling only slightly with the smile I now knew he refused to give me.
I felt something shift in my chest. Something very subtle and small that I almost missed, but it didn’t help the pace of my breath—still all over the place from the auction—to return to normal.
He took one step closer. “Sometimes, I’m convinced you enjoy making me suffer.” His usually deep voice sounded hushed. Giving to his words an afterthought quality.
“Oh.” I frowned. My mouth opened, but I still struggled for a few more moments. “Okay, you have every right to be pissed, but in all fairness, we are even because you should have warned me it would get that intense.” I laughed awkwardly. “If I had known, I would have added a ninja star or two to my outfit. They would have definitely come in handy with Lady in Red.”
Aaron towered over my short height, quiet and still gazing at me in that way that made me shift on my feet again.
Silence settled between us once more, bringing to my attention that we were no longer surrounded by the crowd that had gathered in front of the stage. Instead, the murmur of voices accompanied with a mellow tune came all the way from the other side of the rooftop.
Aaron broke the silence, saying, “Dance with me.”
Chapter Nine
He offered his hand, letting it hang in the small space between our bodies.
Dance?
Gaping at his hand, I hesitated. Not really sure whether I had a reason to doubt his offer or if it was just the way I automatically reacted to Aaron.
“Is this part of the deal?” I heard myself ask.
Aaron frowned.
“Us dancing, I mean. Just for show, right?” I explained.
I wasn’t blind—or stupid—and I was pretty sure that dancing wasn’t something we needed to do. But a big part of me was effectively confused, and I was growing more so by the moment. So, by saying that out loud, I was simply throwing myself a lifeline I could grab on to until I could clear up the mess in my head.
“Right,” Aaron answered, that frown disappearing and his hand still waiting for my decision. “Just for show.”
I accepted his offer, letting his large palm wrap around mine, unsure of how good of an idea it was.
Aaron pulled me gently behind him, and my legs shook with a weird mix of anticipation and unease. His hand was warm and firm against mine, making me feel good and tingly even though I could tell it weighted down that lifeline I was trying to hold on to with teeth and nails.
I was still unsure of how good of an idea this was when he softly dragged me where a small group of people had gathered to dance.
But it was when he stopped walking, turned, and stepped close—so very close—that my mind finally flagged this as a bad idea. So much that a part of me started debating whether I should run away or pretend I fainted right there and then so I didn’t have to face what we were about to do.
Dancing.
Together.
As in Aaron Blackford—the man I had been antagonizing for so long—and me.
Oh sweet baby Jesus.
Aaron draped his arms around my waist, and I felt a shock of electricity spreading across my body from the points where his hands rested on my back. My breath caught, and something heavy and solid dropped to the bottom of my stomach.
Swallowing hard, I tilted my head back. I thought I saw dare and wariness in his gaze. All at once. And that sent an unsolicited spur of anticipation through me.
I placed my hands on Aaron’s chest—noticing how hard and toned it felt under my fingers—but unlike earlier tonight, when I had accidentally touched him, this time, I let my hands rest there. Only then did he bring me to him. My small frame immediately cradled in his much larger one.
A heartbeat later, we were moving, almost every part of our bodies from our chests down pressed together. Aaron’s motions were sure, directing, while mine were stiff and incompliant.
Releasing a breath through my nose, I tried to relax my limbs. To focus on the mechanics of dancing. To calm that red-hot awareness raging inside of me. But the knowledge of how close our bodies were was blowing up alarms inside my head and making it impossible for me to think about much else besides that.
Dancing. We were dancing. Bodies flushed. And that was something we weren’t supposed to be doing. A situation in which Aaron and Lina, who barely tolerated each other, shouldn’t be finding themselves in because this wasn’t something that people who couldn’t stand each other did.
Aaron spun me in a circle with a swift motion and pressed me against him one more time, making my heart quicken in a way it had no business doing.
The music was slow, perfect for swaying and forgetting about everything outside the smooth rhythm. Ideal for getting lost in the peace that being in someone else’s arms could bring. But the more we swayed, the further I was from feeling anything t
hat resembled peace. Not when Aaron was so … big and hard and warm against me.
That was probably why I tripped. Before I knew what was happening, my feet had messed up the beat and tangled together, and they would have probably sent me straight to the floor if not for the man—the pair of strong arms wrapped solidly around me—who held me in place.
“Thank you,” I muttered, feeling my face heat up and my body tense up further. “And sorry.”
God. I had never blushed so much in one single night. I didn’t recognize myself.
Aaron’s arms tightened around me. “Just for precaution,” he said, bringing me even closer.
Each and every nerve ending in my body turned into the end of a live wire. My skin tingled, my heart raced, and my mind whirled.
“Oh. Okay.” The words reached my ears, strangled, as if it had come out of me in a gurgle. “Thanks.”
The skin on my face heated up further.
Aaron hummed, just as his thumb brushed my back very lightly, drawing one single circle that left a tiny trail of goose bumps behind. Goose bumps that traveled to all corners and nooks of my body.
As much as I told myself that this was a simple physical reaction to being held against a male body, being held by a man’s arms, it was Aaron’s male body and Aaron’s arms after all. So, either I had been alone for too long or I was losing my mind. Because this felt … good. Really good.
Too damn much.
Those ocean-blue eyes shifted to my lips briefly. So quickly that I was convinced I had imagined it. It didn’t matter though because then his face dipped, getting as close as it had ever been and making me forget all about that. Making me notice instead details that I had never paid attention to before. Like how full those lips were, which I saw pressed in a line so often. Or how his eyelashes were long and dark and framed the blue in his eyes so perfectly. Or how I could see the lines of the soft creases adorning his forehead, right above the spot where that frown that was almost a fixed feature rested.
I was so lost in all that that one of my feet tripped again, but Aaron’s arms tightened their grip around my waist as he shifted his head to one of my sides.
“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this, Catalina?” he asked a few inches from my ear. I felt the air leaving his mouth on my temple.
Trying not to pay any extra attention to how close his mouth was from my face, I focused on my feet and answered almost absently, “What do you mean?”
Aaron’s diligent and smooth motions spun us one more time to the soft tune.
“I thought you were supposed to carry the beat in your blood,” he explained in a low voice, his head not giving up an inch of space. “Or was it the music in your veins?”
I hoped my ears were not red with embarrassment. “This is not my style,” I lied. I’d never done a worse job at dancing, and it had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the man I was currently flush against. “Or maybe it’s my partner that’s not the best fit.”
Aaron chuckled. It was low and short-lived, but it reminded me of the way he had laughed earlier, leaving me a little out of breath.
And so, I inhaled through my nose, trying to restore my breathing and immediately regretting it. Because what an awful idea that had been. The worst idea. All I had accomplished was filling my lungs with Aaron’s scent.
Aaron’s very nice and very heady and very, very masculine scent.
Could I unsmell it, please, universe? Please.
“Was that you admitting something you are not good at?” Aaron asked, pulling me out of my head. “To me?”
“I never claimed to be a spectacular dancer.” Not when my partner was someone who certainly succeeded in distracting me so damn much. “Plus, all that rhythm in your blood stuff is nothing more than a stereotype. There are more than a few hundred Spaniards who can’t follow a beat to save their lives.”
“I bet there are. I’ll keep leading then.” His voice was low, a little closer to my ear than before. “But just in case you belong to those few hundreds.”
“If you must,” I muttered because what was the point of denying something that was so obvious? I was doing a poor job at it. “I didn’t know you danced.”
Just when I thought it was physically impossible for Aaron’s body to fold around mine any more, for our bodies to come any closer, he dipped his head further. Impossibly low. His lips hovered directly above the shell of my ear. “There are a few things you don’t know about me, Catalina.”
My body went even more rigid in response. A flutter taking flight in my stomach.
I forced myself to remember that I was here to pretend I was his date—of sorts. That I had put on a little show at fighting that woman over him at the auction. So, fake or not, to everybody else, I was supposed to be someone who would welcome this kind of closeness and not someone who would jump back, startled.
So, I settled my hands on his hard chest with a little more decision. Unfortunately, the gesture only managed to turn that flutter in my stomach to a full-on flapping and waving and whirling riot.
“What’s on your mind?” Aaron asked, sounding genuinely curious.
Being caught off guard by the question—and the interest—I blurted the first thing that came to mind, “You said this had nothing to do with a woman.” I shifted my palms across his chest. “But it looked to me like it had everything to do with one.”
“I’ve never seen Mrs. Archibald so riled up,” he admitted.
I adjusted my hands on his chest again, trying not to get lost in how warm his skin felt, even beneath all the layers of fabric. “So, you are familiar with this Mrs. Archibald, huh?” I felt his head nod once, his jaw brushing my temple. “Let me guess. Tonight was not her first time getting into a little charitable quarrel over you.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Aaron Blackford, the cougar magnet.” I laughed lightly, the sound coming out a little shaky.
A soft puff of air hit my ear, rousing a wave of shivers. “It wasn’t only Mrs. Archibald enthusiastically bidding, if memory serves me well.”
“Smug,” I muttered.
But Aaron was right. There had been many other people—younger, attractive—interested in him.
“Is this why you asked me to be here?” Aaron didn’t immediately answer, so I continued, “I guess it all makes sense. What Angela said earlier and TJ kind of confirmed.”
“And what’s that?”
“That Aaron Blackford is scared of a bunch of overly motivated wealthy ladies who want to buy his company.”
His palms shifted on my back, spinning us into the changing rhythm of a new song. “Are you teasing me?” he said right into my ear.
I was. But I would never admit to such a thing out loud. I felt myself relax just the splinter of a hair in his arms. “Does it happen often?”
“What exactly, Catalina?” he asked very slowly. “Almost being exchanged for a man with a boat or having a questionable dancing partner?”
“Neither.” Feeling the smile tugging at my lips, I went on, “Women flaunting themselves at you. I saw how tense you were on the stage. You looked ready to jump out and get out of there.” I thought about that for a second. Him bringing me here … it kind of made sense now. “Does that kind of attention make you uncomfortable?”
“Not always.” I felt the brush of his jaw against my cheek, the simple and light gesture causing an electrifying wave of sensation to trail down my neck. “I’m not scared of a woman’s interest in me, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t send them all away.”
“Oh, okay.” My voice came out breathy and unsure.
Of course he didn’t. I was sure he had needs. And those needs were something I wasn’t willing to think about with his arms around me.
Aaron’s right hand shifted on my back, trailing down an inch or two. Meanwhile, the skin of my face—no, my whole freaking body—burned.
His arms tightened around me one more time.
“Thank you,” he said.
And I felt those two words like soft puffs of air against my hair.
“What for?” My voice was barely a whisper.
“For not stepping on my foot.” I opened my mouth to apologize, but he continued, “But also for not being deterred by Mrs. Archibald. Last year, things got a little … uncomfortable when she found out our date consisted of cleaning dog kennels and spending a couple of hours walking and playing with them.” I felt his sigh on the skin on the side of my neck. “Not that it dissuaded her this year.”
Something that felt a lot like protectiveness flickered in my chest.
I shook my head lightly, trying to make sense of myself. All this dancing and spinning was clearly messing with me. “Well, as much as I am sorry for your wallet, considering the amount the donation reached, I am happy I got to see that sulky face when I beat her,” I admitted, shocking myself at how pleased I had really been. “I’m also sorry for those doggies and what they had to endure last year with that woman. What kind of hypocrite donates money for a charity that focuses on animal shelters and doesn’t like dogs? Those poor guys. I’d adopt them all if I didn’t live in a tiny studio apartment. Hell, I’d happily volunteer to spend some time with them any day.”
“I can take you, if that’s what you want.” Aaron’s words hung in the air. A part of me wanted to say yes. Yes to the chance of seeing a new side of him. Perhaps another smile too. “You just bought a date anyway.”
“With your money.”
“Regardless,” he countered. “It’s part of the package deal.”
That pang of unprecedented hurt hit me again, reminding me of what this was. Part of the deal. That was Aaron, a man of his word.
Aaron’s head reared back, revealing his face. His gaze was searching.
“I …” I hesitated, feeling stupid for considering for just an instant that maybe he’d offered because he genuinely wanted to take me there. “I just …”
Shit.
Everything that had happened tonight was spinning in my head. Aaron in a tux. All these … new and different ways I was feeling around him. The auction. His smile. His laughter. Dancing. My body against his, flushed together. All of that and then the fact that we would be going to Spain in a matter of a few weeks.
