What? What was the question?
His lips slid across hers in the lightest caress, like a feather tickling, teasing. Her fingertips curled into his suit jacket, and she realized they’d stopped moving. The music continued, but she paid no attention to the tune or anything else going on around her.
“Cash,” she murmured.
She didn’t know what she was going to say. Maybe nothing at all. Perhaps she was pleading for more because no one had ever touched her so simply, so softly, and yet had her every single nerve ending standing at attention, anticipating more.
Then, in a move she saw coming but did nothing to stop, Cash completely covered her mouth, obliterating every last thought she had. The hand on her back pressed tighter, pulling her hips against his. He parted her lips with his tongue, proving that Cash was a man who took what he wanted . . . and she suddenly found herself more than ready to give.
Jade’s hand tightened in his as he brought them to his chest. He let out a low growl, then nipped at her lips before easing back.
“That should do it,” he murmured.
Jade blinked. “Wh-what?”
He started leading her in a dance again as one slow song flowed into the next one. Dancing, right. That’s what they’d been doing before he completely knocked her for a loop and had her more than ready to strip off this sad excuse for a bridesmaid’s dress.
“Your mother was watching,” he stated as he continued to lead. “Just keeping up the charade you started, Red.”
A slight burst of humiliation slid through her. He’d kissed her as part of the act. She wanted to be furious, but that wouldn’t exactly be fair. Hadn’t she started this farce? And how could she be angry when that one kiss elicited more from her than any sexual experience in her thirty-two years?
Jade attempted to smile, but her lips still tingled. “Well, thanks.”
Those dark eyes landed on her and held. “My pleasure, Red.”
Oh, the pleasure had been all hers.
* * *
The ride back to their hotel had been made in complete and utter silence . . . accompanied by a heavy side of sexual tension. Surely he wasn’t the only one replaying that brief kiss over and over. Did that kiss have any hold over her? Because he was positive he’d fall asleep tonight with her taste on his lips and a new fantasy in his mind.
Never in his life had he thought he’d be fantasizing about Jade McKenzie in such a vivid way, but what had happened on that dance floor left him little option.
Yet he’d lied to her earlier. There hadn’t been a soul looking in their direction, let alone her mother. Not that he saw, anyway. He’d only been able to see Jade. When she’d plastered her body against his and started moving, he knew he was trying to hold on to a slippery slope and failing miserably.
Why was it this woman he lost his control around? Jade had used him to get a jab in to her mother and he hadn’t minded one bit; the woman really deserved to be knocked down a peg or five.
But why shouldn’t he kiss Jade? He’d wanted to, she’d wanted to. Might as well test it out, right?
Only now that she was sliding her key card into the door of their suite, all he could think of was how he could still taste her and how they would be alone again all night.
As soon as she stepped inside, he followed and closed the door at his back. The second he flicked the lock in place, she set her purse on the dining tab
le right inside the door and whirled around on him.
“Do you want to tell me why you started a fight with Brad? Or, more importantly, why you didn’t share this information with me?”
O-kay. Not what he thought she’d lead with, though he was surprised it had taken her this long to circle back to that bombshell he’d dropped earlier.
Jade stood in front of him with one hand braced on a high-backed leather chair and the other propped on her hip. Was now a bad time to think how much he wanted to mess up that hair and makeup and take her into that bedroom and do . . . hell, everything. He wanted to do everything to that woman.
Over the past year she’d been back, he’d had stirrings. Random licks of lust here and there, but he’d brushed them aside. Unfortunately, over the past two days, that lust had curled all through him and threatened to strangle him if he didn’t get a grip on his hormones.
Cash cleared his throat and slid out of his suit jacket. He’d been confined long enough. She continued to stare, waiting for an answer, as he crossed and laid his jacket over the back of one of the dining chairs.
“He deserved it,” Cash stated simply. There really was no other reason. The guy was an ass.
Emerald-green eyes narrowed. “I don’t want you fighting my battles.”