Page 68 of I Think He Knows
He sees me coming, because of course he does. No matter what I’ve been doing this evening—who I’ve been talking to or whatever he’s doing—I find those gorgeous azure eyes trained on me every time I look his way. Like he’s tracking my every movement, action and emotion, determined to make sure that I’m doing okay.
“Hi, love,” he says when I get close enough, slipping an arm around me and pulling me into him like he did at Target. And just like at Target, his sexy, woodsy, clean scent envelops me. I relax into his side like I’ve been doing it all my life, and he trails a casual hand softly down my bare arm, his fingertips leaving fire in their wake.
“Excuse us,” he says to the Bonds, then unwinds his arm, takes me by the hand, and leads me across the garden
“You didn’t have to leave your conversation for me.” I smile up at him, trying to ignore the fact that my entire body is tingling from his touch.
“It was painfully boring,” Carter replies with a twinkle in his eye. “You saved me. How’s your night going?”
“Good. I can’t believe Elena did all this; this party is out of this world. But I do admit, my feet hurt.”
Carter laughs. “Well, no fear. Let me teach you a little about the ways of Hollywood parties. There’s this little thing called the afterparty, when the cameras shut off and everyone gets barefoot and reckless.”
“Sounds like my kind of party. But Allegra’s here, I’m going to have to take her home…”
“I arranged for Mindy and Luke to take her back to their place before any craziness goes down. Mindy’s happy to bow out early seeing as she’s not drinking tonight.”
“Thanks. That was really thoughtful of you,” I say steadily. Secretly, my whole body is coiled tight at the thought of a late night out with Carter, no cares or worries.
“There you two are!” Elena’s crisp voice punctuates the air as she marches up, tip-tapping in her stilettos. They’re much higher than my heels, but I have the feeling Elena is the sort of person whose feet never hurt.
“Hey, Elena.” I smile warmly. “I was just saying to Carter that you put on an incredible party.”
She looks momentarily touched and surprised, but she swiftly thanks me and moves onto the next order of business. “I have a photo op for you two set up on the dance floor. The band is going to play a love song, or Ed Sheeran is going to come out and sing for you or something. I don’t remember that exact detail. But way more importantly, there are photographers milling around the tent, ready to capture the perfect “candid” of the couple in love. And I’m not talking tabloid rags, I’m talking all the reputable news sources and entertainment outlets.”
Wide-eyed, I nod as she talks, brain snagging on the fact that Ed Sheeran’s presence isn’t considered an important detail to someone like Elena. Or Carter, who looks like he’s barely even listening.
“Got it?” Elena concludes.
“Got it,” I reply.
“Great. Be on the dance floor in ten minutes.”
She departs in a cloud of perfume. I turn to Carter, who, like he has been all night, is already looking at me. “You okay with all this?” he asks.
“All in a night’s work for me.” I nod, then take a deep breath. “And anyway, I’ve been thinking—”
“Oh, that’s always dangerous.”
I smack him in the arm and he wraps my hand in his, pulling me towards him.
“Tell me what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours.”
“Well,” I start nervously, biting my bottom lip. “I’ve been thinking that our engagement is not going to look very realistic if we don’t kiss.”
Carter looks momentarily surprised before a slow smiles creeps over his face. “Oh yeah?”
His blue eyes are glinting with… something… but I don’t want to be distracted by that right now, so I spit out the rest of what I have to say before I lose my nerve. Carpe diem, right? “And we need tonight to look realistic because Elena went to so much trouble setting this all up. Plus, this is meant to be practice for me anyway, and at some point, I’m going to have to kiss someone for real, so I should probably practice that, too. Let’s face it, I haven’t been so much as touched by a man in, like, ten years, so I’d appreciate a trial run. And um, yeah. Forget it, it was a dumb idea…”
I finally manage to stop my utterly humiliating ramble long enough to try and pull my hand out of Carter’s so I can go jump in a hole somewhere. Instead, Carter catches me gently but firmly by both of my wrists. Holds on steadily as his eyes bore down on me and he smiles. “Lana Mae Donovan, are you trying to tell me that you want to kiss me?”
The scalding embarrassment is back, tenfold. Of course I want to kiss him… but I cannot believe I approached the subject like this. What is wrong with me? Kissing isn’t even a subject you approach anyway, is it? It’s just something people do.
Well, normal people do. All the time.
“Yes? Maybe? I don’t know, I just thought…” I stutter, entirely flustered at this point.
“Okay.”