Page 30 of Total Abandon

Chloe:Because despite every logical reason my brain has not to, my lady parts want to invite him in for open season. Happy?

Tilly:Pretty darn happy, yeah.

CHLOE

“Ah, the blushing bride.” I whip around to see Chase Walker standing with a champagne flute in one hand, the other tucked into his slacks pocket, signature smirk on his face.

“Ha-ha.”I roll my eyes and turn back to the celebration that’s in full swing. We’re standing on the lamplit porch of a sprawling Long Island home that backs onto a private lake. The upper echelons seem to have come out in swarms to celebrate Miguel Guerra’s seventieth birthday and I’m feeling rather out of place. I’m quite sure I’ve already seen two movie stars and a popular sports player.

“Where is the husband to be?” Chase steps beside me, scanning the crowd. There is a dance floor set up on a raised colonnade-lined dais overlooking the lake, and the jazz band is in full swing. A canopy of fairy lights wink in and out of life lazily as the cicadas sing their background serenade.

“Getting us drinks, which I have a feeling I’m going to need…” I trail off as I raise my eyebrows at a smug elderly gentleman with two very young, very blonde women on his arms as they walk by. They giggle and paw at his penguin suit, like he’s the best thing since sliced bread.

“If you need a little something else to take the edge off, there is a bathroom back there with our name on it, Red.” He winks, slinging an arm around my shoulder.

“Little?” I tease, quirking one brow up at him.

He beams, letting out a deep chuckle. “Figuratively speaking, because if we’re talking literal—”

“Get your grubby paws off my fiancée, Walker,” Zeke growls as he appears at our side, pressing a champagne flute into my hand and snaking his arm around my waist.

I blink as I’m tugged out of Chase’s reach, right into the hard steel side of Zeke’s body. Heat pools in my cheeks as the embers of our earlier encounter spark back to life. We’ve slipped back into easy conversation since we arrived, but truthfully, I feel shaken to my core at how things spiraled in the back of the car. I had all but purred and rubbed myself against the man like a cat in heat. I knew I was attracted to him, but even so, I didn’t realize it would feel so…explosive. Even his fingers on me now are burning my skin beneath the waist of my dress. And the kiss. Wow. For all his faults, Zeke Guerra knows his way around a woman. That much is apparent.There is a reason he knows a woman’s body so well, a little smug voice whispers at the back of my mind.

“Fakefiancée,” Chase corrects easily with a smug grin over the opening strains of a saxophone number.

I raise my glass to lips that feel a little bruised and take a sip of the sparkling golden liquid, almost sighing as the bubbles dance over my tongue. This is no cheap fizz. “If either of you are about to start peeing around me in a circle, I’ll leave,” I deadpan, fixing them both with a warning look.

Zeke’s dark eyes are fixed on Chase, his brows knitted into a scowl. “Fake or not, I'm not going to let another man grope my girl. Especially not when that man is you.”

“Hey, a lady has needs. If you’re not man enough to offer to satisfy them, then I—”

“If you finish that sentence, I’ll knock you on your fucking ass.” Zeke seethes, tugging me around his back and stepping toward Chase.

“Enough!” I hiss, batting Zeke’s arm off me and inserting myself between them. It’s not lost on me that many women would probably kill to be sandwiched so closely between these two men. The testosterone is almost overwhelming.

Chase’s hazel eyes twinkle with laughter as Zeke glares. “You.” I point as Zeke, who begrudgingly tears his eyes away from Chase. “Lighten up a little, you know he’s doing it on purpose.”

“Yeah dude—”

“And you.” I turn my finger on Chase, cutting him off. He looks down at me with wide, innocent eyes. “Stop winding him up. You run one of the city's largest tech firms, and you're far too old to be acting like a teenage boy.”

He grins, raising his flute to me in a toast and taking a sip. “You’re mean sometimes, Red.”

“I’m not mean.” I sniff, turning to look back at the dancing guests. “I’m spicy nice.” He tips his head back and laughs, and whilst Zeke is silent, I sense rather than see him untense a little at my side.

“You’re a real fucking asshole when you want to be, you know that, Chase?” Zeke huffs, placing his hand back on my waist—softer this time.

“Yup.” Chase nods.

“Well, I suppose we had better go and get this over with.” Zeke angles his head to look down at me. “You ready to meet my father?”

I offer him a small smile, sliding my own hand beneath the undone jacket of his suit and tucking my fingertips beneath his belt at his hip. “Sure thing, Papi.”

Chase barks out another laugh as Zeke narrows his eyes. “Papi? As in, daddy?” Chase sounds ecstatic, and I try to bite back a laugh.

“Absolutely not,” Zeke warns, tightening his grip on my waist.

“What?” I ask innocently. “You shot down all my other pet names.”