Party Foul - Abby Knox Page 0,20
break the news to Zach. He didn’t deserve you anyway.” Kaylee’s eyes gave Levi the once-over before she flitted away toward the open bar.
“Insane, instant connection, huh?” Levi asked.
Fiona turned back to Levi, her chest half full of guilt and dread. But the expression that met her was only of amusement, and something else. Was he pleased that she’d used the words instant connection?
Fiona sighed in relief that he wasn’t upset. “She can’t keep a secret. I had to make something up.”
He took a step toward her and smoothed a stray tendril behind her ear. From her scalp to her thighs, her skin registered this barely-there touch of his fingers.
“Didn’t sound to me like you were making up a single thing,” he remarked with a wink. Fiona’s brain buffered for a moment as she absorbed that comment and allowed herself a moment to stare at the man.
Levi grew more and more spectacular the more details she took in. He had styled his short-cropped hair with some kind of shiny product. His beard had been trimmed and groomed. But more than that, the way his deep brown eyes saw everything, the way they traveled over her face like a caress. He was laying it on thick. A little over the top.
She felt everyone in the room’s eyes on them. The chatter had dulled to murmurs and whispers. For a moment, he had her believing that they were really together. Which was ridiculous, because they’d only just met two days ago, and most of their moments had been spent not talking but groping. Fondling. Straight up lust-fueled pleasing.
There was no denying the sexual chemistry. Surely, he wasn’t expecting tonight to be any more than a farce, a little parade for the benefit of old people and Page Six readers obsessed with Fiona’s party girl reputation, just like they had discussed.
Just to sell the moment to their audience, Fiona rose up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. She wasn’t expecting him to turn and catch her lips with his. Oh my, she thought. This is not just a peck. He is kissing me in front of all of my parents’ powerful friends, and it’s more than just a peck. We should stop. But then again…no, we should definitely stop.
The kiss lasted one second, no more, no less, but Fiona felt it down to her toes. Guys didn’t kiss her like that. Most guys she made out with kissed her the way Levi had tongued her mouth in the alley the other night. She was used to that. She was also used to defending herself from that. But even then, in the alley with Levi, his kiss had been something else. Aggressively masculine, yes, but still aware of her reaction. He read her face, her body. And the kiss the night before at the bar, when he’d mistaken her request to speak privately as code for “let’s go make out in the corner,” although it wasn’t what she had asked for, she felt that involuntary thrill. She knew it was wrong; he shouldn’t have kissed her without a clearer signal. But she couldn’t deny the thrum of his primal energy. Being backed against the wall by this man. This man who seemed to make the air crackle around him when he walked. Everything in her enjoyed drifting around in a world filled with the electrical charge that sparked around him.
But this kiss was different. This wasn’t just a horny kiss in an alleyway behind the bar. This had feeling behind it.
Maintaining a brilliant smile, she spoke to him through her teeth. “You’re good. Knocking it out of the park.”
He shrugged. “You said fake it ’til you make it. I’m going all out for you tonight, sweetheart.”
That word, sweetheart. Or maybe it was the way he said it, in that voice, two octaves too low. Her body enjoyed that too much.
“Let’s introduce you to my dad.”
Chapter Eight
Levi
* * *
He’d expected maybe a state senator. Or a deputy mayor. Or maybe the CEO of the hospital where his mom had worked. Maybe the shipping magnate he’d read about in the papers, the one trying to keep out the foreign markets and threatening a work stoppage.
No. Nobody like that. Levi was pretending to be the boyfriend of a woman who was the daughter of the fucking governor. For four terms, George Locke had ruled the entire state with an iron fist. This was not just the governor who had made it his job to