Imperfectly Delicious (Imperfect Series #6) - Mary Frame Page 0,14

fault.” She leans in and presses her mouth against mine.

Shock sweeps through me, but sliding along the instant after it is a soothing wave of rightness. Like up until this moment, my body was a jumble of random ingredients that have miraculously settled into the perfect three-course meal.

Her lips are sweeter than spun sugar and with one simple touch, everything inside me ignites in a blaze of desire. It makes no sense. Where did this come from? This isn’t like me. I don’t do this. Not with random women at charity events or anywhere else.

Thoughts fly away when her tongue slips between my lips and she makes a pleasurable little noise in the back of her throat. I slide a hand down her back, gripping her ass and pulling her harder against me.

Her hands are greedy and fumbling. She untucks my shirt from my pants and her fingers play up my back, inciting a wave of tingles and goosebumps in their wake. Maybe it’s because I’ve been without adult companionship for so long, but something about this moment strikes me as significant. Her mouth is both a comforting caress and a brutal ache of insistent longing that needs fulfillment.

Children’s laughter fills the air as the door to the event slams open and she goes stiff in my arms. She wrenches away, her hands disappearing from my skin, and with a whispered word that could have been goodbye, but is really more of an awkward mumble, she disappears.

I would stop her if a swarm of elementary aged children didn’t choose that moment to crowd the hallway between us, and if my heart weren’t pounding out of my chest and I weren’t in a complete haze of lust and confusion about what the hell just happened. When I finally come back to myself, I’m standing in the hall still surrounded by kids, dazed and confused.

My phone beeps and I check the time. I was supposed to check on the kitchen staff before dinner service. Which is happening right now.

I’m late.

I’m never late.

I take a deep breath to compose myself and haul ass to the kitchen. The staff is startled by my sudden appearance, but thankfully they’re trained well enough that after a few barked orders and strange glances, they get back to plating the first course to my exacting specifications.

Once it’s ready to be brought out to the banquet hall, I let the sous chef take over; I take a moment to gather my mind, washing my hands in the giant kitchen sink.

There’s a stainless-steel paper towel dispenser next to the sink, and I reach for it, catching my reflection in the mirrored surface. I have red lipstick all over my mouth.

I press my lips together and wipe it off with a towel. I have to find her. I head out into the event, walking the perimeter, eyeing tables, searching for a flash of red hair, or blue dress.

But she’s gone.

Poof. Like an apparition that slipped through my fingers

No real goodbye. No can I get your number.

I don’t even know her name.

I spot Bethany Connell, the woman from Crawford and Company who hired me. She’s over at a table to the side, sorting through a box of papers.

“Hey.” I stop next to her, getting her attention. “Have you seen a woman with red hair?”

“Who?” She frowns down at the papers—the silent auction bid sheets.

“There was a woman here, earlier, she had red hair. She was wearing a blue dress, do you know who she is? Or where she went?”

Her eyes scan me, a slight frown on her face. “Oh, yes. I do and yes, she left.”

“What’s her name?”

She eyes me again, her head tilting to one side. “That’s uh, Mildred.”

“Mildred?”

“Yep. Don’t know her last name, sorry. I gotta go set up the stuff for the auction items.” She smiles, the movement forced, and then she pats me on the shoulder perfunctorily and disappears into the crowd.

My lips twist. She didn’t look like a Mildred, not that there’s anything wrong with having a name like a grandmother from the 1920s, but….

Like Cinderella, she’s fled the ball and I have no clue who she really is. And she has my tux jacket.

Chapter Five

Knowledge is the food of the soul.

–Plato

Guy

“What does this woman look like?” I ask Carson, pressing the phone to my ear to hear him over the buzz of traffic as I navigate a busy sidewalk intersection.

Always keep your eye out for the yellow cab: one of the first rules of living in