One Exquisite Touch (The Extravagant #2)- Lauren Blakely Page 0,48

perhaps more important is this—did you enjoy the evening we spent with you? The fifteen minutes in the alcove?”

Her cheeks flame red. The hair on her arms stands on end. “You know I did. More than I ever expected to.”

I lean back in the chair. Smile. “Then why fight it? Why resist it?”

She arches a brow. “It’s that simple?”

“We complicate things that don’t need to be complicated. Pleasure doesn’t need to be complicated.”

She hums, like she’s considering my proposition. “That may indeed be true.”

When the dinner ends, I whisper, “Have a drink with us.”

She says yes, and she looks drunk already.

19

Sage

I am attracted to two men. Both are attracted to me.

One wants me so that his friend can have me. And I’m growing fonder of his friend. I think, too, that his friend is growing fonder of me.

Perhaps I complicate things by focusing on business. But this situation is already complicated. Maybe I can un-complicate it with a little bit of pleasure.

Here I am at a bar, perched on a stool, drinking bourbon with my two rivals as the bartender services other customers, as my dinner companion rests an elbow against the bar, and as the man who fucked me in my office knocks back some of his scotch, his fingers gripping the glass like he’s going to break it.

Cole stares at me with both hunger and resistance in his eyes. “Did you enjoy your dinner?” It comes out a little tight, like he’s holding back.

“It was terrific. The company more so. But we missed you terribly,” I say with a playful pout, trying to get him to lighten up.

“Did you?” he tosses back at me, a hard edge to his tone.

An edge I want to smooth over. I pat his shoulder. His strong, firm shoulder. “Of course we did. It was awful without you near us, wasn’t it, Daniel?”

Daniel frowns. “It was terrible.”

Cole scoffs. “You two looked quite cozy.”

And that’s why Cole is tense. The man is wracked by envy.

That’s red-hot. A burst of desire ignites in me over the dragon thrashing in Cole.

Daniel arches a brow at his friend. “Oh, are you jealous?”

Cole stares harshly at him and speaks plainly. “Yes. Yes, I am.” Then Cole looks at me, inhaling sharply. “We’re supposed to behave, and yet I’m jealous. Look what you’ve done to me already, Sage.” He bends his head near to me, dragging his nose against my neck, inhaling me.

My pulse thumps.

My heart beats at rocket speed from that admission in front of his friend that there’s already something building between us. Something that I feel, something I’m trying valiantly to deny.

Or perhaps not deny at all.

Daniel cuts in, playful again. “But we talked about you all night, Cole. You have nothing to be jealous of.”

Cole rolls his eyes. “And yet I am.”

The way these two tease each other, the way they know each other is endearing in its own way. I rather love their friendship. That’s another thing I’m attracted to about Cole. The way he and his friend look out for each other.

Cole locks his eyes with mine. “Don’t believe a word you heard.”

I grin, a wide and naughty one. “Too late. I believed it all.”

Daniel lifts his drink. A martini. “So here we are.” He glances around, then takes a sip. “And I have a confession to make.”

“You do?” My eyebrows rise in question.

One look at Cole reveals he doesn’t know about this pending confession from his business partner either.

Daniel sighs heavily and dramatically. “Yes, I do. And it seems now is the right time to tell you both.”

Cole glares at him. “Out with it. Say it.”

The Englishman smiles, full of secrets. “I brought a little something with me tonight.”

That intrigues me to no end. Goosebumps rise against my flesh, spreading all over my body, a rush of anticipation, a hint of dirty wonder. “What did you bring?”

“I’m an optimist,” he answers, by way of a non-answer.

“And so what did you bring?” Cole presses.

Daniel leans a little closer to me. Not so close that we might look tawdry to anyone passing by, but close enough to drop his voice near my ear. “You like it in public, don’t you?”

Cole answers for me with a possessive growl, sliding a hand up my thigh. “She loves it in public.”

I shiver as Cole grips my thigh.

Daniel wraps his palm around my other thigh. “I thought this might help, then.” He slides that hand up my leg, toward my pussy, where I ache for him—for them. Where