Maureen Child - The Elliotts - Bedrooms Not Boardrooms!

“Liam Elliott.” Testosterone crackled in the air as the men shook hands and then Buck’s arm settled around her waist and hauled her close to his hard body. Her pulse didn’t even hiccup.

Aubrey risked looking at Liam again.

“Mom loved the painting,” was all he said. His unreadable expression gave nothing away.

“I thought she would.”

And then his lips twitched. “She had me hang it in her bedroom. I didn’t ask why. Don’t want to know.”

Aubrey’s lips curved upward. “No. I bet not.”

Then memories of Liam touching her, tasting her, filling her, wiped away her smile and set her legs to trembling. She had to get out of here or at least away from him. She couldn’t leave the gala until she’d done as her father requested. Dance, schmooze, get your picture taken by a few society reporters.

“Well, it was good seeing you both, but I promised Buck a dance. Bye.” And then she looked up at the former quarterback and silently pleaded for him to rescue her. Lucky for her, Buck was as quick with his thoughts as he was on his feet.

Getting the seats switched cost Liam fifty bucks. The fact that he’d paid money to torture himself with what he couldn’t have didn’t say much about his intelligence.

He deliberately stalled until after Aubrey and her date were seated at the big, round table with three other couples before leading Trisha to their seats in the banquet hall adjoining the ballroom. Aubrey glanced up as he pulled out his date’s chair. Her violet eyes widened and filled with horror and then the color and her polite smile slid from her face.

She jerked her gaze forward and sat stiffly erect. Liam settled beside her. Their shoulders brushed as he adjusted his chair, and her scent filled his lungs, bringing back a flood of incendiary memories. His thigh nudged hers beneath the crowded table and blood drained from his brain.

He recovered enough to introduce Trisha and himself to the other diners at the table and then turned to Aubrey and her date. The big lug with her had tried to crush Liam’s hand earlier. Too bad it hadn’t worked. Liam had done his own share of bone crushing during the exchange.

Aubrey cozying up to the quarterback is none of your business.

“You left something at my place,” he whispered to Aubrey.

Her cheeks turned scarlet, confirming she’d not only heard him, she knew exactly what she’d left behind, but she didn’t turn her head. In fact, she ignored him, which irritated the daylights out of him.

“Want it back?”

“No. Throw it out.” Her reply was barely audible over the hum of conversation in the large room.

He waited until after the salads had been served. “Can’t do that, sweetheart.”

She dropped her fork. Within seconds a server had replaced it with a clean one and stepped back to hover. One bad thing about five-thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners was that the wait staff never went far. They hovered behind you, watching every move. Not that he intended to touch Aubrey—no matter how much he wanted to.

Parks stretched his left arm across the back of Aubrey’s chair, clenching his fist and displaying his Super Bowl ring for Liam’s scrutiny. The gesture blatantly staked a claim, riling Liam. Hard eyes met Liam’s behind Aubrey’s back. Liam set his jaw.

Buddy, if she were yours, she wouldn’t have been in my bed.

Aubrey glanced at Liam and then swiftly turned to the man on her right. She said something, drawing Parks’s attention.

Liam faced forward. What in the hell are you doing, Elliott? Are you willing to fight for a woman you can’t have?

Belatedly he remembered his own date. Forgetting a woman who had groped his butt on the dance floor and whispered in explicit detail what she’d like to do to him later ought to be more difficult, but he’d done so easily. Trisha didn’t get to him the way Aubrey did, and he had no interest in accepting Trisha’s naughty invitation. On the other hand, he knew without a doubt that if Aubrey had made those suggestions—wise or not—they’d be halfway back to his apartment already.

Aubrey’s off-limits. Back off.

But knowing he should back off didn’t make him any less aware of the woman to his right for the remainder of the tasteless dinner and long-winded speeches. He couldn’t have her, but he ached for Aubrey Holt with each pulse of his blood and each lung-filling breath. Duty had never been so onerous and desire had never been more difficult to ignore.

“Are you alone? Or is the thug with you?”

Aubrey’s heart stalled at the sound of the deep, slightly husky voice on the phone. “Liam.”

She scrambled upright in her bed, clutching the sheet to her chest and squeezing the phone so tightly her fingers hurt. And then she recalled his question. “That’s none of your business.”

“You are alone.”

“I didn’t say that.” She shoved the hair out of her eyes and squinted at her bedside clock. “It’s midnight. Why did you call?”

“To tell you that you looked beautiful tonight.”

Her lungs failed. The phone slipped in her grasp. She fumbled it back to her ear. “Thank you. So did Trisha.”

She cringed at the jealousy in her voice.

“Did she? I didn’t notice.” His distracted tone made her want to believe him, but the man had gone out with a woman who’d been ballsy enough to pass him her number with Aubrey standing two feet away.

“You shouldn’t have called, Liam.”

“You wanted me to tell you how beautiful you looked with your watchdog standing by ready to stamp my forehead with his Super Bowl ring?”

“Have you been drinking?” He sounded sober. Tired, but sober.

“Haven’t had a drop since that lousy wine at dinner. But I couldn’t get to sleep.”

She knew the feeling. “So you decided to call and wake me?”

“Did I?”

“Did you wake me?” She should lie and say, yes, she’d been sleeping dreamlessly. But she didn’t. “No.”

She scooted back under the covers and laid her head on her pillow. She shouldn’t ask, but her mouth didn’t listen to her mind. “Why can’t you sleep?”

The sound of a heavy breath and the rustle of sheets traveled through the phone line. Aubrey closed her eyes and a picture of Liam naked and kneeling above her on his king-size bed filled her head. She lifted her lids and turned on the lamp. Listening to Liam’s sandpaper voice in the darkness and remembering him naked wasn’t a good idea if she wanted to sleep any time in this century.

“I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about you. About Monday afternoon.”

Her heart would very likely sustain permanent damage from its frantic battering against her rib cage. Her fingers crushed the sheets. She bit her lip.

“It was good.”

“Good?” she choked out in disbelief.

His low chuckle made her shiver. “Better than good. Fabulous.”

She smiled. “That’s more like it.”

“Incredible. Stupendous. Phenomenal.” She could hear the laughter in his voice and then another rustling sound. “And it’s a crying shame that it can’t happen again.”

Her grin faded at the seriousness and accuracy of the last statement. “But it can’t.”

“I know. But I don’t have to like it.”

Neither did she. “No.”

The silence stretched for a dozen heartbeats. “Good night, Aubrey. Sweet dreams.”

“You, too, Liam. Sweet dreams.” She cradled the phone, turned off the light and then rolled on her side and tucked her hand beneath her cheek.

Odd phone call. So why was she smiling?

Seeing Liam again was out of the question. If she did, her father would expect her to weasel information out of Liam about EPH and she just couldn’t stomach the duplicitous role. Her father had been angry enough that she hadn’t brought him anything useful after her lunch with Liam. Oh, Matthew Holt hadn’t yelled. He never yelled. But he’d treated her to that same silent stare she’d come to know so well.