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A single brow raises. “For what?”
“I call you Tav and you call me Olympia? Or even Pippa? Charlie calls me Pippa and I’ve always loved it.”
His body tenses, jaw turning hard. “Who is Charlie?”
“My best friend.”
A muscle in his hard jaw throbs, but his eyes never slide from my face. “You want a truce?”
I nod softly, flashing him a slow, sweet smile. It’s not practiced. There’s genuine hope in this smile. “Yes.”
“Fine. I won’t call you Pipsqueak anymore. You remember to call me Tav.”
“One last thing.” I pause.
He waits.
When I say nothing, he prompts, “Olympia?”
I suck in a breath for bravery. “Why do you hate being called Cole?” When that dark in his eyes darkens, I hurry to ad, “I only ask because I’ve always loved your name.”
His hand begins to move aimlessly against my back, finding bare skin from the low dip of the gown. His thumb makes a few passes, igniting a warmth that flushes every inch of me. I don’t even bother trying to hide it. Another couple passes with his thumb, and goosebumps are called to the surface of my flesh. I watch as his eyes drift from mine to my shoulder, down the length of my bare arm to the hand that rests on his chest, before cutting across the space to my full cleavage, currently on display by the cut of the gown. I know exactly what he’s seeing. The pebbles of proof for just how affected I am by his touch.
“Are you cold?”
I think of lying, of telling him I’m freezing, but I don’t want to lie to this man. Lying to him feels so incredibly wrong, even though the truth, in his hands, I’m confident could harm me beyond anything any member of my spiteful, cruel, devious family could ever do to me.
“No.”
I think his eyes flare. I’m certain he inhales a daggered breath. “My father named me Cole. It was his pick. Just like Darius was his pick. My mother gave him that play when he agreed to take the Taviera last name, even though he used to whine about how it emasculated him. Funny now, with her gone, he’s continued using her last name. Funnier even that he gave her last name to his new whore of a wife.” I can feel the anger simmering under his flesh, but it’s doused by the hurt I see flashing in his eyes. I think, if I look deep enough, I can see through the looking glass into his soul. “Tav is the name she gave me, so it’s the name I go by. The only name I go by.”
Rising onto my tiptoes, uncaring of the fact I know without doubt if we were alone, he’d shove me away, I let my lips whisper across the underside of his jaw in a feather of a kiss. Rough stubble touches supple, soft flesh before an even rougher throb of need pulses through my body that I do my best not to broadcast as I lower myself.
Holding his eyes, I vow, “I’ll never call you that name again. From here on out, it’s Tav. Truce or otherwise.”
The hand resting at the small of my back, with the thumb gently sweeping flesh, presses flat against skin, before it slides beneath the fabric of my dress to curl around my side as he pulls me close in an embrace I’ve died to experience since I was a girl.
“Yeah, you’re good. Very good, Olympia Laurier.” He dips his head low, his voice impossibly deep. He bludgeons my heart with words that drip distrust and—and I think sadness. “You might even be better than her. But at least I know the score this time. I won’t be fooled by sweet venom, and I won’t bend over for pretty promises. You can try to play my heart all you want, but the strings on that guitar were snapped a long time ago. I advise you not to waste your time.”
When I try to pull away, Tav holds me tighter, his embrace no longer a thing of beauty, but something much darker. Sinister. “Oh, no. You don’t get to run now.”
“Tav.”
“The cameras are watching.” I stiffen in his arms, and he chuckles as he runs his lips over my temple. “We may as well give everyone back home something to chew on. Since you want them all to think I’ve sullied you.”
My mind is beginning to spin, and it has nothing to do with the way he’s still guiding me around the dance floor, locked in the prison of his embrace I’m not sure I even want to escape. “What are you saying?”
“I’m going to kiss you, Olympia.” He pulls back to gaze down at me with a heat I know is fabricated. Still, it’s no less affecting. “And you’re going to kiss me back.”
He doesn’t give me a moment to gather myself, to prepare myself for the assault on my heart that is his mouth on mine, before he’s dropping his head and—oh, my! Plundering is the only word.
Tav is plundering my mouth.
Everything and everyone in this fancy hotel ballroom falls away as though they were never here. My heart—that silly, precious, girlish organ inside my chest comes alive with the feel of this man’s mouth on mine. I’ve wanted this, dreamed of this, since I was a girl. Never, not in my wildest imaginings, did I think he’d kiss like this. Like a man unhinged. As though he’s standing on the other side of control, hovering at the edge of something chaotic and all-consuming.
I’ve experienced one sloppy, terrible kiss, that I’d paid for so dearly, I wear a scar in memory of it even today. That kiss had left little desire inside me to repeat.
This kiss—I’m not even sure this is a kiss.
