Page 39 of Auctioned To Be Mine

“It really was,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“I recovered.”

“But not the shoes.”

She laughed. “That’s a different apology.”

“I’ll replace the shoes.”

“I don’t know,” she mused. “Maybe that’s on your brother.”

“Definitely on him.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I felt sparks like this with a woman. I took a small step closer, my shoulder brushing hers.

“Victoria,” I said.

She turned toward me, tipping her chin up slightly. I forgot what I was going to say. It didn’t matter. Nothing I could have said would have been adequate for the moment anyway.

I set my glass down on the railing and took her glass from her hand and set it beside mine. She let me. She was watching me like she was waiting to see what I’d do.

I knew what I wanted to do.

I reached up and tucked that curl behind her ear. My fingers barely grazed her cheek. She didn’t move away, which I took as an invitation. It wasn’t a rejection.

I leaned down and kissed her.

It started soft. Tentative. Testing the distance between us. Her lips were plump and tasted faintly of the Scotch. For a moment she was still, and I thought I’d misread everything. But then she kissed me back, and it stopped being tentative at all.

My hand moved from her cheek to the back of her neck, my fingers brushing across her skin as I gently pressed her lips open. My tongue swept inside her mouth. She moaned and leaned into me. I angled my head to deepen the kiss. She was into it and then suddenly she was pushing me back.

“I, um, where’s the powder room?”

“Second door on the left.”

And then she was gone.

14

VICTORIA

Igripped the edge of the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were flushed. My lipstick was slightly smudged. My hair, which had been doing reasonably well for most of the evening, was a little wild.

I looked like a woman who had just been thoroughly kissed by the most attractive man she’d ever been within arm’s reach of.

I turned on the cold water and ran my wrists under it, something my grandmother used to tell me to do when I was overheated. It wasn’t helping. Nothing was going to help. I was standing in Callum Blackwell’s restroom having a full breakdown over a kiss.

I pulled out my phone and called Betty.

“How’d it go?” she asked. “Tell me everything. Was he awful? Was he wonderful? Did you have fun?”

“I’m in his bathroom,” I whispered.

A pause. “What?”

“His house. I’m in the bathroom of his house.” I rubbed my temple. “He invited me for a drink after dinner and I said yes and now I’m hiding in his restroom.”