Courting Disaster

“You say tomato, I say, how do they say it in Kentucky? Horse pucky. Now, if you took up with a woman like that, it would benefit the team immensely,” said Oliver, nodding back in Elizabeth’s direction.

Demetri shook his head regretfully, his eyes never leaving Elizabeth. “When I look at her, I’m not thinking about a PR opportunity.”

Oliver quirked a golden brow. “Even better.”

Demetri knew Oliver’s bent for trouble, and he felt the need to intervene. Prudent. Sensible. Responsible. “No, Oliver.”

Demetri’s teammate watched Elizabeth, a wicked gleam in his eyes, and he heaved an exaggerated sigh. “If you won’t, then maybe I should,” he said, with just enough lust in his voice to make Demetri look twice.

“Stay away from that one,” warned Demetri.

Oliver only smiled.

Chapter Three

The late-afternoon sun provided a fitting setting for the couple, poking gilded holes through the clouds sending yellow sunbeams playing on the lawn, until it finally settled down low over the horizon. After that, the air turned a little cooler, and people filtered inside the house, where there was plenty of room. The wedding rehearsal was all through, nothing left to be done but have a good time.

A lively band played in the corner, and bubbles frothed from a silver champagne fountain in the center of the room. However, Elizabeth was too nervy to dance or drink. She had thought she had managed to escape the spider’s web, but exactly when she felt most safe, she bumped into a long, hard thigh, and the temperature notched up three hundred degrees. She didn’t even have to turn around. She knew. She hadn’t planned on giving Mr. Demetri Lucas the satisfaction, but then he laughed at her, deep, with a huskiness that was best described as criminally sexy.

Curious as a cat bent on suicide, she turned, not quite managing to stop the moonstruck sigh.

Dang.

“Imagine that,” he said. “Crashing into me again? It’s becoming a habit. Or fate?”

Elizabeth cocked her head, staring up at him, locking her knees so she wouldn’t embarrass herself and swoon. This was silly. He was a man. A mere man. She frowned, at the moment not caring what her stylist said about premature wrinkles. If ever there was a time for forbidding frowns, this was it.

When he grinned at her like that, a momentary flash of teeth, she felt something stop inside her, and she hoped it wasn’t her heart. That would be bad.

For the devil, he sure had a nice mouth. A nice, firm mouth. A kissing mouth, she thought, and then quickly tamped the image back down. None of that, Elizabeth.

If only he wouldn’t look at her, the dark eyes trapping her, hot waves of want spiraling inside her. She’d had men look at her with desire before, but this felt personal. Way too personal. She could feel that look in places that he had no business affecting.

Elizabeth summoned up the forbidding frown once again. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I see someone I need to talk to,” she muttered, completely lacking in manners. She didn’t think he’d mind.

“But not me?” he asked, obviously minding.

She stopped and gave in to temptation, looking her fill, as she’d been wanting to do all night. Not surprisingly, that only made things worse.

Truth be told, this was the most dangerous-looking man she’d ever met in her entire life. The boldness in his dark gaze, the wicked twinkle that said, “what the hell,” better than words ever could. That same devilish twinkle fired her blood, and the phrase “what the hell” tumbled from her own mind, too.

There was danger in him, and she knew it. He was fairly humming with it, like a live wire destined to burn the living daylights out of anyone that dared to touch. But oh, she wanted to touch. Her body ached with that want. Words that she’d never even known were suddenly haunting her lips. Pictures she’d never dreamed of before flashed behind her eyes, tempting her with sins that she’d never ached to commit. It would be easier if she couldn’t see those same pictures of those very same sins reflected in the warm russet depths of his eyes.

Sweet mercy, those were fascinating eyes.

It took her a second to breathe again. “No. Definitely not you,” she answered, trying to put as much certainty as possible in her voice, but it didn’t sound certain enough.

“What a shame,” he said, still watching her with that bold gaze, and something inside her started to melt. Slowly, treacherously…and stupidly.

“Isn’t it, just?” she answered, and without another word— which was a true testament to her fears—she ran.

After that, Demetri had actually planned on leaving her alone. He sat through endless toasts, and didn’t even glance in her direction. It wasn’t easy because one heated look from her had shot straight to his groin, and made him ache ever since. However, trying to be on his best behavior, he had counted and recounted the hundred and one reasons he should stay away. First and foremost, Hugh was his friend. A man he owed a tremendous debt. A man he was here to help—not hurt by tangling with a lamb. He normally didn’t mix with “lambs”; they were too complicated, and Demetri didn’t have time for complicated. His life was too fast, the racing circuit too demanding a mistress.

And then there was that dreamy light in those bright blue eyes that scared the hell out of him.

Everything was going along well, until after dinner, and he saw her dancing with Oliver—the junior driver formerly known as his friend.

Demetri couldn’t help himself.

She’d changed from the virginal white dress she’d worn earlier, and this new one killed off brain cells left and right. It was green, a short jade green silk that was cut low in the front and back, flowing around her hips like water. It was a dress meant to be pulled off inch by luscious inch, and his fingers flexed, greedy and more than up to the task.

As they danced around the floor, Demetri could see she was light on her feet, the green fabric catching the candlelight and reflecting its glow. He tried to tell himself that of course she could dance well, every move was probably professionally choreographed. Somehow it didn’t help. All he wanted to do was touch her, and see if she was real, or some vision that had stepped out of his boyhood fantasies. And that was the biggest part of the problem. She wasn’t some X-rated goddess that a man tumbled into bed with one night and then forgot the next.

Elizabeth Innis was Hugh Preston’s niece.

But even with all the alarms flashing inside him, he couldn’t help it. She was irresistible.

Once more, damning the fates, Demetri tapped on Oliver’s shoulder. “You don’t mind if I cut in,” asked Demetri, more of an order than a request. Seniority had its privileges after all.

His teammate released Elizabeth—reluctantly. Suck it up, Oliver. “Not at all,” Oliver answered.

“Excuse me. Did anybody here think that I might mind?”

Demetri took Elizabeth in his arms, and swept her up in the lilting strains of the “Tennessee Waltz.” “No,” he said, getting used to the way her eyes lit up when she was mad. “One dance for running into my car. It’s the least you can do.”

“I absolve myself of all responsibility, because your sort of driving— Well, it’s a train wreck waiting to happen.”

When she talked, it was like warm honey, and he could all too easily imagine what that voice would sound like, whispering in bed. His arms tightened around her, his fingers sliding over the smooth skin of her shoulder, just once, just to know.

“I told myself I was going to stay away,” he admitted, willing himself to remember how to dance. “Hugh told me to stay away.”

“Are you waiting for me to tell you to stay away, too?” she asked, never missing a step.

“Would you?”

She paused. One second. One momentary hesitation, before answering, “Of course.” However, she didn’t pull away, and they danced together, Demetri expertly leading her around the other dancers. One hand memorized the curve of her hip, the warm clasp of her fingers in his other hand fitting as if it were custom-made. Something was making him dizzy, the tempo of the music, the snap of her eyes, the full pout to her lips, he wasn’t sure what. In the blur of that moment, the hundred and one reasons to stay away from her—reasons that he had carefully recited to himself all evening—faded into nothing. There was no way in hell he was walking away. Not tonight.

When the song came to a close, the crowds drifted one way, and Demetri lifted two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter. Then he guided her through the tall glass doors that led out to the sanctity of the veranda, his hand pressed firmly against the soft skin of her back, shamefully taking advantage of another chance to touch her.

Outside, the moonlight flickered through the trees, bathing the veranda in a soft glow. Demetri handed her a glass, then clinked it once, toasting to absolutely nothing.

“What are you afraid of?” he said, as if he didn’t know. The dreamy eyes narrowed to sapphire slits of death. He didn’t even mind.

“You don’t have one single move that hasn’t been tried before. Don’t think I can’t take care of myself.”

But he could do such a better job, Demetri thought to himself, studying the full upper lip, and the tiny depression there that was made to be savored. “You’re Hugh’s niece?”

“Great-niece, but not by blood. My aunt Jenna married into the Preston family, but he doesn’t mind when I call him uncle, and I protect him just like he was my own,” she answered, eyeing him over the rim of the glass. There was suspicion and disdain, but there was a flicker of other things in those eyes, too. Things that gave a man hope.