Even as I reminded myself to keep my damn hands to myself, I pressed one to the small of her back, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin material.

“We’re not going to be standing on a line,” I told her, walking her up to the bouncer.

His gaze moved over Saff, then toward me, but quickly back to Saff, something like confusion on his face. Almost as if he… knew her?

“Soren Vale,” I said when his gaze cut to me again.

“Yep,” he said, reaching to pull open the black velvet rope and allow us to pass.

There was some grumbling from the crowd, but as soon as we were one foot in the door, the music drowned out anything else.

I went ahead and used that sound barrier as a reason to keep my hand at Saff’s back, guiding her through the crush of the crowd, then up into the raised area of the VIP section.

“Heaven forbid you hang out with the common man,” Saff said as we slid into one of the rounded booths.

“We need to be able to talk,” I reminded her.

“What?” she yelled over the music.

I really didn’t need a valid excuse to scoot closer toward her in the booth. “We need to be able to talk,” I said, distracted by that strawberry sweet cream scent clinging to her skin, and the way her leg was pressed up against mine.

“Talk,” she repeated, and up that close, I could see the way her breath was picking up pace. “Can we drink?” she asked.

It was a terrible idea.

“Yes,” I said, flagging down the bottle service girl.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Saff

I knew we were supposed to be discussing business. But with my nerves skittering all over the place, I wasn’t going to be able to think straight without a drink.

It turned out that the ugly, uncomfortable, unflattering business casual clothes I’d been wearing around him had been a key part of my new persona. Stripped of those and strapped into a clinging club dress I’d needed to go out and buy—since I was generally a jeans and tee kind of chick—I felt neither like myself nor the businesswoman I was trying to appear to be to Soren.

I felt like a woman. One who was seated right up against a gorgeous man in a great suit, smelling like sin, watching me with those gooey eyes, and leaning in to be heard over the music, his breath warm on my ear and neck.

So when the bottle girl came back with champagne, I took my coupe and drank, even if I wasn’t a champagne kind of girl.

“Good?” Soren asked, mistaking my second greedy sup for appreciation when it was really just a survival tactic.