Delta: Revenge (5 page)

They both looked unsure of what to do. God, it was awkward. “I’m heading out. You two just… stay.”

“No, really. Are you—” She smoothed her dress. “Are you okay?”

“I really am. You guys should continue…” Sophia bit her lip. “Talking, or whatever. I was just leaving.”

She gathered her cake speared with a fork and the bottle of champagne, nabbing a pair of scissors off the desk in a last-minute dress strategy, using her elbow and hands to hold everything, and headed for a bedroom where she could change, eat cake, and drink responsibly—which meant alone in her pajamas.

“Scissors?” Stacy asked, a twinge of concern trilling her question.

“I need to fix a snag.” Or rather, she was sewn into the corset top, and the seam ripper had been packed into her overnight bag. Lord knew where that was. The ribbon that ran along her spine would be a goner as soon as she could figure out how to pull off such a flexible feat. “Bye, guys.”

Sophia hustled as fast as her dress would allow. Conversations like this were hell. She went up a back staircase to the second floor, south wing, holding her cake and bottle of bubbly. A row of guest rooms that were likely unused—because while Mom loved a party, she wanted folks to leave at the end—were up ahead. Sophia doubted even her parents would spend the night in this house. Surely there was some fancy diplomatic event they had to scoot off to somewhere in the world.

Pushing through a door, she forked a huge bite of cake into her mouth and walked with her eyes shut, mouth full, and was the closest she’d been to content in about a day. “Peace at last.”

“Sorry.”

A low masculine accent that struck her as amazing raked from across the room.

“Oh,” she mumbled, eyes now open, pulling the fork from her mouth. She slapped a hand over her mouth, clattered the plate and champagne onto the dresser, and dropped the scissors. Oh. My. God. Holy crap.

“Just leaving.”

“Sorry,” she said, desperately trying to swallow the cake without looking like an oaf dressed like an elegant marshmallow. “Didn’t know anyone was in here.”

Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, focusing on another one of Colin’s teammates from Titan Group. Javier.
Javier.
Okay. Not a big deal. It didn’t matter. He was the most attractive man at the wedding even if she counted her ex-groom. Not that she’d noticed before. Well, she hadn’t
not
noticed. But it was more like inventory. Colin’s teammates were, as a general rule, hot. Javier, in her opinion, was at the top of that list.

There was just something about a Delta boy. Physically, they were as good as men came. But add the whole warrior, protector, save-the-world attitude. Yeah, it worked for her.

She had met Javier in passing a couple times and knew that he had a bit of a wild reputation. But that was not the guy in front of her, sitting on the edge of the bed, hanging his head and holding the phone as if he’d just received bad news.

“Are you okay?” She wiped the corner of her mouth, sure there were icing smudges. He looked broken and alone, and she wondered how long he’d been there, lost in thought as night drifted by.

But he laughed, transforming whatever hung over him with a flash of his gorgeous smile. “Wow. Yeah. I’m okay.
How are you?
”

“I hate that question.”

“Why?”

“Does anyone ever answer it truthfully?”

His dark eyes tightened with the hint of acknowledgement, but it was the cut jawline and olive skin that made her take notice. “Answer truthfully. What do you have to lose?”

The accent and the low pitch of his voice urged her to trust him as though he were genuinely interested in whether she was okay, even if he didn’t know her from Adam. Her head tilted toward the dresser where she’d placed her post-reception creature-comfort plan. “I’m gorging on enough cake for four people and ready to cut off my dress and drink a bottle of champagne by myself.”

He laughed and tilted his head toward
his
champagne bottle on the nightstand. “Feel you on the bubbly.”

She smiled, taking a step closer. “So, you’re about as okay as I am.”

His smile wavered but came back. “Your day is worse than mine.”

Her eyes bounced to his opened bottle. “Good bubbly?”

He nodded. “Not bad.”

“Good. Think I’ll join you.” Sophia grabbed the scissors and the bottle, sawing at the foil. She could go into a war zone and covertly try to change the world, yet she had no flipping idea how to open a bottle of champagne. Her mother would have died. Surely that had been taught in a cotillion class or something. Or maybe not.

“Hey, hey, stop.” Javier stood from his perch on the bed. “You’re going to slit your wrist or lose a finger.” In a few strides, he took the bottle and blade, shaking his head. “Have you ever seen someone open champagne with scissors?”

Well, no. “That’s not why I brought them with me.”

He pulled off the foil and popped the cork, giving her a look before handing her back the bottle. “Drink the whole thing, and you’ll have a hell of a hangover.”

She shrugged. “I’m operating without a plan. We’ll see how the night goes.”

“No plan, no problem?” That accent was intoxicating, far more so than the pricey alcohol. “Doesn’t work like that.” His thick arms crossed over his broad chest. His eyes were the deep color of coffee, and his hair was long enough she could have threaded her fingers into it, but not a strand was out of place. And the dress pants and a button-down shirt? Wow, the whole look fit in a way that made her delusional. “Are… you okay?”

“Um.” Shit. She was staring at the massive man, silently studying what proved God might’ve been a woman, because to make a man that chiseled and perfect? Oh boy. Sophia was still staring. “Cake?”

He laughed quietly. “No, thanks.”

“You don’t eat cake?”

He gave a nonanswer with a slight turn of his head.

“Then you should go.” She nodded, taking the scissors back from his hand. “I don’t trust people who won’t eat cake.”

“I eat cake, Sophia. I just… you obviously came up here to have some quiet, so I’ll go and let you have that.”

“You were up here first.”

His curious eyes narrowed. “But it’s your house.”

“Is it?” Sophia twirled, taking in a room she might not have been in before. All these rooms resembled the glossy photographs in
Southern Living
. They were beautiful but, in her opinion, lacked personalization. “Guess it is.” She stopped her slow spin and tugged at the dress that was still making her miserable. “You know what?”

An amused eyebrow rose. “Hm?”

Even his questioning noises oozed sensuality. It made her mind wander. If a simple question sounded like that, what would happen if he said it closer, quietly? Against her ear? Between her legs—wait, what? She snapped her head back, aware of the sexy, slippery slope she could go down and how her nipples seemed to have perked and jumped to attention already. She licked her lip, forgot anything about him being close or between
anywhere,
and focused back on their conversation.

“There’s—” Her voice cracked. “A very small contingent of people who’ve genuinely asked me if I’m okay. Colin probably being the most direct and most interested.”

Javier stood silently. His dark eyelashes fluttered. Maybe he was deciding how best to escape. Who cared if she’d just bared her soul to essentially a stranger? It was true that people’s reactions to her crisis said a lot about them—which she already knew—but she realized it was also telling how quickly she’d become interested in
another man
. Not that she was
interested
in Javier, just that it was
possible
to hear an accent and stare at the living definition of sex appeal and forget about one’s ex-fiancé. So. Very. Possible.

“Colin’s a good guy,” Javier offered.

“The best,” she agreed, her heart pattering a beat faster as he stepped, enacting his escape plan. Her chest panged for a nanosecond before she ignored the absurd reaction to his abandonment. But Javier’s next step came closer to Sophia, as though he waffled, not stalking directly toward freedom.

As though maybe he felt what she felt: a seriously questionable, very uncertain desire to inch together. She felt an unexplainable spark that might’ve been more interesting than champagne and cake, the kind that could make heat bloom in her chest when it hadn’t flickered in a very long time.

“Oh boy.” But that couldn’t have been loud enough for him to hear, and she suddenly didn’t want him to leave. He’d quieted the buzz that she hadn’t realized had been ringing in her ears. Everything was quiet. Except her heart, which pounded in her lace-covered chest more than it had in years.

“So, are you?” he asked, scratching her with a tone that hit in all the right spots.

“Am
I
? What? Um…?” Her mind spun fast, trying to remember anything that might be conversationally appropriate.

His quiet laugh made her smile. “Are you
okay
, Sophia?”

Sophia.
Her name rolling off his tongue made shivers roll down her spine. She liked her name, but the way he said it made one word come alive. “I am right now.”

Their eyes locked. There were sparks; it wasn’t just her. The idea was absurd. This had to be some psychological coping mechanism, but every nerve in her body had awakened and tingled for her to touch him.

So… simple. Just a touch. Her palms on his cheeks. The pads of her fingers sweeping down his neck if she leaned in, and their lips—

“Good.” Javier nodded, breaking their connection.

Her cheeks heated, and where electricity had shot down her spine, now it was a one-sided sexual awareness. She’d had quite the day. Sophia pushed her shoulders back and tossed the scissors onto the bed, and Javier handed her the bottle of champagne.

She took it and the cake then sat on the edge of the elaborately covered queen-sized bed. Setting the plate down, she took a sip straight from the bottle, and the bubbles tickled her tongue and her nose, making her squeak out a laugh. “I’m gangster, right?”

“Total.”

His chuckle and smile made her take another sip again because she couldn’t quite look at him without broadcasting how attractive he was. Javier reached onto the bed, where he had abandoned his suit jacket.

She couldn’t help it; she offered again. “No cake? You’re sure?”

He returned the stare, eyes raking over her in a not-so-benign manner. It did amazing things for her insides. Wow. If she was going to marry someone, she should at least have felt a tenth of the excitement that Javier caused with a single smoldering look.

“Yeah. I’ll take a bite.” His large strides ate the space between them, giving her a show of just how powerful his thighs were. Before she could fathom cutting a piece off for him, he joined her on the edge of the bed, confidently picked up her fork, and took a man-sized bite.

Holy mother of snack shares—he used her fork. Who did that? Gah. That was a far cry from, basically, their first in-depth conversation.

He nodded his appreciation. “Good stuff.”

Javier speared another piece, and before she knew how to process his movements, the cake was pressed to her lips, and she ate the decidedly smaller bite. Which was just as good as the first tastes,
but he had fed
it to her, so it was infinitely better.

Nerves and nutso thoughts rambled in her head, and fortunately, she managed to mumble her thanks. Her insides were scattered, her mind numb. Had hottie Javier
just fed her cake
? Why yes, he had. Along with his accent replaying in her head, she could pretty much check off every fantasy she’d ever had. And he was still next to her.
Still.

Holy shit, she needed that bubbly. Pronto.

They both reached for their matching bottles. Apparently, Javier needed his bubbly too. That made her smile, which made
him
smile. What a smile. What an amazingly dangerous smile…

“Okay, so it was nice seeing you.” He turned. “Shitty circumstances, I guess. But still, I needed a moment like this.”

Gah! That pang of disappointment coiled in her chest. Needing a subject change to shield her heart, Sophia switched her mindset as fast as she could, away from killer smiles to why he’d been hiding in the first place. “You know my problem. What about yours?”

His dark brows tightened, and the light in his eyes dulled. “Excuse me?”

“Your face is so expressive. It’s honest with me even if you won’t tell me.”

“Yeah?”

“Well…” For the thousandth time, her cheeks heated under his watch. “I’m blaming the champagne on an empty stomach on that. Maybe the stressful day. I don’t know. I’m blabbering.”

He stared a moment too long. There it was again—that intensity that was so delicious. Javier cleared his throat. “I had hoped something would work out on a job.”

“It didn’t?”

“No. Not this time. Trying not to get used to the disappointment.”