His lips on mine.
And if we were alone . . .
Some part of my mind squeaked in protest that it was a bad idea, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember why it was wrong for us to kiss. If everyone else went away maybe I could figure all this out.
“My stomach actually hurts a bit,” I told him. “I’m not feeling too well. I think I’d like to sit here for a couple of minutes.”
“It’s probably because you ate four pieces of cake,” he said with a wink.
“Such a shame!” Mary-Ellen called out loudly. “But we should get going!” She tugged on Vance’s arm, pulling him from the room.
Both Krista and Sadie looked concerned, and I knew they were about to offer to stay with me. Which would wreck all of my very-well-thought-out and carefully laid plans.
“I’ll make sure she gets back to the hotel okay,” Camden offered.
“Why, Camden, that’s a fabulous idea,” Sadie said, pushing on Dan’s shoulders, trying to get him to move. “We’ll see you later.”
“You’re such a gentleman,” Krista told Camden with a tiny smile, as if she were in on my game plan.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Dan said and Sadie hushed him, promising to explain it later and it was like they couldn’t leave fast enough.
Which suited me just fine.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked Camden. Now it was my turn to move closer to him, to get right next to his warmth and yummy scent.
“You can tell me anything you want.”
There was something pointed to his words, as if he were expecting me to come clean about my supposed James Bond impersonation.
“I feel fine,” I told him. “I mean, I feel a little light-headed but that’s probably from all the sugar I just ate and drank. I just wanted to be alone with you.”
“Really?” He sounded shocked.
“Yes. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Probably because you’ve blown me off every single time I’ve flirted with you.”
Silly man. “Only on the outside. On the inside, I wanted to say yes.”
At that he paused, looking me over carefully. “You seem a little drunk.”
Hmm. I had been remarkably truthy this evening. But I thought I’d know if I were drunk. However, there was the fact that I couldn’t seem to shut up. “I am being talkative.”
“I noticed. I just thought my natural charm had finally started to work on you.”
“Yeah, I bet you did.”
He smiled. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, you know exactly what I mean. You’re just sitting here with your charm hanging out all over the place like women are supposed to be able to resist it. It seems very unsportsmanlike to me.”
Although I’d basically just told him he was irresistible, he frowned. “Let’s go get a car to take us back to the hotel.”
“Oh, let’s go paddle boarding!” It suddenly sounded really fun.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be out in open water right now.” He stood up, indicating that it was time to go.
Party pooper. I tried to stand up, too, but it was like balance and my body had parted ways. Camden grabbed me and I didn’t even get a chance to enjoy the sensation because my head was really spinning.
“I might have misjudged that,” I announced.
“You misjudged the floor?”
“In my defense, it was moving.”
He tried to straighten me back up, but I liked being pressed against him. “Floors hold still,” he told me.
“Not this one. It makes it hard to calculate where to step.”
“Okay, you are definitely drunk.” He sounded irritated, like I’d somehow wrecked all his spy-hunting plans.
“I don’t know how. All I had were my smoothies.” I tried to think of how this might have happened, but it was hard to focus on anything but him. Then I gasped loudly. “Do you think Sadie spiked the cake?”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it. Even if there was alcohol in your drinks, you only had like, three daiquiris and enough cake to feed a kindergarten class. You should be fine.”
“I haven’t mentioned that I’m a total lightweight? Like, just looking at a bottle of wine is enough to get me buzzed.”
Carol came in to check on us and Camden waved her over. “My friend’s daiquiris—she ordered them without rum.”
At that Carol’s eyes went wide. “I am so sorry, I didn’t hear her say that. Our club is known for our overproof rum in our famous daiquiris, and I thought that’s what she was ordering.”