Page 136 of Sinful Blaze

There are a thousand things I want to say to this asshole. A hundred more things I want to do, several of which involve stabbing the stem of my water glass into his jowl.

“How much are you charging?” The man snatches another cocktail from a passing server and knocks half of it back in one gulp. “Whatever that asshole is paying you, I can double it.”

I take another sip of my water and stay silent. Pasha will be back any second. Any second now…

The man grows irritated. “What, are you deaf? Or just dumb? I’m talking to you, you stupid bitch.”

A few curious glances shift our way. Alas, in true high society fashion, no one is decent enough to intervene on my behalf.

Until—

“Ah. Senator Brennan.” Pasha greets him with all the warmth of an iceberg. “I see you’ve met my fiancée.”

The man—Senator Brennan, apparently—shuts his mouth and looks away. Pasha studies him for a moment, suspicion in his eyes, before he turns to me. The way he gives me a far more careful once-over tells me he’s not blind to what might have been going on.

I’m not sure I should tell him. For everyone’s sake.

“You okay?” he asks me quietly as he leans in.

“Friend of yours?”

“Let’s go with that.” His arm slips around my waist and pulls me close to his side.

“‘Fiancée’?” The drunk senator clears his throat. “You never mentioned you were seeing someone.”

“I’m sure, if our schedules aligned, I would have.”

I have no idea what’s going on between these two, but the air feels like it drops several degrees just from the way they’re talking. Senator Brennan is wobbling somewhere between pissed and sheepish.

Pasha looks… well, like himself.

Like nothing has ever ruffled his feathers—and also he might kill the guy.

“Sounds like Senator O'Cronin has firmly wedged himself in your camp, regarding the contract,” Brennan tries again.

“Sounds like Senator O'Cronin isn’t a complete imbecile.”

Damn. I don’t know what beef these two have, and I don’t want to know.

“I believe our ‘friend’ here is due to give his speech any minute now,” Pasha offers into the thorny silence. “Let’s go find our seats, shall we?”

Without waiting for an answer, Pasha steers me away from the slack-jawed senator. He finds a chair against a nearby wall just as the lights dim. I yelp when he pulls me into his lap, but his hands clamped on my waist say he’s not letting me go anytime soon.

And honestly, I’m not upset about it. My old etiquette teacher would have a heart attack if she could see me now—I’m pretty sure “Don’t sit in your date’s lap while his massive dick gets harder and harder beneath you” is on, like, page one of the cotillion rulebook—but after that shiver-inducing interaction with the senator, I don’t mind if Pasha’s wandering hands help me forget being called a “pregnant whore.”

“You look beautiful tonight.” Pasha eases me closer to him, pulling me back until my head lays against his chest. His warm breath fans over my skin as he whispers lightly in my ear.

My skirts shift. They’ve billowed out over most of the chair to the point where we’re both pretty much hidden behind them, so I think Pasha needs to move them aside to reach for something or?—

Oh.

He’s reaching for “something” alright. Something my cotillion teacher would definitely disapprove of.

I want to gasp. I want to squeak with surprise.

But I can’t. Because we’re in public.

His fingers walk over my skin to the edge of my panties. If he knows what’s good for him, for us, this is as far as he’ll go. He’ll move his fingers back to my thigh, maybe give me a light little pat, then remove his hand so we don’t get thrown out by security.

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