Page 23 of Tight Spot

I was supposed to be some pretty little thing on his arm for a few photo ops and then go our separate ways.

He wanted a fake girlfriend.

But if he wasn’t willing to have sex with me…

“Excuse me, I need to use the restroom for a minute.”

And get some space without his intense gaze pinning me to my seat and making me think of only wicked things.

* * *

I returned to the private room after rushing out of there like a terrified little kitten, but this time, I knew more.

I understood.

Time in the restroom gave me time to not only think but pull up a quick Google search on my phone.

Dawson Butler, age twenty-nine, was never seen with a woman in public. He had one sister. Parents divorced. He’d also been arrested back in January for an altercation in a bar and charges were never pressed. Dawson called it an unfortunate accident, and the other party agreed in a separate statement.

So, at least he wasn’t a criminal or anything. An accident. Those happened, especially in bars. But none of it explained why he was looking for a fake girlfriend. I texted Meredith, and the witch didn’t respond. An SOS text never went unanswered.

She was playing with me. It irritated me and made me think of what she said at brunch.

If you can get past the bullshit…

He needed something from me.

The least he could do was give me what I needed in return.

Dawson Butler wasn’t only the perfect man to be seen with to seriously piss off Darrick, which was a lovely side benefit, he was also the man who was going to teach me how to seduce a man. How to enjoy what I wanted in bed.

He was going to be the man to take my virginity and teach me how to please men—or this was the last dinner we would share, and he’d have to find someone else, some other way.

I figured I now had the upper hand, and I was willing to play it.

Dawson stood as I reached the table, concern tightening his features. In the center of the table was our calamari.

He helped me with my chair again, and I tried not to be overwhelmed by the sexy masculine scent of sandalwood that wafted from him as he did so. “Thank you.”

“I was worried you weren’t coming back.”

He took his own seat and lifted the bottle of wine from the ice. “More?”

“Please.” I pushed my glass closer to him. “I apologize for that, but you took me by surprise in more ways than one, and I needed a minute.”

His lips quirked at one corner. Sexy. There was nothing the man did that wasn’t. “Now you see why I wanted to meet in private.”

A loose chuckle rattled free from the tightness threatening to close my throat.

His smirk turned into a full-blown smile.

Breathtakingly wicked. I took a quick sip of my wine so the force of that smile didn’t knock me off my chair.

“So, since I’m not quite sure what you’re looking for. Why don’t you tell me?”

He brushed his hands off on his napkin and resettled it in his lap. The man had manners, I’d give him that. “I’ve had some issues in the past, with a family member. Let’s say she caused quite a bit of trouble for me last spring.”

That must have been his sister, Crystal. She was the only person pictured online with him and she was mentioned in the article about the bar.

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