“Ah! You’re referencing a character from a Disney cartoon movie. Meant for children. Right about at your level, huh?”
He waved with his free hand at someone he knew before tipping his head closer to hers. “Actually, I just thought I’d bring things down to your level, Princess. Basic and cold.”
She chuckled acidly, winking at a friend from Trinity. “Any woman who doesn’t do a split on your dick is an ice princess, huh?”
“Quoi! Did you just say ‘dick’?”
“You heard me,” she said through clenched teeth, waving at her mother.
“You’re going to make me hard,” he murmured.
“No great feat there,” she answered back, relieved to be nearing the rear vestibule of the church.
“You know we’re sitting together at the reception, right?”
When they’d cleared the sanctuary, she whipped her arm away and faced him. “Must be my lucky day.”
“It could be. If you’d just let it happen,” he said, leaning so close to her, she could feel his warm breath on her cheek and the throb of her pulse in her throat.
Why did you have to be so fucking hot?
“Not cold enough,” she whispered near his ear, forcing herself to take a step away from him even though his soft, seductive words came perilously close to making her rethink her resolve not to fuck him.
A door opened to their left, and they turned in unison to see Kate emerging from a small bride’s room at the back of the church, where she’d fixed her lipstick and veil.
“Lib!” she cried, “I did it! I’m married!”
Libitz held out her arms and gathered Kate in her embrace as she narrowed her eyes at J.C., who stood behind Kate, beaming at Libitz with a wolfish glint in his eyes. “You did it, KK. You’re a Rousseau now.”
Chapter 2
J.C. inadvertently avoided Libitz for most of the reception, trapped with family visiting from France who wanted to catch up with him while his parents greeted the hundreds of guests in the receiving line. He kept an eye on her, however, watching her face relax from uptight to merry around a handful of Trinity friends by the bar. She laughed a lot, keeping a knuckle on her hip while her other hand held a glass of Cabernet at an exquisite right angle. At first glance, she appeared all angles, this petite, prickly woman—sharp and obtuse, acute and right.
The softness in her, he learned through observation, was concentrated in her face—in her almost-too-big brown eyes and pillowed lips, in the rounded peaches of her cheeks when she smiled, and the warmth in her expression when she chuckled with a friend.
She was angular, yes, but not wholly without curves, he realized, even if they weren’t the obvious ones that he was used to. Something about that realization made him feel…fortunate. It was a little bit like how he’d felt the first time he’d seen a Picasso up close—like he was seeing something very precious that not everyone got to see, something special that could be easily missed if one didn’t take an extra moment to look closely.
One of her prep-school chums put his arm around her slight shoulders, pulling her close for a photo, and J.C. flinched, a sudden burst of acid souring his stomach as he instinctively flexed the knuckles of his left hand.
“Looks like someone stole the march on you, Jean-Christian,” said his second cousin Luc, a Montferrat relation on his mother’s side.
J.C. shifted his gaze away from Libitz and her handsy fucking admirer. He wasn’t familiar with the expression his much older cousin had just used. “Sir?”
“You look ready to fight off Satan.”
He scowled. “What do you mean?”
“Narrowed eyes.” He flicked a glance at J.C.’s hand. “Clenched fist. Scowl. Cherchez la femme.”
Cherchez la femme? It translated directly to “Look for the woman,” but J.C. sensed it was a French idiom—one with which he was unfamiliar. He searched his cousin’s amused eyes, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. Look for the woman? What woman? Libitz? Ha!
Luc chuckled knowingly and J.C.’s scowl deepened—not because of a woman, but because Luc was using archaic expressions that didn’t mean jack shit, and it was annoying. But as bad luck would have it, Luc was not only his elder but a guest.
J.C. relaxed his fist and shrugged. “Not sure what you mean.”
Luc’s eyes trailed deliberately to Libitz and then back to J.C. “Ah, but I think you do.”
He followed his cousin’s glance and found Libitz standing about a foot away from the guy who’d been mauling her a moment before for the camera. Releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, he gestured to the bar with his chin. “I need a refill. You?”
“No, thanks.” Luc cocked his head to the side. “But good luck.”
“With what?” asked J.C., feeling beyond irritated as Luc winked at him before wandering away to chat with more Montferrat and Roche cousins across the room.