Stuff It

Chapter 20

The smug glint in her eyes was provoking. Taunting him to raise the question he instinctively knew he didn't want to know the answer to. But he found he couldn't let it rest. A single refined brow lifted in query and Dash saw the gleam in her eyes wavered with humour.

Humor at his expense.

Narrowing his cool blue gaze to stare lazer pinpricks pointedly at her, he was awarded with a haughty lift to her own brows.

A look that was relatively fine on her. Hot even. Swelteringly so.

Clearing the sudden thickness in his throat, Dash murmured pointedly in a husky undertone he couldn't quite avoid, "You have something to say?"

"Nothing you don't already know," was all she said in smug reply. Dash clenched his hand about hers reflexively and was awarded for his efforts in the fiery glint to her eye. She opened her mouth to no doubt berate him for that but he merely twisted his hand in a smooth move and sent her spinning out and away from him. When he reeled her back in, she was an even more sveltering heat of sensuality that before.

Dash shifted uneasily resisting her alure with some difficulty so that when the music came to an abrupt halt, he heaved out a great sigh of relief that served to only increase the scowl she directed at him.

But his relief in not embarrassing himself on the dance floor was so great he found himself beaming a wide grin at her in response.

Irate with what she saw as his obnoxious tendencies, Nina all but refrained from stomping her foot and on his too before wrenching herself out of his hold and turning away in search of her family.

She found Nial cornered by a besotted Thompson relative who unfailingly cornered him at every family gathering. And Nancy was lost to reality and reason at Jeff's grinning side. The besotted live birds were the very least she could stomach at this point so she allowed her gaze to rove over the crowd as she made for the refreshments table.

Ordering herself a mild cocktail, she snatched several finger foods off trays as they floated by and proceeded to stuff herself as leaned into invisibility in the only darken aclove in this well lit garden.

The show begun with much fan fare. The Thompsons did nothing in halves. Invited to the event were the who's who of Sydney's socialite society and the Thompsons were all set out to impress.

New and buding designers warred with established specialist in their field as the options for Nancy's potential trousseau was modeled on the runway by sleek silhouette models. Nina felt a little more frumpy then she had a moment before. Enough to stop her hand reaching out of the darkness to snatch off bites from the unsuspecting waiters as they sped by with their burdens.

"You have here, the most ideal spot," said Dash admiringly before he too stepped into the private aclove beside her. The private aclove, was made so by shrubbery and bushes and these forced the two into close proximity. So that Nina found herself out of breath once more while Dash was invigorated with an undeniable hard on. One that insisted in pressing into her sides... pointedly.

"How come you're here?" Nina tore away her gaze from him to fix it on the fashion show evolving over the catwalk.

Skinny models strutted across the smooth glossy surface in impossibly thin heels to skitter to a halt daringly at the edge in a sultry pose that would have crossed the boarders of slutty on any other female with even the slightest more curves.

Nina noted all this disjointedly as her attention remained fixed on the man standing behind her and leaning that part of him in ever so shamelessly into her. She purposefully stuck her ass out further and was awarded for her efforts with an unconcealed hiss of pain. Sweet torturous pain. The very kind she had been enduring endlessly all day and over the many intervening years since Dash-the-man's existence dawned insistently on her.

Dash-the-man.

Nina sighed dreamily to herself before unwittingly nestling further back against his already heated length.  The hiss he uttered this time was followed by a ruthless fluent blue streak that oddly enough only served to inflame her even more.

"Well?" She demanded with some heat rounding on him with a prompt to a question she had already forgotten.

"Huh?"

A question he had apparently forgotten too. His hands reachedout instead searchingly in the dark to draw her curves back up against him.

But she swatted his reaching hands away and frowned in concentration before recalling the question.

"You," she pointed a bold finger at his chest, " here," she pointed that finger to the ground. "Why?" She questioned.

"For you," he murmured in answer softly.

His response agitated her. Nina knew she couldn't trust his words. Couldn't trust him. He had proved that to her each and every time she did. That only kiss aside, last night was clear example of his blatant breach of her trust.

Yet the yearning to lay down the weapons, lower the shield and simoly surrender to him was strong. Too strong.

So she turned heel and ran away instead. Intruding on the love couple, Nina mindlessly volunteered her opinion on each and every article of clothing modeled with an enthusiasm she didn't feel and all the while she ignored the fiery pinpricks of heat fired onto her person by the unwavering blue-eyed gaze from the darkened aclove in the trees.

Thankfully, the Thompsons guests were filled with eligible females each eyeing the eligible Dash Arlington as their potential husbands. It didn't take them long to find his hiding place and toss themselves upon him intrusively.

Tit for tat.

Nina smirked at him evily as he hurriedly scurried out after the first of the many human missiles launched at him.

Knowing she needn't worry about him any longer, Nina beamed her first happy grin of the night and helped herself to a stronger cocktail, finding the need to party and party hard, suddenly upon her. She gave in the the urge with unabashed enthusiasm and later suffered the headache for her efforts. The headache and a certain something a little worse.