“My concern is hardly seeing you prematurely in your wedding dress.” Mason stepped forward, standing very close but not actually touching her. “I’ve been holding back for weeks now but there’s only so much a man can take. I figured you were having last minute jitters about all the changes in your life. I was willing to be patient for as long as I could. But I’m not going to let you play me for a fool.”
Kate gasped, reaching behind her to grip the edge of the dresser. "What? I’ve never played you for a fool.”
“What do you call it then? When a man’s fiancée ignores him but lets herself get groped by his oaf of a cousin?”
Choking on her outrage, Kate scowled into Mason’s handsome, furious face. “Don’t you dare blame this mess on me! You’re the one who’s been rethinking things. You’re the one who’s been ignoring me!”
“That is manifestly absurd. And a clear distortion of the facts.” Mason’s hands closed hard around her hips, pulling her pelvis against his. “Especially coming from the woman I just caught in a clench with my cousin.”
“We were not in a clench!” Her words were rather strangled and not as strong as she’d intended. But she was brutally distracted by the feel of Mason’s groin against her middle.
Evidently, their argument had aroused him as much as it had her.
Mason hadn’t acknowledged his physical condition. His fingers tightened on the flesh of her ass through the expensive satin of her dress. “You seem to forget that I saw you together. Twice.” There was a muscle twitching in his temple and a sheen of sweat on his face. “Tell me where he touched you.”
Kate was so turned on now she was panting, her arousal pulsing almost painfully. This was what she’d wanted for weeks. What she’d needed. Evidence that Mason wanted her—so much he’d shed his civilized demeanor and claim her with instinctive possession.
She wanted—needed—to see this through, to let him claim her this way.
But she couldn’t get past one major distraction. “Mason,” she whimpered, praying she wasn’t going to break his momentum with her plea, “My dress.”
Something like understanding flickered across Mason’s features but it was only there for a moment.
Then, “Take it off.”