Page 45

“Yeah.”
“Just one brother?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” She bites her lip, staring at me. “Damn. You really can lay on the Southern charm when you want.”
Discretely, I adjust myself under the table. It’s going to be a long night. I wink, taking another drink of my beer, completely enthralled with her beauty. I can’t stop staring at her. “Darlin’, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
She swipes her tongue over her lip after sipping her drink, and I ache to lick that lip myself. Only I want more. I want to kiss that hollow spot on her neck and know what the swell of each one of her breasts feels like in my hands. “Like what?” she finally asks.
Everything she does is making me think about having hot, sweaty, hard fucking in my bed later. I’m no longer thinking about her panties. I’ve moved onto what she looks like with no clothes. “For starters, my dance moves.” I nod to the dance floor behind us where Jace is dancing to “Turtles All the Way Down” with Sev; she’s fighting sleep in his arms but hanging on.
Kacy takes another shot and then holds out her hand. “Then show me before these drinks go from tasting good to ya wanna see my titties.”
I’m hardly taken off guard. Look at my kids and tell me you wouldn’t be expecting anything at any given moment. But Kacy, I’m not expecting anything she says. Laughter rolls through me again, and I run my hand along the stubble of my jaw. “Jesus Christ.”
She makes a tsking sound. “Don’t talk to him tonight,” she says, patting my chest as she stands with me and slips her hand into mine. “Where we’re heading, he wouldn’t approve.”
I have absolutely no clue what she’s talking about, but I go with it because holding her close is exactly what I want to do.
She stops walking in front of me, and I run into her back, my hands instinctively on her hips. “I… don’t know how to dance, like, proper.” And then she motions with a flick of her hand to a couple doing a slow rhythmic two-step.
I rest my chin on her shoulder, our cheeks touching, confused as to why I’m suddenly so comfortable around her. I should treat this as a job, one where I fix her car and nothing else, but for reasons I can’t explain, I’m drawn to her. “It’s all in the leading, honey.”
She shivers in my arms. “Your voice gives me goose bumps every time you speak.”
I sigh.Wait until I have you naked.
Fuck me. Stop thinking.
I don’t want an erection while I’m standing. It’s the worst. It’s like junior high all over again.
Thankfully, I talk my dick off the edge of him saluting everyone, and we step to the lip of the dance floor. I place my hand on Kacy’s lower back, urging her forward. She spins to face me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Like this?”
I hold her tight and flush against me. “Like that.”
“You don’t seem like the type to dance,” she notes, relaxing into my embrace, watching my face.
I hold tighter and meet her gaze head-on. “I’m not. I was just looking for an excuse to hold you.”
She runs her hand higher on my shoulder, fingertips playing with the hair on the nape of my neck. “I thought I was the one trying to seduce you?”
I don’t say anything. I want to kiss her. I’m close enough, but I won’t. Not here. I breathe in, but I don’t say anything. This girl drunk… you better believe you need to buckle up. She’s like that Mustang my granddaddy had. Loved full throttle and scared the hell out of most men. I’ll tell you something else. No way I’m handing the keys over to her. She can ride shotgun because it’s been a long fucking time for me.
We sway to the music and move in a circle. She melts into me effortlessly, as if I’ve been holding her my entire life. Her eyes move to the ones around us. “Do you know all these people in this bar?”
“Yep.” I smile, refusing to allow an inch of space to come between us. “Which is why they’re all looking at you.”
Her eyes find mine. “Why?”
“I haven’t been in this bar, holding a woman, since my wife.”
I don’t think she knows how to take that statement because her eyes dart around and then come back to mine. Her smile tugs at the edges of her beautiful lips I’m dying to taste. “So I’m going to be the talk of the town?”
With her lips a breath away, I swallow, moving with ease around the dance floor. “You already are.”
When the song ends, I let go of Kacy and notice Lillian and Morgan talking. There’s distance between them, but their history overshadows the space.