Page 14 of All Mine (The All Mine #1)

Etienne

Etienne saw Wren doing her thing on the pole.

That woman had moves. He’d seen it before, but she never failed to amaze him.

You’d think that people that ran a bookshop were quiet types, but Rosie and Wren were a riot.

Walker had introduced them when Etienne first arrived in town, fondly describing Rosie as the only girl in Honeybridge who had ever turned him down, before pulling her in for a side hug.

The band, The Runaway Train, ran onto the stage next.

They were always entertaining. Throwback Thursdays were a chance for them to play anything and everything from the past few decades– the cheesier, the better.

The fact that most of the people in the bar hadn’t been alive more than forty years didn’t stop them dancing to music from before they were born.

He then saw Rosie coming across the floor to join Wren and, behind her, Amber from River Rats and Isabella, who was almost wearing a strappy camisole, jeans and heels. Etienne took a swig of his beer. She looked good.

He watched her smiling as she started to dance, arms above her head. That satin camisole lifting higher, showing more of her olive midriff, the muscles in her lower back, the soft curve of her stomach as she turned in the lights. Correct that, she looked damned good.

‘That’s Isabella, the new neighbour,’ he said to the guys and indicated the dance floor with his head. ‘Strappy top, long brown hair.’

Walker turned to see and Fox squinted onto the dance floor until they found her.

They all turned back to the high table at the same time.

‘I think I could use her to model my next sexy avatar,’ said Fox appreciatively.

‘I think she has a fire in her pants I could put out,’ Walker said.

Etienne gave him his second dead arm of the night.

There was no way he was letting Walker anywhere near her.

Not with his hero status and his massive shoulders from saving people from burning buildings and the like.

He let his eyes rest on her a while longer; her own were shut now, as she moved to the music.

‘We’re out of beer,’ Fox said. ‘Whose round?’

‘Mine,’ Etienne said, checking his wallet in his back pocket. ‘Time for whisky.’

The Bolthole was now rammed. The dance floor spilled out into the aisles, customers dancing in their booths, some on their tables.

‘Might cut across the dance floor,’ he said and both his friends shook their heads.

‘Thought you might.’

He edged closer to the middle of the dance floor, around couples and friends in circles, until he was surrounded by a hot, heaving party.

It only took him a moment and then he was beside her.

She was laughing and holding on to Amber and totally unaware of his proximity.

Her strap had slipped from her shoulder and he could imagine pushing it further down her arm, freeing those wonderful breasts he’d glimpsed that day on the square.

He couldn’t help smiling, even though he hadn’t had the chance to talk to her.

He moved on to the bar as the song changed to ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’.