Page 3 of Never Dance with the Devils (Never Say Never #6)

RIGGS

H ow in the fuck did this happen?

I scare most people, especially women—who I don’t talk to, as a matter of fact.

Not after Eliza. As the whisper of my ex-wife’s ghost walks across my mind, I actively slam that door closed.

Not because she’s dead, though I secretly wish that were the case, but because I refuse to give her one second of thought.

The woman sitting to my left? I want to give her lots of thoughts and quite a few seconds, maybe hours. And that’s what confuses the hell out of me.

I don’t know what made me talk to her at the bar.

Maybe the way she looked sad but then tucked it away in a single, quick blink, an action I’m all too familiar with?

Or how she spoke so directly, completely unintimidated by me?

Or, let’s be real here since it’s just me and myself, it’s likely that her being an absolute stunner is what had words spilling out of my mouth before I could swallow them down.

But she’d dismissed me outright. I’d liked that too. A woman who declares herself clearly and without apology is attractive as hell. And a little ‘hard to get’ is a refreshing change of pace from the puck bunnies who throw themselves at me and Maddox, either individually or together.

“What brings you to this fine establishment?” Maddox asks Kay, gesturing widely like the club is a fancy three-star restaurant.

He’s already ‘on’, his life of the party, social butterfly persona taking over and ending the private conversation we were having about our season with the Devils, the hockey team we both play for, me as a defenseman and him as a left-winger.

He’s the Yin to my Yang. For as quiet as I am, Maddox could talk all day, to anyone or nothing.

When I go balls to the wall, leading with my fists, he thinks things through and can usually calm me down or physically hold me back.

Where I’m cold and shut off from nearly everything, Maddox approaches every day with a smile and open arms. I’m basically the rabid Rottweiler he adopted and refuses to give back to the shelter for the euthanasia I deserve.

“Scotch. And as I told Riggs, a shitty day,” Kay answers, including me in the conversation with a glance my way.

“What happened?” I blurt out.

She stares at her glass for a moment, her thoughts so loud I can virtually hear them.

Or maybe that’s just the expressions that flicker across her face one right after the other—anger, sadness, satisfaction, and finally, a smirk that can only be described as haughty.

Maddox and I meet eyes quickly. It’s nothing more than a glance before we return our attention to Kay, but it said everything we needed to.

We’re both in if she’s in .

We don’t make it a habit to pick up women at bars.

In fact, we haven’t done it in a long time, years probably.

They come with complications we prefer to avoid.

On the other hand, casual hook-ups with women who know exactly who and what we are, and what will and won’t happen between us, are our usual.

But there’s something about Kay. More than her beauty, though she is gorgeous.

It’s like she’s the finest porcelain China and we’re bulls that want to rampage through her shop.

She’s not fragile or delicate, though. Her confidence says that so loudly and clearly that even an idiot like me can hear it, and I think she can handle Maddox and me with ease.

Not physically—we know how to manage that—but mentally and emotionally, which is a rarer trait in women, who usually tend to get attached more readily than men do. Or at least, than Maddox and I do.

Completely unaware of the entire conversation Maddox and I have had while she was silently staring at her drink, Kay lifts her gaze to mine, answering my question. “Work.”

All that thinking to get a one-syllable, one-word answer? Is this what Maddox feels like when he tries to interrogate me? I lift my pint glass in a classic toast. “Work sucks, then you die.”

Maddox hisses out a ‘fuck, man’, but Kay laughs as she clinks her glass against mine.

“That it does.” But then she tilts her head, considering thoughtfully before correcting herself.

“Sometimes. Usually, I love what I do,” she reveals, setting her glass down without taking a drink.

“But days like today, I just want to quit in a fiery blaze of glory, telling stupid people to go ahead with the stupid shit they want to do, even though I know they’ll come crawling back, begging for my help when they realize their mistake too late. ”

Well, damn, girl. Tell me what you really think , I think with an internal guffaw. Actually, given the strange look Maddox is shooting me, I think that rough sound was me actually laughing. I rush to cover it, asking, “And will you help them when they beg?”

Her brows wrinkle as if that’s a ridiculous question, and she shakes her head.

“Of course not. One-time offer, one-time deal. If McCormick is too blinded by his own illusions of grandeur to see what’s right in front of him in black and white, that’s not my problem.

I’m an angel investor, not a guardian angel. ”

I want to ask who this McCormick asshole is because he obviously got under her skin, but she’s already clamping her lips together like she’s said too much.

And maybe she has. One, she’s made it clear that she doesn’t put up with bullshit.

And two, I know what an angel investor is.

Essentially, it means Miss Thing has money, or at a minimum, works for someone who has money.

I’m not surprised, given the watch on her wrist, the tasteful diamonds in her ears, and the designer cut of her clothes.

I might not wear expensive things often, but I can recognize them after years of being married to a label-hound, and Kay is someone who likes the finer things in life.

Maddox subtly kicks me under the table and I flip my frown upside down… Well, technically, just into a straighter expression because smiles aren’t exactly my strong suit, but Maddox easily steps in, smoothing things over. “If you were to quit, where’s the first place you’d go on vacation?”

He makes it sound like a light-hearted, even shallow, question, but depending on her answer, it could be telling. ‘The beach’ is very different from ‘the northern coast of Ibiza’ despite both of them being sandy and sunny.

“I could never quit,” she says with no hesitation, “but my favorite vacation as a kid was to my grandmom and granddad’s place.

We’d ride horses all day and cook dinner together every night.

More recently, after my brother’s wedding in the middle of the woods, I rented a cabin for a few extra days, stayed completely alone—me, myself, and I—totally unplugged from the whole world.

It was amazing. I’d do that again in a heartbeat if I could.

” A happy sigh passes over her lips as her eyes roll back in her head, telling us exactly how fondly she remembers the few days of peace and quiet.

Honestly, a few days in a cabin in the middle of nowhere sounds like my idea of a perfect vacation too.

Except I don’t think I’m the best of company for myself.

Or at least I’ve never come out of a day alone with the look of bliss on my face that’s currently washing over Kay’s.

Probably because my head is so loud most of the time, telling me what an asshole I am, reminding me of my failures, and asking me what the hell I think I’m doing.

Thankfully, if I tried to go alone, Maddox would most likely tag along, bringing the beer, the deck of cards we play with when we fly to away games, and a constant stream of chatter to distract me from my demons. He’s good like that.

“What about your day?” Kay asks, following up on our original conversation at the bar. “You said it was shitty too?”

I feel Maddox’s eyes jump to me. We had a great day, and an even better game, winning by two against the Marauders.

“Uh…” I stammer. I only said that because I was trying to keep the conversation going. “One of those days that beats the hell out of you physically, you know?”

I mean it literally. I take body shots on the regular, hand them out too, which is also hard on me in a whole different way.

Kay takes it as metaphorical, nodding sagely.

“Some days do that. I’ve had migraines sometimes after a hard day.

” She glances toward the dance floor, where a line dance has people moving in time to the music.

“So, do you come here all the time? I asked the hotel concierge for a bar, and this is where he sent me, but I’m not mad at the music. ”

Maddox shoots laser beams at me with his eyes, virtually yelling ‘ask her to dance’, but I don’t need the advice. I’m not that out of practice. I’ve got this. “Wanna dance?”

“Oh, I don’t know the moves,” she answers, her hands up like she’s warding me off, but I see the way she’s watching the choreography. I’ve noticed her fingers unconsciously tapping the table in time with the music.

“Me neither, but I bet we can figure it out. Come on.” Maddox makes it sound like dancing was his idea, standing and waving Kay and me out of the booth too, but I’m secretly glad.

With Kay’s hesitation, I would’ve let the idea fall away, but Maddox is always up for a good time, and he won’t let her off that easily. Me either.

“We might as well do it. He won’t shut up about it otherwise,” I tell her out of the side of my mouth, making sure Maddox hears me. He grins, unoffended, as I lift the other corner of my mouth the slightest bit in a silent thank-you.

I take Kay’s hand, not wanting to lose her in the crowd, but there’s no chance of that happening with Maddox bringing up the rear of our trio.

People move out of the way for us as we approach the floor, even making room for us in the middle, but I lead us to a back corner, away from the masses and lights.

With Kay between Maddox and me, we begin following the couple in front of us.

The woman sees us staring at her feet and starts calling out moves to help.

Pretty quickly, we catch on, though I miss a turn because I’m staring at Kay’s hips as she ‘swoops and sits’ then ‘shake, shake, shakes’.

She’s a great dancer, and surprisingly steady in the high heels that make her shapely legs look a mile long.

In fact, I wonder if she was or is a dancer.

I could see that with her tall, long, lean body. A ballerina, maybe?

We’re doing pretty well with the choreography, and when the song ends and a fast tempo electronic dance song begins, the dramatics of the beat have us staying on the dance floor along with most of the crowd.

We turn into each other, becoming a small circle of our own as the rhythm drives us.

Kay raises her hands in the air, her eyes closed and her chin lifted, and my gaze licks over her body.

I can see the stress floating off her as her movements become more sway than structure.

Maddox takes one of her hands, and when she opens her eyes and meets his, I see the soft smile on her lips for a moment before he spins her.

When she’s facing us again, her smile has grown, lighting up her whole face.

I take her hand from Maddox, who releases her to me easily, and I spin her the other way.

This time, as she turns back to our little circle, her eyes jump from me to Maddox and back again, a litany of questions passing over her face in quick succession.

There’s no jealousy between Maddox and me.

We’re brothers, not in blood, but by choice.

There is no other man I’d rather have at my side on the ice, no one else I’d give my life for, and absolutely no one else I would ever consider sharing a woman with.

But Maddox and I have an understanding about all three of those scenarios and every one in between, and there has never been jealousy between the two of us.

I pull Kay in, using my hold on her hand to wrap her arm around my waist. I lean into her ear. “Relax. We’re just dancing.”

Her answering look is shrewd. We’re not just dancing. We’re testing boundaries, and she knows it. I hold my breath, the anticipation for her next words growing in my chest, and lower, behind my zipper.

When a tiny smile slowly starts to lift her lips, I watch, rapt.

When she starts to move again, her body bumping against mine, hope takes root.

She glances over her shoulder at Maddox, who never stopped dancing in the first place and is acting completely unaware of the situation despite being very aware, and he steps forward, planting himself at her back.

My excitement for tonight grows, as does my dick.

She’s in.