Page 61 of Hold Me Until Morning

Protectiveness ridged every angle of his being. “Tell me you didn’t drive here.”

“No. Lolly dropped me off, and I planned to get an Uber home.”

“You realize there are like two Uber drivers in Time River and there isn’t one who’s going to want to drive all the way out to Hendrickson?”

I blanched.

Right.

This wasn’t Austin, and I hadn’t fully thought that through.

“Exactly as I thought. I do need to get someone special home.”

I could feel myself drifting toward him. Getting caught in the web of charm and looks and this feeling deep inside me I couldn’t shake.

Something old and precious.

Twisted and wrong.

“It’s my jam!” Paisley’s shout broke into the trance Cody held me under. “Get those booties on the dance floor, my babes!”

She hopped off her stool as the band jumped into a new song.

I felt half disoriented when I tore my attention away from Cody, no way to float back down to reality.

Paisley pointed at me. “I told you to wear your dancing boots, Hails Bells. Let’s go show them what that means.”

Dakota slipped off her stool, and she looped her elbow in mine and gave me a tug. “Just go with it. She’s not lying when she says she will drag your butt out there.”

“Because what else would a good friend do?” Paisley hiked a shoulder.

Taking Savannah by the hand, Paisley pulled her over to where Dakota and I stood. Without hesitation, she looped her elbow through mine and her other through Savannah’s, making the four of us a chain. “Leave poor Hailey here with your brother drooling all over her? I don’t think so,” she tacked on the tease.

Giggling, Dakota turned to whisper so only we could hear. “Um, yeah, I think my brother might be enamored by his new neighbor.”

Paisley started weaving us onto the dance floor. “He’s like a freaking dog. I was worried he was going to start humping your leg.”

“I’m not really sold that she’d mind all that much.” Savannah angled around, smiling too wide, like she’d been sitting there reading every salacious thought I’d had running on a circuit through my mind.

I shook my head. “Uh, no…I’m not in the place for a fling right now.”

Dakota tucked my arm a little closer, leaning in as she whispered conspiratorially, “Then stay far, far away from my brother.”

Right.

He was a player.

I knew it.

I knew it from then, and I knew it now.

Hell, he’d made it clear in those texts last night.

And I was the fool who couldn’t stop myself from looking over my shoulder to find that molten gaze staring back.

THIRTEEN

CODY

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