Page 9 of Taking Root

Once her ass ground against his cock, his nails dug deep into her hips. She danced in front of him, tossing her hands in the air as the music reached a crescendo. Every time he caught a glimpse of her face in the flash of the neon lights, her eyes glittered with intent, and her lip curled into a smirk. Danny didn’t seem to give a damn that she played with fire.

Sweat trickled down his forehead and his chest, but he ignored the tickle, reveling in the thrill of her proximity and the match to gasoline way she turned him on. His palms traveled up to her waist and then down to her hips as she twisted and turned to the song. It faded away, switching to a slower trance beat.

Danny whirled around to face him before draping her arms around his shoulders. They continued to sway together. “Disappointed?” she asked in a husky, almost breathless voice.

“God no, gorgeous.” He didn’t bother hiding the heat in his voice. “The second you came into view, other women ceased to exist.”

A blush stained her cheeks, and her eyes dipped to the floor for a moment. Even if she wanted to skate into his life on lies and avoidance, neither of them could deny the truth of this attraction. If anything, the years grew what once existed there from a couple seeds to a wild tangle of vines that bound them together.

“You’re not too shabby, yourself,” she responded with a grin as she leaned into him, the lavender scent of her driving him wild. Even back then she’d embraced standoffishness like a shield. Her home life had been levels of hellish that kept her kicking in the shallows, but rumors trickled around the high school regardless.

Her lips were so close, and he ached to lean in and claim them, to see where all this friction took them.

“Going to pull a Cinderella once midnight strikes?” he asked, barely able to hear his own words amidst the pulsing music and the folks finding their groove around them. He didn’t want tonight to end. He wanted the chance to get to know her in a real, lasting way like the imprints she’d left on his memory all those years ago.

Even as she smiled, sadness gleamed in her mesmerizing jade eyes. “Wouldn’t be any fun otherwise,” she responded. “Got to leave a little mystery or I’ll lose my allure.”

Disappointment curled in his chest, but she pressed her body against his, her nails digging into his shoulders. Not only did that lithe body of hers strike a fresh match to embers he thought dead, but the spark in her gaze made him want in a way he’d forgotten.

“Don’t think that’s possible,” he responded. “You’d be alluring even if I knew every piece to your puzzle.” He swayed with her to the beat as pale blue light glided over them, illuminating the curves of their bodies and the sloping shadows between.

Drops of sweat traveled down his back, and his shirt glued to his chest, but he refused to pull away from the dance floor. For the first time in far too long, something beyond his job forced him to live in the moment, and the distraction was sheer bliss. His palms memorized the curve of her waist, and he drank in the scent of her. Tendrils of her flame-red hair began curling, and the smudge of her smoky eyeliner caused her green eyes to pop.

“All the flattery’s not going to win you my number, Adrian Dukas,” Danny responded, shifting back and forth in front of him to the undulating beat of the song. “I’m a one-night stand sort of gal.” Her eyes contradicted her confident words. The Sam Peterson he’d known had dreams of a cottage of her own, surrounded by all the blooms she could plant. She’d been a tangled tree begging to set down roots.

Until she vanished.

Danny leaned closer, her lips a breath away. Before he could claim them, she pulled away again, whirling around to tease him. He didn’t want a single night with her—he wanted so much more.

“Commitment-phobe, meet serial monogamist,” he responded. “I’m apparently a whore for long-term relationships.” As much as he wanted her, he wasn’t going to lie to her or himself. At this point in his life, while his friends and his sister encouraged him to mess around, he didn’t want that. He’d been wanting something real and lasting, and he didn’t see the point in wasting his time on anything else.

Danny trailed her pointer finger down his chest. “We’ll have to chalk this up to missed connections then,” she responded. “If we hooked up, I’d be out like yesterday’s news.”

“Why?” he blurted out before he could help himself. She stepped away from him. All of a sudden it was too clear they stood in the middle of dozens of sweating strangers, surrounded by choking cologne and regret. He took a step forward to follow, but she turned on her heel and wove through the crowds.

He kept up with ease, slipping beside her. “The girl I knew didn’t cut and run.” At least, not until she did for good. They’d been best friends and hung out almost every day, then in the span of a day she disappeared. It had driven him to the point of insanity over the years, a lingering question that promised to haunt him forever.

Danny whipped around, her eyes flaring. “The girl you knew doesn’t exist anymore. Not everyone has the chance to make real connections. You don’t know what I’ve been through.” The neon lights flickered around her, too fitting. That’s what Danny had become—in like a flash, and out just as fast.

“And I won’t if you don’t give me the chance to get to know you,” Adrian dared. He’d been dancing around her before, but he pushed here, so close to the real girl hiding behind those fake smiles she plastered over her loneliness like big neon billboards. He couldn’t forget the girl he’d cut classes with to spend the day at the beach after they both had a bad week, the one who sang loudly and off-key just to make him smile. “Even if you’re here for a brief stint, that doesn’t mean I can’t get to know the new you.”

Danny swallowed hard. “I can’t control myself around you, Adrian. You’ve always been able to see right through me, and the look in your eyes there? It’s whispering promises of things I can’t have.”

Before he could argue, she wove her way for the door at top speed. Danny whipped her phone out, the screen glowing as she typed something, probably a message to Camilla. Adrian staggered to a stop, running his hand through his sweat-soaked strands. Just like their last encounter, once sparks emerged and he veered too near to the truth, she vanished. Every single time when it came to Danny Reynolds.

He’d come so close to bypassing the steel shields she projected.

What Danny didn’t realize was the slip of raw and real hooked him in stronger than a one-night stand ever could. Now that he understood the depths percolating beneath her surface, he couldn’t let her vanish out of his life again. Not after the way she’d driven him to the point of distraction on the dance floor and how she’d summoned yearning he thought died after Betty left him.

Adrian slipped his hands into his pockets as he sauntered over to the bar to say his good nights.

Their story wasn’t another missed connection. He would prove to her she could have everything she wanted—somehow. Adrian only had to find her again.

---