Page 72 of Indigo Sky

He tittered with an obnoxious laugh. The guy stunk of booze; he’d obviously had too much to drink. But it wasn’t an excuse.

“Bro,what? Apologize? For what?”

“The rule is,bro, you keep your fucking hands to yourself. No touching.”

He pulled his wrist from my hold and teetered a little on unsteady legs as he smirked. “Well, she was touching meplenty. I was just returning the favor …bro.”

He moved past me, and I made sure to bump my shoulder hard against his, glowering in a way I hoped was menacing.

What the hell was wrong with me? This jackass meant nothing—hewasnothing, as far as I should be concerned. Yet I couldn't pull my glare from his smug, stupid face. This asshole. This piece of shit, who thought he had some right to touch her, simply because he’d paid her to touch him. This entitled motherfucker, who—

"Rev."

Her voice yanked me back from the jealous tirade in my brain. I turned to look at her, still standing in the same place as before. Several feet away, frozen as she stared curiously at me.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, slipping a few dollar bills into her bra.Were those from him?"You don't work tonight."

I swallowed at the dryness in my throat, my tongue like sandpaper against the roof of my mouth. "I came to walk you to your car."

Her expression shifted from curious to … something I couldn't put my finger on. It wasn't unlike the way she'd looked at me earlier at the diner.Cautious. That was it. God, she lookedat me like she wasscared. Like I was no better than these assholes who thought they owned her, the ones who stalked her and harassed her and …

Shit, what the hell was I doing there?! I was behaving like a psychopath, and I needed to leave.

I groaned and began to turn away, ready to head out the door and back to my car. I'd tell Saul to make sure he was with her when she left, and that'd be good enough.Hewas good enough. She didn't needme. She had survived this long on her own.

"No, wait!" She hurried to close the space between us and grabbed my wrist, wrenching me back. "You came all the way here, on your night off, just to walk me to my car?"

I sighed and turned back to look into her eyes. I could look into those eyes forever. I'd lose myself, forget my own name, and ignore everything that was important until the only thing I could see, hear, breathe washerand those fucking eyes.

"Yeah," I replied stupidly, diverting my gaze so I couldn't see the judgment in hers. "But I can go. It's—"

She turned and began tugging me to the hallway she'd just come from.

"What … where are you—"

She brought me to a private room and pulled me inside before turning and yanking the curtain shut. I stared ahead at the wall of the dark, wood-paneled room, where I'd punched Tyson and held him back while Kate kneed him in the balls andyelled into his face. That night felt so long ago, before I had asked her out. Before we'd started meeting at the diner to shove food down our throats in the brief hours before and after our respective jobs.

It—this—had felt exciting back then. Full of potential and possibility.

Now, I wasn't sure.

Now, I was worried and convinced I'd crossed an invisible line somewhere.

Now, it felt like I'd pushed her away, scared her somehow, and I was certain she'd brought me back here to scream at me in private to avoid the scene Saul had been worried about happening.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets and hung my head, cursing myself for how foolish I'd become.

"Kate … Indie …" I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm—"

Before my brain had a chance to process what was happening, she was standing before me, her arms were around my neck, and her lips—fuck, her incredible lips—were on mine. I inhaled sharply, startled, and pulled my hands from my pockets to hover awkwardly over her smooth, exposed back before wrapping my arms around her. I held her to me, pressing every part of her body to every part of mine. Kissing her back the way I’d hardly known how to that first time years ago. Her head inclined, and her lips parted with an unspoken invitation;my tongue reacquainted with hers, only to find with relieved satisfaction that she tasted just as sweet as I remembered.

God, she was everything I remembered from all those years before, yet now, she was so much more. Because I knew her. She wasn't just Indigo Sky, the dancer at Midnight Lotus who had given me a nice memory once upon a time.

She wasKate, and right now, kissing her in the back room of the club where she danced, she wasmine.

Her hands moved from my neck to hold the back of my head, her fingers threading into the length of my disheveled hair. She tugged gently, and I responded with a groan, hungry and primal. Like a bear in need of sustenance after months of sleeping. Blood raced through my veins, rushing loudly past my eardrums and heading south. My entire body was on fire with the need to back her into the wall, tear off what little clothing she had on, and lay claim to every part of her until the only name—the onlyword—she remembered was mine. But somewhere beyond that cloud of urgent lust was a little voice reminding me that she was on the clock, and I didn't want her to get in trouble any more than I wanted to lose this job.

I moved my hands to her shoulders and held tight as I pulled my mouth from hers. Breathless and panting, I licked my lips of her taste and minty lip gloss and opened my eye to look into hers.

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