Page 13 of Arrogant Rucking Player

The stairwell flickered again as I hit the bottom turn, plunging me into darkness with the kitchen on the other side of the well. Here, even the sounds of the party above and the noisy, over-packed restaurant were muted, the kitchen’s heat blocked off by two walls of thick cement.

The fluorescent tube made a feeble effort at a flicker, and died.

Add to list: Fix that damn light.

I closed my eyes, revelling in my moment of relative, stolen peace before the restaurant's chaos resumed. All it would take was four short steps to the corner, shove my way through some of those hideous saloon swinging doors that Stuart and his business partner loved—those ones actually screwed on, thankfully—and everything would be back to normal.

Instead, I stood in my void of muted nothingness and inhaled.

And wasted time that wasn’t mine to take.

Why did I push him away?

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, bumping my reindeer antlers back where the headband had slipped forward a touch and blew out a long breath.

“That sounded heartfelt.”

Warm fingers closed around my wrists, tugging my hands from where I covered my eyes like a child, hiding away from the world.

Hey, any strategy in a storm.

Only it wasn’t a storm I stared into, but Mason Hale’s piercing stare. His eyes were darker in the shadowed area as I cowered from a place where, just for one night, I didn't want to be. Here. At all.

Except maybe with him.

CHAPTER SIX

NYLA

The wayward thought fluttered across my mind in a tempting caress, or maybe that was his thumbs brushing back and forth across my pulse points in the ultimate distraction.

“Stop that,” I murmured, tugging my hands free, but his fingers closed in a firm circle around my wrists.

“Not just yet.” Mason stepped into my space, filling it with everything I’d been aching for in the last weeks.

What I didn't know I had been missing from my life until our lives collided because of my son who loved to kick up dust balls and run amok in all thebest ways. But right now, Brady wasn't about to distract either of us.

“Are you stalking me?” I tried for a lighter tone, tugging at his hold still, but both of us knew there was little effort in the motion.

And he didn’t let go.

“If that’s what it needs to be. I didn’t want to let you run away like that. You seemed…” Mason frowned. “I know you’ve got a job to do, Nyla. Hell, I’m working when I see you too, in the afternoons. It’s like we’re orbiting around each other’s lives, two magnets that bump across each other but never match up. But I’m tired of waiting.” The intensity of him ratcheted up to blazing point as he released one wrist.

A cold spot bloomed where he had touched me. The absence of his skin contacting mine left me bereft in an instant. I raised my hand self-consciously. “I want to—” I stared, but stopped when I wasn't sure what, exactly, I wanted.

It didn’t matter, because Mason filled in the blanks for me.

His free hand scooped through my hair where it hung down my back like a heated curtain, cupping my nape. Long, strong fingers latched across my jaw, angling my head back. He gave me a fraction of asecond to object, but either my head didn’t like playing catch up tonight, or?—

I didn’t want to object to anything he offered.

His mouth crashed down onto mine, his kiss hard and possessive. A tiny sound I couldn’t prevent slipped from my lips that might have been a sigh, or surrender. I didn’t have a clue. All I knew was the moment before he kissed me, those dark eyes of his filled my world, full of blazing intensity. And then I didn’t think at all.

Because I didn’t have to.

My body took over, knowing exactly what it wanted from this man who had featured in plenty of my filthy one a.m. fantasies when I couldn't sleep and needed to keep my panic attacks at bay.

I leaned back against the wall behind me, rising onto my toes to reach him. My heels did little to negate the height difference between my five foot, five inches and the giant towering over me. Not that it seemed to bother him. Mason growled against my mouth, flicking his tongue across the seam of my lips impatiently. I gasped at the sensation as he surged forward.

---