Page 16 of No Kind of Hero
There was a time and place for fast and urgent and hot, and there was a time and place for patience. He had every one of those things, and nobody he wanted to show them to more than Beth. So if he needed restraint? He had it. He had everything she needed.
Yeah. He did. He’d had it then, and he had it now. Except maybe not. Right now, Beth was the last person he should be holding in his arms, and he was doing it anyway. It was those gray boots, that shiny hair, the curve of her waist, and the warm vanilla-almond scent of her skin. They were all too familiar, and they were everything he wanted to touch. And she still knew how to dance, even though she was stiff at first. Cautious. He had less restraint, and she had more. Until she didn’t. Until the music picked up and he was twirling her, and her hair started to whip around her and she started to laugh. Until he spun her straight back into his arms and the band began to play a slow one, and he pulled her in and she came to him like she meant it.
Like a boss.
Beth had never been more aware of her body. If she’d felt frozen before? Now, she was on fire. The tips of her breasts brushed against the soft fabric covering Evan’s broad chest, and she felt it. Her thighs met his, and she felt that, too. And when he tightened his hand around hers, spread his other one against the bare skin of her lower back, and pressed her up close?
Oh, hell, yeah. She definitely felt that.
He didn’t talk, and neither did she. She didn’t need to manage this situation. She couldn’t have done it if she tried. She just pressed herself closer, reckless and bold, and stepped and swayed around the floor with Evan. She was aware of the moment when she gave it up, melted into him, and let him take her where he wanted, and she knew with absolute certainty that he was aware of it, too.
Nobody’s body was like Evan’s. Nobody who’d ever held her since had felt as strong or as sure, and she was floating on a haze of alcohol and desire, the rhythmic thrum of the music echoing the beat of her heart and the throb at her core, and those powerful hands moving her across the floor.
She could tell the song was ending, and she didn’t want this moment to stop. She whispered, “Let’s go,” and knew he couldn’t hear it.
Except he did. His hands tightened on her, and then he was pulling away and pulling her with him. Across the floor and out the door, around the back of the building where it faced the lake. Then he was backing her up against the wall, one hand at her waist and the other one behind her head, and his mouth was coming down over hers, and shewantedit.
He tasted like Evan, and his mouth was demanding, slanting over hers, kissing her like he needed her, his hand fisting in her hair. She was on her toes, trying to climb his body, trying to pull him even closer. Above her, on the deck of the Yacht Club, she could hear laughter and voices, but down here? It was just the thudding of her heart, Evan’s body pressing hers back into the hard wall, and Evan’s mouth taking hers.
Still no words. His hand stroking up over her ribs, sliding its stealthy way inside the V-neck of the halter and closing over her breast like it was his to hold, and she was gasping.
She hadn’t worn a bra, because she hadn’t had a halter one, and she’d been feeling the difference it made all night, like she was naked in public, like she was wild and everybody could see it. Like a different woman. His fingers found the peak and teased it, his fingers opening and closing, pinching, and it was killing her, the sharp little shocks jabbing her. And still he kissed her and didn’t say a thing, his hair rough at the nape of his broad neck under her hand, the heavy muscle at his shoulder bunching tight beneath her palm.
The voice brought her back to herself. “Whoops,” the woman said, then laughed, and Beth thought,Wait. What?The familiar panic rose, and she dragged her mouth away from Evan’s and tried to catch her breath, to bring her body back from the edge.
“Damn.” It was barely a breath, and Evan hadn’t let go of her. His hand had dropped from her breast, was at her waist again, and his fingers were still wrapped in her hair.
“I have to—” she said. “I have to go.”
He dropped his hands, took a step back, and her bodymissedhim.
“Evan.” She couldn’t think of what to say, how to be. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy. I can’t—I don’t—” A night with Evan wasn’t the answer to her problems. It would mess her up for good, she knew it. Besides, she was a good fit for nobody right now, much less Evan, whose protective instincts went all the way down to the bone.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice like sandpaper. “I get it. I got it the first time. Where’s Dakota?”
She blinked. “What?”
He was turning away, walking to the water’s edge, taking his phone out of his back pocket, and talking, and then he was shoving it back into his jeans and saying, “She’s in the bar. I’ll walk you there.”
Beth didn’t answer. She was already around the corner. Already gone, knowing that he was watching her the whole way. Checking that she was safe, when she wasn’t safe at all.
Charcoal-gray nails, blonde hair falling free, and a black halter top more daring than anything she’d ever worn. And the same old her.
But she’d stopped herself from using him. At least there was that.
It was warm and musty in the old theater on Sunday afternoon, but Evan didn’t care. Work was good. It got you somewhere, unlike other things.
He held Gracie in her baby carrier and walked down the aisle of the old Nu-Art movie theater with its new owner, a Portland Devils wide receiver named Harlan Kristiansen, who looked more like a Viking than any Viking had probably ever looked. His blond hair waved to his shoulders, but was pulled back at the top into a sort of ponytail thing. If anybody had ever told him that was a girly style, they probably hadn’t said it twice.
“Thanks for coming out at short notice,” Kristiansen said. “Sorry to change the day on you. Management calls. This your little girl, huh? That’s a heartbreaker right there.” Which, as much as Evan wanted to hate him, was too much of a normal-guy thing to say to make the hating work.
“Yeah,” Evan said. “Tried to see if my mom could take her, but she square dances.”
“I didn’t know anybody still square danced,” Kristiansen said. “Not in North Dakota, they don’t.”
“That where you’re from?”
“That’s right.” The bright blue eyes were amused, as they’d been every time Evan had talked to him, like none of life should be taken too seriously and he was just here for a good time. “North of Bismarck. You could say it’s where the Devil goes to take a break from the fire and be just about right.”
