Page 34 of Save the Last Dance
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” He leaned back again. Distancing himself.
“Truly? Because I’ve been wishing you’d told me eight years ago. I know you were sworn to secrecy, but maybe it would have hurt less if I’d understood how much she needed you.”
“But I didn’t fall for Jen because she needed me, if that’s what you’re thinking. The last thing I wanted to do was hit on the mother of my dead friend’s kid.” He edged the words out between clenched teeth. “Losing her baby didn’t stop me from seeing her that way for a long time.”
“Then why did you fall for her?”
“Why.” Mack looked up at the sky where stars shone in every direction. “Because she was here, Nina. I just couldn’t walk away from Heartache after Vince died. My mom was a mess and had a breakdown. My dad couldn’t afford to take the time off to deal with her, so Scott and I took turns sitting with her. But underneath it all, I was grieving and it helped to talk about Vince. To remember him.”
“And I wasn’t here to do that with you.” She’d known Mack had wanted her to be with him. She just…couldn’t. Not when everyone had blamed her for Vince’s death.
But she was a whole lot stronger than that now. And she didn’t have to make excuses for what had happened in the past.
“It was a rough few years.” Mack leaned forward again, elbows on his knees as he stared down at the empty football field, the Crestwood logo of a hawk still visible in the moonlight. “Plus Jenny and I were on the same page. The miscarriage really upset her, and she was as committed to not having a family as I was.”
Nina tucked that away, not sure she was ready to find out why Mack was still so determined not to have kids. He’d always been so great with Ally, even when he was a teenager.
“Thank you for explaining that.” She realized she felt better as she retrieved her cup of cider and took another sip. “It helps.”
“If anyone told me last week that I’d be sitting on these bleachers with you today, I would have said they were out of their mind.” He turned to meet her gaze. “Actually, I would have said something more colorful than that, but I cleaned it up for you.”
She set her cup back down.
“You always were a gentleman,” she teased, feelingwarm inside even though the temperature was dropping. “So what do you think now? Is it crazy to be sitting here with me?”
“Not since you’ve signed on to dispense the Finley family propaganda.”
“Hey.” She poked him in the knee, laughing. “I can still revoke that offer.”
He grabbed her finger and held it hostage, his skin warm against hers.
“In spite of everything, I like sitting here with you.” He turned her hand over slowly and stared down at it before he traced a circle on her palm with his thumb. And then another. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot since I came home, Nina.”
Her eyes slid closed to savor the sensation of his touch. The gentle rasp of his callused thumb on her skin was a simple pleasure that sent a shiver through her.
“Are you cold?” He stilled.
The wind whistled softly in the trees, the branches creaking.
“No,” she admitted. “Not really. I like being here with you, too.”
“Bet you never imagined yourself saying that a week ago either, did you?” He flipped her hand again and lifted it, drawing her palm toward his lips and kissing the center.
The rush of heat to that one spot was shockingly sensual on a night when she wasn’t ready to feel that way. She’d wanted to recover a friendship, to move forward with a new start in Heartache, not go back and try to fix a relationship broken beyond repair.
“What if our moment is gone?” she asked, confiding a very real fear. “What if we had our chance and missed it?”
“What if we didn’t?” he countered, so close she could smell the hint of nutmeg on his breath from the cider. “We may want different things for the future, but we’re not talking about the future. We’re only talking about thismoment. Did you ever consider that maybe all this chemistry around us is pushing us together and that our moment isn’t gone at all?”
“What chemistry?” she tried to tease, but no sooner had the words left her mouth than he captured her lips with his.
Sensations bombarded her from all sides, the barely-there contact of his mouth a treat more decadent than any confection from her bakery. Heat flared with surprising swiftness, leaping high inside her and sending a jolt of warmth through her veins. She gasped in surprise and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his mouth slanting over hers as his tongue stroked along her lower lip.
Reaching for him, she slid her arms around his neck and pressed herself closer. Her breasts flattened against the hard wall of his chest, the friction spurring a soft sound deep in her throat. Mack must have heard because he made an answering growl and wrapped his arms around her waist, palming the small of her back. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, willing away the feel of everything but him.
She could lose herself so easily…
“Hey! Who’s up there?” A man’s voice shouted from the football field.
