Page 42 of Riding the Storm
My pulse stutters.
Shit.Harleigh might be right.
I push the old-fashioned away. The alcohol is starting to make me think—and feel—a little reckless.
I glance up, and he doesn’t smile. Doesn’t wink. Doesn’t acknowledge the touch as he continues his conversation.
And suddenly, the room feels too small, too hot.
Then, just as the band begins playing a slower tune, I feel his hand brushing my hair over my shoulder.
He bends to my ear. “Dance with me, Chuck.”
My sisters are all staring at us now.
I glare at them. “You all wanna go dance or something?” I ask.
“Nope,” Harleigh says. “We’re good right here.”
Bryce looks down at me expectantly.
“I think we’ll sit this one out,” I say.
Harleigh kicks me under the table, and I kick her right back—harder.
Bryce’s eyes move to the dance floor, and for a second, I think he may go join the other group of girls, but he drops into the empty stool beside me instead. Close. So close that his thigh brushes mine under the table. My body betrays me instantly, a spark shooting up my leg.
“You sure know how to bruise a guy’s ego,” he says, but his eyes are dancing with amusement.
“Figured you could be knocked down a peg, cowboy,” I mutter.
He laughs, low and easy, and leans back, one arm still resting along the back of my stool. “Sufficiently knockeddown.”
The band strikes a familiar chord—the kind that has people rushing back to the dance floor. My sisters start to rise.
Oh, now they wanna dance.
“Come on, Charli,” Shelby says, grabbing Harleigh’s hand. “This is our song!”
“I’m good,” I say quickly.
They grin like devils, and I scowl at them as they disappear into the crowd, dragging Cabe and Caison behind them and leaving me at the table with Bryce.
He watches them go, then glances back at me. “You don’t wanna dance anymore?”
“Not on command.”
He studies me for a long second. “You looked like you were enjoying it earlier.”
“You mean when you were watching me?”
His mouth curves slow. “I was.”
The air shifts between us.
“You shouldn’t do that,” I say quietly.
“What?”
