Page 28 of Breathe
Darren had gotten Ellen onto the dance floor. He had one hand in the middle of her back and the other was on her shoulder, but he kept moving his hands, as if he couldn’t figure out where to put them. Kane could see that her arm muscles were flexed, holding him off her as much as possible.
Jon Mayhew appeared at his side. They watched Ellen and Darren for a few seconds. Kane could only focus on the flexing of Ellen’s arm, the set look of her face.
When he made a sound in his throat as Darren once again moved his hand around Ellen’s back, Jon laughed.
Kane rounded on him. “I’m glad you think this is funny.”
Jon stopped laughing, but he still looked at him as if he knew a joke that Kane wasn’t part of. “You can see she’s uncomfortable,” Kane continued, getting mad. “Why don’t you go and rescue her?”
Jon did laugh again at that. “You think she needs rescuing?” He nodded at the couple. “Yep, there she goes.”
Ellen and Darren had sprung apart, Darren looking mortified, Ellen overly apologetic.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Kane heard her say as he and Jon moved toward her. “I’m just not used to wearing heels this high.” Darren was favoring one foot. “I think I’d be safer sitting down,” she said, and stalked away from him in the direction of their table.
Jon raised an eyebrow at Kane. Kane glared back. Okay, okay; he’d made assumptions that were total bullshit. Jon had known Ellen a hell of a lot longer than he had. But what would anyone else have thought, considering how she reacted around men?
“I’m just telling you for your own safety,” Jon went on. “She takes self-defense and boxing classes.” He put out a hand to guide Kane back to their table. “You might want to wear a cup for a few weeks.”
A few weeks? Would she let Kane stick around that long? How was he, who’d been careful to show that his commitment to the company and his family did not extend to his social life, going to convince Ellen that she should trust him? And why was it important that she did?
Ellen was sitting at the table, holding her wine glass as if it was the only thing keeping her upright. When Kane sat down, she looked up warily but saw it was him and smiled. Well, it was a start. Kane cast a look at Jon across the table. Take that, sucka. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“Oh... a bit tired now. I was up till three.”
He made sure he didn’t touch her. He figured she was about done with the vulnerability of all that skin she was showing. But she turned to talk to him better, and her knee touched his leg and stayed there. And while she kept her voice light, her eyes were big and scared, and he cursed himself for letting her out of his sight.
Gradually, with Jon making jokes on one side, what Kane hoped was his reassuring presence on the other, and Darren relegated to the opposite side of the table, her shoulders eased and she settled back into her chair. Kane had turned sideways, and with his arm on the back of his own chair, his hand brushed her shoulder. Ellen leaned in a little.
“I Get a Kick Out of You” had started playing. “Will you dance with me?” he said. She said, “Yes, please,” and he allowed himself the pleasure of taking her hand.
He’d waited so long to get to here, with her hand in his, the scent of her surrounding him, and her body swaying closer to him with every step. Putting his hand on her waist was like coming home; he could feel the jewels in her dress cut into his palm, and the play of muscles as she danced. Her own hand was on his hip under his jacket, and when she splayed out her fingers and moved them farther around his back, Kane had to close his eyes for a second.
She’s at work, he kept reminding himself, but he looked at her face, and her eyes were half-closed. If he moved in, they would literally be cheek-to-cheek.
Screw it. He moved in. She smelled so good. Now her other hand was on his chest, with his own covering it. She gave a kind of shuddering sigh and dropped her head, so her breath skittered across his neck.
Were they still dancing? He pulled his head back. One of the tendrils of hair framing her face was threatening to go into her mouth; he reached up to move it.
“Why didn’t you ask me to dance sooner, you idiot?” she said, her lips curving up.
“I wasn’t about to fight your boss for the privilege.”
“You could have fought that bloody Darren Laing.”
Kane snorted. “He didn’t need fighting. He’s just a kid.”
“He’s my age,” she said, her voice hardening.
“You know what I mean. Why did you have to step on his feet?”
She pulled away, scowling. “He was getting grabby, and whose side are you on?”
He didn’t like the way her face was closing up against him, but he also didn’t like her assumptions about a harmless kid. “With this dress, any way of holding you must feel grabby.”
“Look,” she hissed, her cheeks going pink as she dropped her hands from his waist. “I don’t need you to tell me when I should feel that someone is being inappropriate!”
“So you finally admit men make you uncomfortable?”
