Or was he simply watching over me? Looking out for me the way that Jahn had said he always would?
“He was dangerous, Angie,” Evan said, leading me to the edge of the dance floor. “And what the fuck are you doing here, anyway?”
My eyes snapped to his face, and the words were out before I could think better of them. “Maybe I like dangerous men.”
He hesitated only a heartbeat before replying, but even if he’d planned the words for a year, he couldn’t have cut me deeper. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
Without thinking, I lashed out, intending to slap his face. I didn’t make it. He caught my wrist and pulled me close until I was mere millimeters from him, the heat from our bodies so intense I feared I might spontaneously combust.
He stood a full head taller than me, and he had me so close that my lips were almost pressed to the indentation at the base of his neck. He smelled like sin and despite how riled up I was, I had to fight the urge to sneak my tongue out and taste him.
He bent his head, his breath brushing over the top of my ear as he whispered to me. “I get it,” he said simply.
I went completely stiff. “What exactly do you get?”
“That you’re still crying for him.”
I felt frozen and my breath caught in my throat. Somehow, I managed to force my words out. “What do you mean?”
Something brushed my hair, and though I couldn’t know for certain, I imagined it was his lips. For a moment he didn’t answer, just held me. The thrum of the music pounding through me had nothing on the surge of blood through my veins. I wanted to stay like that forever. Lost in a forest of the senses. Lost in his arms.
This was what I’d craved—why I’d come out tonight. Not the club or the music or the alcohol, but this. The numbness vanquished, my senses on overdrive.
I’d known that the music and the dancing would get me there. That I’d be able to thrust my hand through the curtain and draw in at least a moment or two of real, solid sensation, even if most of it slipped through my fingers like trying to clutch sand.
But I’d never imagined this. Never imagined that I even had it in me to feel so much all at once. To know—to really and truly know—that I was alive.
I swallowed again. Part of me was afraid to speak for fear of breaking this spell. But another part of me had to know. “Evan?” I finally whispered, not at all certain he’d be able to hear me over the roar of the club around us. “What do you get?”
“You,” he said simply, and though it couldn’t possibly be true, right then it was the best thing he could have said to me.
“I miss him,” I said hoarsely, as if that explained why I was going wild in a sleazy club instead of curled up under a blanket sipping hot cocoa and crying.
“I know,” he said, and I felt a shiver run through me because I knew it was true. He knew. Not about the numbness. Not about the times I couldn’t take it anymore and had to fight through the fog. But about tonight and my grief and everything that I’d lost. About the fact that being here in this anonymous crowd with music pumping through my veins took the edge off just a little. It filled up the black hole of grief and loss. Made it bearable.
I didn’t understand how, but he got it. Everything that Kevin couldn’t see in me, Evan did.
I eased back so that I could tilt my head up, and found those gray eyes on me. Wolf’s eyes, I’d thought earlier, and the analogy was even more apt now. I saw danger there. Hunger. As if he would gleefully eat me alive.
And oh, dear god, I wanted him to. “Why are you here?” I whispered.
“You wanted to fly. I wanted to make sure you didn’t crash.”
“So you’re just looking out for me?” I held his eyes, drawing courage from the need I saw reflected back at me. “Or are you interested in helping with liftoff?”
His words were slow and measured. “It’s never wise for a princess to tease a dragon.”
“Who says I’m teasing?”
“It’s not wise to tempt one, either.”
“Why not?” My voice was breathy and full of need.
“Dragons burn. And the wounds leave scars.”
“What if I don’t care?”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes darkened and I knew damn well that he wanted this, too.
“Evan.” I didn’t realize that I’d spoken his name aloud until I heard my own voice, soft and low like a plea.
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
The word was firm and insistent—and I didn’t believe it for a second. This was my chance. My one shining, sparkling moment. I shouldn’t push—I knew that. Hadn’t I already told myself that this was a line I shouldn’t cross? That I needed to keep myself in check. That I needed to not push that envelope.
But dammit all, when I looked at his face, I knew without a doubt that I could fall with Evan. If he would make the jump with me, I was absolutely certain that he wouldn’t let me get hurt. He’d said it himself—he knew how to keep control. And I so desperately wanted to let go of it.
Fear and desire and an odd unwelcome shyness twisted inside of me. I was risking everything but I couldn’t stop. I had to have him. At the very least, I had to try. “Please,” I said simply.
“I stopped being reckless years ago,” Evan said, his tone firm and determined. “That shit gets you in trouble.”
I swallowed. Every ounce of reason told me that he was right,—that I needed to take a step back. That I needed to stop, to go home, to count to ten. To calm the fuck down.
I didn’t do any of that. Instead, I took a step closer. “So now you’re all about control?”
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “Yes,” he said simply, but I knew that he was fighting to hold it together. I could see the tension in him, and a surge of feminine satisfaction cut through me because I knew with absolute certainty that if I pushed him, he would break.
I reached out, then gently pressed my palm to his chest. I felt wild. Hell, I felt reckless—and the irony really wasn’t lost on me. “All right,” I said, tilting my head up to meet his hard, heated gaze. “In that case, control me.”
“Holy fuck, Angie,” he growled, and I knew that I had won.
“Evan.” That one soft word was like taking a match to dynamite, and I saw the fire ignite inside him. His hand slid around to my lower back and he yanked me close. I pressed against him, so hot with need it was a wonder I wasn’t reduced to ashes. I felt the hard length of his erection press against me and thought I might cry, simply from the knowledge that he was as desperate for me as I was for him.
I’d truly never felt anything like this. As if each vein, each hair, each atom inside me existed for no purpose other than to spread pleasure through me. So much pleasure that I wasn’t sure I could withstand the force of it. This was everything I’d wanted. Everything I’d imagined I would feel when Evan finally touched me. But it was so fast and so hard and so overwhelming that I was on the verge of exploding.
Either that or stripping off my clothes and pulling him down to the floor right then and there.
And that probably wasn’t the most prudent of plans.
Breathing hard, I backed away, increasing the space between our bodies. I saw the question on his face, the dark disapproval at our broken connection, and before that could shift to regret, or prudence or responsibility, I moved back to him, pressing my body against his torso and my hands over his ass. For the first time, it registered with me that he’d changed clothes. The tuxedo was gone. The man in front of me wore simple Levis and an even simpler white T-shirt that exposed the vine tattoo that encircled his upper arm.
“He was dangerous, Angie,” Evan said, leading me to the edge of the dance floor. “And what the fuck are you doing here, anyway?”
My eyes snapped to his face, and the words were out before I could think better of them. “Maybe I like dangerous men.”
He hesitated only a heartbeat before replying, but even if he’d planned the words for a year, he couldn’t have cut me deeper. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
Without thinking, I lashed out, intending to slap his face. I didn’t make it. He caught my wrist and pulled me close until I was mere millimeters from him, the heat from our bodies so intense I feared I might spontaneously combust.
He stood a full head taller than me, and he had me so close that my lips were almost pressed to the indentation at the base of his neck. He smelled like sin and despite how riled up I was, I had to fight the urge to sneak my tongue out and taste him.
He bent his head, his breath brushing over the top of my ear as he whispered to me. “I get it,” he said simply.
I went completely stiff. “What exactly do you get?”
“That you’re still crying for him.”
I felt frozen and my breath caught in my throat. Somehow, I managed to force my words out. “What do you mean?”
Something brushed my hair, and though I couldn’t know for certain, I imagined it was his lips. For a moment he didn’t answer, just held me. The thrum of the music pounding through me had nothing on the surge of blood through my veins. I wanted to stay like that forever. Lost in a forest of the senses. Lost in his arms.
This was what I’d craved—why I’d come out tonight. Not the club or the music or the alcohol, but this. The numbness vanquished, my senses on overdrive.
I’d known that the music and the dancing would get me there. That I’d be able to thrust my hand through the curtain and draw in at least a moment or two of real, solid sensation, even if most of it slipped through my fingers like trying to clutch sand.
But I’d never imagined this. Never imagined that I even had it in me to feel so much all at once. To know—to really and truly know—that I was alive.
I swallowed again. Part of me was afraid to speak for fear of breaking this spell. But another part of me had to know. “Evan?” I finally whispered, not at all certain he’d be able to hear me over the roar of the club around us. “What do you get?”
“You,” he said simply, and though it couldn’t possibly be true, right then it was the best thing he could have said to me.
“I miss him,” I said hoarsely, as if that explained why I was going wild in a sleazy club instead of curled up under a blanket sipping hot cocoa and crying.
“I know,” he said, and I felt a shiver run through me because I knew it was true. He knew. Not about the numbness. Not about the times I couldn’t take it anymore and had to fight through the fog. But about tonight and my grief and everything that I’d lost. About the fact that being here in this anonymous crowd with music pumping through my veins took the edge off just a little. It filled up the black hole of grief and loss. Made it bearable.
I didn’t understand how, but he got it. Everything that Kevin couldn’t see in me, Evan did.
I eased back so that I could tilt my head up, and found those gray eyes on me. Wolf’s eyes, I’d thought earlier, and the analogy was even more apt now. I saw danger there. Hunger. As if he would gleefully eat me alive.
And oh, dear god, I wanted him to. “Why are you here?” I whispered.
“You wanted to fly. I wanted to make sure you didn’t crash.”
“So you’re just looking out for me?” I held his eyes, drawing courage from the need I saw reflected back at me. “Or are you interested in helping with liftoff?”
His words were slow and measured. “It’s never wise for a princess to tease a dragon.”
“Who says I’m teasing?”
“It’s not wise to tempt one, either.”
“Why not?” My voice was breathy and full of need.
“Dragons burn. And the wounds leave scars.”
“What if I don’t care?”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes darkened and I knew damn well that he wanted this, too.
“Evan.” I didn’t realize that I’d spoken his name aloud until I heard my own voice, soft and low like a plea.
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
The word was firm and insistent—and I didn’t believe it for a second. This was my chance. My one shining, sparkling moment. I shouldn’t push—I knew that. Hadn’t I already told myself that this was a line I shouldn’t cross? That I needed to keep myself in check. That I needed to not push that envelope.
But dammit all, when I looked at his face, I knew without a doubt that I could fall with Evan. If he would make the jump with me, I was absolutely certain that he wouldn’t let me get hurt. He’d said it himself—he knew how to keep control. And I so desperately wanted to let go of it.
Fear and desire and an odd unwelcome shyness twisted inside of me. I was risking everything but I couldn’t stop. I had to have him. At the very least, I had to try. “Please,” I said simply.
“I stopped being reckless years ago,” Evan said, his tone firm and determined. “That shit gets you in trouble.”
I swallowed. Every ounce of reason told me that he was right,—that I needed to take a step back. That I needed to stop, to go home, to count to ten. To calm the fuck down.
I didn’t do any of that. Instead, I took a step closer. “So now you’re all about control?”
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “Yes,” he said simply, but I knew that he was fighting to hold it together. I could see the tension in him, and a surge of feminine satisfaction cut through me because I knew with absolute certainty that if I pushed him, he would break.
I reached out, then gently pressed my palm to his chest. I felt wild. Hell, I felt reckless—and the irony really wasn’t lost on me. “All right,” I said, tilting my head up to meet his hard, heated gaze. “In that case, control me.”
“Holy fuck, Angie,” he growled, and I knew that I had won.
“Evan.” That one soft word was like taking a match to dynamite, and I saw the fire ignite inside him. His hand slid around to my lower back and he yanked me close. I pressed against him, so hot with need it was a wonder I wasn’t reduced to ashes. I felt the hard length of his erection press against me and thought I might cry, simply from the knowledge that he was as desperate for me as I was for him.
I’d truly never felt anything like this. As if each vein, each hair, each atom inside me existed for no purpose other than to spread pleasure through me. So much pleasure that I wasn’t sure I could withstand the force of it. This was everything I’d wanted. Everything I’d imagined I would feel when Evan finally touched me. But it was so fast and so hard and so overwhelming that I was on the verge of exploding.
Either that or stripping off my clothes and pulling him down to the floor right then and there.
And that probably wasn’t the most prudent of plans.
Breathing hard, I backed away, increasing the space between our bodies. I saw the question on his face, the dark disapproval at our broken connection, and before that could shift to regret, or prudence or responsibility, I moved back to him, pressing my body against his torso and my hands over his ass. For the first time, it registered with me that he’d changed clothes. The tuxedo was gone. The man in front of me wore simple Levis and an even simpler white T-shirt that exposed the vine tattoo that encircled his upper arm.
