by Lori Wilde
“Don’t dis me,” Zoey said from behind the bar, her hand on the light switch rheostat. “It’s time for the Life Saver relay.”
That brought cheers from the crowd.
Disoriented, Natalie made her way to her table. She didn’t look back at Dade, but his words rang in her ears. I’m not the man for you. She already knew that. Why, then, did she feel so rejected?
Zoey held up a roll of Life Saver candies and a box of toothpicks. “I’m going to explain the rules for those who’ve never played. Everyone who wants to play gets a toothpick.” She opened up the box. “Come and get one.”
Natalie was too confused to play. Plus, she didn’t want to have to get up and walk to the bar. Her knees wobbled like homemade jelly that hadn’t set.
She told herself she was not going to look around to see where Dade had gone, but something compelled her to turn her head and take a peek. He’d moved to the back of the room, stood against the wall, arms folded, cowboy hat now tipped low over his forehead, his eyes zeroed in on her.
Gulp!
Overwhelmed, she jerked her gaze back to the bar where Zoey, surrounded on all sides by men, slipped a Life Saver onto her toothpick. Her sister attracted men like bees to blossoms.
“Listen up, people,” Zoey went on. She loved being the center of attention. “Here’s how it works. You hold the toothpick between your teeth. One person has a Life Saver on the toothpick and chooses someone to pass the candy to. You have to keep your hands clutched behind your back. If your hands come forward, you’re disqualified and you have to buy drinks for all the people who’ve preceded you in the relay.”
That brought another cheer from the crowd.
“If you drop the Life Saver, you’re disqualified and then once again you have to buy a round of drinks for all the people who came before you. In the case where someone drops a Life Saver, the person who successfully passed the last Life Saver must pass a new one to another partner.”
“Woot! Woot!”
“Each person can only have the Life Saver passed to them one time. You can refuse to accept the Life Saver from the person who wants to pass it to you, but you’re allowed only one refusal.”
People were cutting their eyes at each other, grinning and signaling I’m picking you or ducking their heads and looking away.
“The relay starts when the music starts and ends when the music ends and the last person left with the Life Saver has to kiss the person who passed it to them. On the dance floor, for everyone to see, and since many of us are related, if you don’t want to kiss your cousin, you better be careful who you choose to pass the Life Saver to.”
This brought a chuckle from the crowd.
Zoey tilted her head back, stuck the toothpick that the Life Saver was on between her teeth, and signaled to Jasper Grass, who stood beside the jukebox.
Jasper counted off, “Three . . . two . . . one . . .” and put “Cupid” on to play again, but this time it was an elongated, disco-ized version, and yelled, “Go!”
With her hands behind her back, Zoey sidled up to the closest cute guy. He grinned at her and with a toothpick clutched between his teeth and hands behind his back, sank to his knees while Zoey wriggled into position so that the guy could transfer the Life Saver from her toothpick to his.
Amid much giggling, speculation, and taunting chants of “Drop it, drop it,” the guy passed the Life Saver on to a woman whom Natalie had gone to high school with. That woman tried to pass it on to Calvin, who was off duty and sitting with his fiancée, Maria. Maria glowered at the woman as Calvin laughed and waved the woman away.
The woman shrugged and passed the Life Saver to Maria instead, who then passed it on to Calvin.
Calvin looked around for someone to pass the Life Saver to, but Maria was glaring so possessively that all the women in the bar shied from Calvin’s gaze and he ended up passing the Life Saver to another guy, who promptly dropped the Life Saver and had to buy drinks for everyone who’d already passed the Life Saver along to him, and Calvin had to find a new partner to pass the Life Saver to.
Natalie was enjoying watching the whole thing play out and she was feeling pretty safe from being picked—the “Cupid” song was almost over—when the pink-haired girl passed the Life Saver to Dade.
He didn’t refuse her.
Jealousy pushed through Natalie as she watched the girl wriggle and giggle as Dade took off his cowboy hat and set it on a table. Then he maneuvered his body down low enough, limbo style, so that she could pass him the candy.
Natalie gritted her teeth. Now she knew how Maria felt.
Once the Life Saver handoff was successful, Dade straightened, the toothpick with the dangling candy clutched firmly between his teeth. With his hands clasped behind his back, he came straight toward her.
Natalie prayed, Please let the song end. Please let the song end.
Um, maybe not. If the song ends before he gets to you, he’ll have to kiss Pink Hair. Which was probably Pink Hair’s objective. Keep going, song. Keep going.
Then there he was at her table, smelling like lightning and trouble.
She could refuse him. She should refuse him. Especially since he’d just told her that he wasn’t the man for her, but if she refused him he’d have to kiss Pink Hair.
The final strains of “Cupid” were spilling from the jukebox.
“I don’t have a tooth—” Before she could finish, Zoey was beside her, toothpick in her hand.
Dade grinned.
Natalie stood up, took the toothpick from Zoey, and settled it between her teeth.
Dade leaned over her.
“Hands behind your back,” Zoey cautioned.
Natalie tucked her hands behind her back and manipulated the toothpick with her tongue. She could feel Dade’s warm, minty breath against her skin and smell the flavor of the Life Saver.
Pineapple.
The crowd was making catcalls, but Natalie heard none of it. Her mind was on one thing and one thing only.
Dade’s lips.
Her wanton disregard for the people around them alarmed her, but try as she might, she could not rein herself. She tilted her head back, exposing her throat to him, open, vulnerable, waiting.
He hovered, nerves of steel, holding the toothpick steady but not allowing the Life Saver to slip down. Not yet.
She realized why he was hesitating. He was stalling so she wouldn’t have the chance to pass the Life Saver off to someone else before the song ended. He was controlling the timing so that she would have to kiss him.
It was so frustrating to have to keep her hands behind her back when all she wanted to do was thread her fingers through his lush head of thick hair slightly creased from the imprint of his hat. Had a man ever looked so gorgeous?
But what really took her breath away was the way he was looking at her. As if she was a sparkling diamond he’d found lying in the sand.
C’mon baby, let me have it. She boldly telegraphed him the message with her eyes.
Dade looked amused and highly aroused. His cheeks colored and that made her own skin flush hot. Was their attraction evident to the people around them? Was it as blatant as it felt? All hot coals and burning passion?
The crowd was chanting, “Drop it, drop it, drop it.”
Natalie was unclear whether they wanted Dade to drop the Life Saver onto her toothpick or for her to fumble it. If the pass-off didn’t happen, she’d have to buy a round of drinks for ten people, but she did not care about that. Dade was her focus and only Dade.
The tips of their toothpicks touched, and in that split second, their mouths were connected by two thin pieces of wood. Exaltation shot through Natalie.
The crowd noise swelled, and along with it, Natalie’s rising desire, and soon her entire body resounded with sensation.
It was funny and oddly erotic. Natalie’s head spun and her right leg wobbled. Oh no! Her leg couldn’t give out. Not now.
Dade’s eyes caught hers and mentally telegraphed the message.
You’re not going to fall. Hang on.
She could read his thoughts as surely as if he’d spoken them aloud.
The Life Saver fell from his toothpick and slipped down onto hers. The taste of pineapple kissed her lips just as the song ended.
Dade’s eyes twinkled.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
The next thing she knew, Dade had her around the waist and he was spinning her in a slow circle, his eyes locked on hers.
That’s when she realized she had the toothpick and Life Saver still clutched between her teeth. Laughing, she pulled the toothpick from her mouth and tossed it over her shoulder.
Then Dade kissed her and the earth stood still.
It was a cliché, sure, but she had no other way to describe it. She could no longer hear her heart beating, could no longer draw in air. Everything just dropped away—people, sounds, smells.
Nothing existed but Dade.
She kissed him back, thoroughly, completely, and with as much enthusiasm as he kissed her. No man had ever smelled this good. Nothing had ever tasted this good. Not Pearl’s fried chicken, not the huevos rancheros from La Hacienda Grill, not even Sandra’s famous banana pudding. It was as if she had discovered kissing for the very first time, thrilling to the intoxicating strangeness of it all. She parted her lips and let his tongue pierce her. She was in all the way.
The crowd clapped and chanted, “Go Dade! Go Natalie!”
His arms tightened around her and she wished the moment would never end. She would remember this kiss for the rest of her life, because she knew in her heart that no other kiss would ever compare.
The first time you kiss your soul mate is like an earthquake, wiping out everything you thought you knew about yourself.
It was a Millie Greenwood quote. Instead of lullabies, Millie had passed down sayings of love to her children and they’d passed them on to their children. For the first time, Natalie thought about passing them on to her kids.
Natalie’s life had been built on myths and legends of love. She’d always wanted to believe in them, but never dared. Now that it was finally upon her, she was a true believer.
Unfortunately, belief just made things worse. Because now that she’d experienced this mind-blowing chemistry, this deep abiding pleasure, she knew that she would never be satisfied with any other man but him.
Dade alone had the power to break her into a million little pieces.
Dade closed his eyes, one hundred percent goner, rocketing headlong into the sexiest little mouth he’d kissed in years.
Who was he kidding? It was the sexiest mouth he’d ever kissed. Not just sexy, but hot and sweet and wet and delicious.
Perfect.
Natalie possessed the most perfect mouth in the universe.
Do you think you could be overstating things a bit? You’ve been without a woman too long and you just forgot about how good it can be.
Yeah, that was it. Nothing cataclysmic going on here.
A kiss is just a kiss.
Unless it’s Natalie.
He opened his eyes and her eyes were wide open too, staring at him with awestruck wonder. He raised his hands to cup her face, traced his thumbs over the silky texture of her cheeks.
She sighed, soft and low and dreamy.
He got caught up in the heady sound, taken down like a swimmer trapped in an undertow. He shoved aside the doubts that had been eating at his brain, filed them under “Things to Think About Later.” He tightened his arms around her waist and deepened the kiss, taking her down the current with him.
Dade half expected her to break away. They were standing in the middle of the bar, amid good-natured ribbing and cheers. But she did not. In fact, she was running her palms up his bare forearms to his shoulders, reaching higher to thread her fingers through his hair and pull his head down lower as if she was starving for more.
She pressed her body flush against him, her pelvis arching up into him.
You got my attention, darlin’.
Her hips wriggled against his.
What do you want? Anything. Just name it. If I’ve got it, it’s yours. If I can get my hands on it, it’s yours. Want that mountain moved? I’m on it. Want the stars brought down from the sky? Let me go get an extension ladder.
Finally, they couldn’t keep up the kissing. Oxygen was needed. Lousy need to breathe. They pulled apart simultaneously, and, trembling, lips glistening wet, they stared at each other.
“Mmm, I think we took that a bit too far,” she murmured. Her nipples poked out, erect and alert, and her gaze tracked to his hard-on. “You’re in a bit of a pickle.”
“Hey, you caused it.”
“If you move away from me, everyone is going to notice your . . . er . . . situation.” Humor tinged her voice.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to stay right here with you.”
“Um . . .” she said, “wouldn’t that escalate the problem?”
“I don’t think I can get any more aroused than I already am,” he said.
There was no hiding how much he wanted her. No fooling anyone, not even himself. She had a way of making him face things he didn’t want to face. She was a straight shooter, honest and forthright, and he was living in her house under false pretenses, lying to her mainly because he didn’t have the courage to trust her.
She cocked her head and was studying him with an open, accepting gaze as if she were willing to take a chance on him if he would open up and take a chance on her, but she didn’t know him. Had no idea of his shadowy past, had no clue what he was capable of. She was innocent, undamaged by life, and he was both guilty and damned.
He wondered what she saw when she looked at him with those eyes so forgiving and optimistic. Couldn’t she see the darkness in him? Couldn’t she tell that he was flawed in a fundamental way?
“So what’s your . . . mmm . . . solution?” she murmured, running a hand over his biceps.
“Let’s just dance here for now. They’re bound to turn the lights down again soon.”
“You forget. I don’t dance.”
“You do dance. You already danced with me.”
“And you already warned me off.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the point?”
“This.” Dammit. He kissed her again. Couldn’t help himself. He kissed her as the lights dimmed.
It started out soft and sweet. The kind of kiss you were supposed to kiss in public, but it didn’t stay that way.
The sweet sigh that seeped from her lips cut straight through him. He felt her arms go around him. She squeezed him tight. Oh God, she felt so damn good.
She was kissing him right back, hot and hard and raw, not the least bit shy in spite of her adorable blushing.
He closed his eyes against the onslaught, fought his urges, but it was no use. He could not resist her.
Dade gave in completely. Surrendered. People were dancing around them, chuckling and intentionally jostling them with their elbows, but it was as if they were on an island of their own and no one could touch them.
How sweet if it were true.
Her tongue skimmed over his lips, tasting him like he was a sugary confection, and a foreign emotion pushed up from the center of his chest and into his head so quickly that his brain spun.
Jesus, what was she doing to him?
“Dade,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” His voice came out thick and husky.
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Uh-huh?” he murmured, sucking her bottom lip up between her teeth, his hands moving up her spine.
“You might not believe that you’re the man for me, but I hate to break it to you.”
“What’s that?” he rasped.
“I’m precisely the woman for you.”
“Oh really?”
She raised her chin. “Yes.”
“You really think you can handle me?” he drawled.
He shouldn’t be flirting with Natalie when he couldn’t mean it
. By nature, he wasn’t a flirt, but flirting with her was so easy. She made him feel human again, and for a man who’d spent his life avoiding entanglements of any kind it was damn scary. He wished he could mean it. That this could lead somewhere, but she was entrenched in this town. Her family was here. Her livelihood. Her heritage.
Natalie studied him, her head cocked at a provocative angle, her face full of sass and curiosity. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes glowed. He wasn’t the only one feeling this attraction, but she probably wasn’t calculating the distance to the nearest available bed.
Knock it off, Vega.
“How come you’re here all alone?” he asked.
“I’m not alone. Zoey is with me.”
“I mean why doesn’t a woman like you have a date?”
She laughed. “A woman like me?”
“Sexy. Bright. Disarming.”
“Don’t forget crippled.” She waved at her leg.
“You use that as an excuse.”
“What?” She looked startled.
“The leg. You hide behind it.”
Her tone turned chilly. “You don’t know me well enough to make that assessment.”
“Sometimes it takes a stranger to really see you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Family can take you for granted. They see you the way they’ve always seen you.”
“True enough.” She looked pensive. “What do you see?”
“A woman who puts everyone else’s needs ahead of her own.”
She shook her head. “I’m changing all that.”
“Which is why you’re here tonight? To have your needs met?”
Her eyes held his. “Are you offering to meet them?”
Hell, yeah! She wasn’t the only one with unmet needs. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. Months. Lately, he hadn’t found anyone that interested him enough to make the effort, but all that had changed from the first moment he’d looked her in the eyes. He moistened his lips and let his gaze drift over her.
The green dress she had on was simple, but that’s precisely why it was so sexy. No frills or sequins or sashes to detract from the woman inside it. It had a V-neck that wasn’t too low, but revealed just a touch of cleavage, a sweet peek that hinted at so much more beyond the material.
