Taking Root (The Eros Tales Book 1)

by Katherine McIntyre

  Once her ass ground against his cock, his nails dug deep into her hips. She danced in front of him, tossing her hands in the air as the music reached a crescendo. Every time he caught a glimpse of her face in the flash of the neon lights, her eyes glittered with intent, and her lip curled into a smirk. Danny didn’t seem to give a damn that she played with fire.

  Sweat trickled down his forehead and his chest, but he ignored the tickle, reveling in the thrill of her proximity and the match to gasoline way she turned him on. His palms traveled up to her waist and then down to her hips as she twisted and turned to the song. It faded away, switching to a slower trance beat.

  Danny whirled around to face him before draping her arms around his shoulders. They continued to sway together. “Disappointed?” she asked in a husky, almost breathless voice.

  “God no, gorgeous.” He didn’t bother hiding the heat in his voice. “The second you came into view, other women ceased to exist.”

  A blush stained her cheeks, and her eyes dipped to the floor for a moment. Even if she wanted to skate into his life on lies and avoidance, neither of them could deny the truth of this attraction. If anything, the years grew what once existed there from a couple seeds to a wild tangle of vines that bound them together.

  “You’re not too shabby, yourself,” she responded with a grin as she leaned into him, the lavender scent of her driving him wild. Even back then she’d embraced standoffishness like a shield. Her home life had been levels of hellish that kept her kicking in the shallows, but rumors trickled around the high school regardless.

  Her lips were so close, and he ached to lean in and claim them, to see where all this friction took them.

  “Going to pull a Cinderella once midnight strikes?” he asked, barely able to hear his own words amidst the pulsing music and the folks finding their groove around them. He didn’t want tonight to end. He wanted the chance to get to know her in a real, lasting way like the imprints she’d left on his memory all those years ago.

  Even as she smiled, sadness gleamed in her mesmerizing jade eyes. “Wouldn’t be any fun otherwise,” she responded. “Got to leave a little mystery or I’ll lose my allure.”

  Disappointment curled in his chest, but she pressed her body against his, her nails digging into his shoulders. Not only did that lithe body of hers strike a fresh match to embers he thought dead, but the spark in her gaze made him want in a way he’d forgotten.

  “Don’t think that’s possible,” he responded. “You’d be alluring even if I knew every piece to your puzzle.” He swayed with her to the beat as pale blue light glided over them, illuminating the curves of their bodies and the sloping shadows between.

  Drops of sweat traveled down his back, and his shirt glued to his chest, but he refused to pull away from the dance floor. For the first time in far too long, something beyond his job forced him to live in the moment, and the distraction was sheer bliss. His palms memorized the curve of her waist, and he drank in the scent of her. Tendrils of her flame-red hair began curling, and the smudge of her smoky eyeliner caused her green eyes to pop.

  “All the flattery’s not going to win you my number, Adrian Dukas,” Danny responded, shifting back and forth in front of him to the undulating beat of the song. “I’m a one-night stand sort of gal.” Her eyes contradicted her confident words. The Sam Peterson he’d known had dreams of a cottage of her own, surrounded by all the blooms she could plant. She’d been a tangled tree begging to set down roots.

  Until she vanished.

  Danny leaned closer, her lips a breath away. Before he could claim them, she pulled away again, whirling around to tease him. He didn’t want a single night with her—he wanted so much more.

  “Commitment-phobe, meet serial monogamist,” he responded. “I’m apparently a whore for long-term relationships.” As much as he wanted her, he wasn’t going to lie to her or himself. At this point in his life, while his friends and his sister encouraged him to mess around, he didn’t want that. He’d been wanting something real and lasting, and he didn’t see the point in wasting his time on anything else.

  Danny trailed her pointer finger down his chest. “We’ll have to chalk this up to missed connections then,” she responded. “If we hooked up, I’d be out like yesterday’s news.”

  “Why?” he blurted out before he could help himself. She stepped away from him. All of a sudden it was too clear they stood in the middle of dozens of sweating strangers, surrounded by choking cologne and regret. He took a step forward to follow, but she turned on her heel and wove through the crowds.

  He kept up with ease, slipping beside her. “The girl I knew didn’t cut and run.” At least, not until she did for good. They’d been best friends and hung out almost every day, then in the span of a day she disappeared. It had driven him to the point of insanity over the years, a lingering question that promised to haunt him forever.

  Danny whipped around, her eyes flaring. “The girl you knew doesn’t exist anymore. Not everyone has the chance to make real connections. You don’t know what I’ve been through.” The neon lights flickered around her, too fitting. That’s what Danny had become—in like a flash, and out just as fast.

  “And I won’t if you don’t give me the chance to get to know you,” Adrian dared. He’d been dancing around her before, but he pushed here, so close to the real girl hiding behind those fake smiles she plastered over her loneliness like big neon billboards. He couldn’t forget the girl he’d cut classes with to spend the day at the beach after they both had a bad week, the one who sang loudly and off-key just to make him smile. “Even if you’re here for a brief stint, that doesn’t mean I can’t get to know the new you.”

  Danny swallowed hard. “I can’t control myself around you, Adrian. You’ve always been able to see right through me, and the look in your eyes there? It’s whispering promises of things I can’t have.”

  Before he could argue, she wove her way for the door at top speed. Danny whipped her phone out, the screen glowing as she typed something, probably a message to Camilla. Adrian staggered to a stop, running his hand through his sweat-soaked strands. Just like their last encounter, once sparks emerged and he veered too near to the truth, she vanished. Every single time when it came to Danny Reynolds.

  He’d come so close to bypassing the steel shields she projected.

  What Danny didn’t realize was the slip of raw and real hooked him in stronger than a one-night stand ever could. Now that he understood the depths percolating beneath her surface, he couldn’t let her vanish out of his life again. Not after the way she’d driven him to the point of distraction on the dance floor and how she’d summoned yearning he thought died after Betty left him.

  Adrian slipped his hands into his pockets as he sauntered over to the bar to say his good nights.

  Their story wasn’t another missed connection. He would prove to her she could have everything she wanted—somehow. Adrian only had to find her again.

  Chapter Five

  Dirt stained Danny’s hands, and sweat coated her in a second skin, yet she couldn’t be happier under the pulse of the late afternoon sun. On a normal day, the intense focus of planting seeds in the ground while tending to those that already sprouted took all her attention, but ever since the run-in with Adrian last weekend, she couldn’t get him off her mind.

  The longing in his ocean eyes mirrored her own. His hands around her hips and the heat of his body against hers had felt too perfect. The clean scent of him, like the seaside breeze, reminded her so much of this place. Of home.

  She burrowed into the dirt with a spade, transferring the coral bells into their beds. She’d replaced their greenhouse spots with snapdragon seeds for the summer. Those would grow into gorgeous fuchsia and violet blooms to frame the white tea roses nearby. Summer lay a mere three months away, but based on her track record and the fact she dangled as bait for her serial killer father, she wouldn’t linger long enough to see them bloom. She tugged at some of the vines that emerged, as
twisted as her mind right now.

  Danny wanted her father to show up and get caught so she could finally be free. She wanted it more than these plants needed the sun.

  Yet she also dreaded his arrival with every ounce of her being. Time and time again, the Feds closed in on her dad, and he evaded them. She knew firsthand the levels of cunning he could descend to when he put his brilliant mind to action. And worse, if Kyle Peterson did appear, a trail of bodies would follow. Maybe hers.

  Danny swallowed hard and finished piling the weeds high in the wheelbarrow before she rolled it over to the compost she’d set up in a gated-off area in the back. Given more time working for Natalie Horntree, she’d learned to tune her nasal voice out, and the shared exasperated glances with Cam gave her a necessary breath of relief. Her stomach rumbled, causing her to check her watch. Oh lordy, quitting time had passed. Time to swing by the grocery store and nab another Stouffer’s dinner for one.

  Danny returned the equipment to the shed out back and wiped her sweaty palms on her dirt-stained jeans as she strode up the winding driveway toward Bella. The sun beat down, making her limbs loose and lazy even after a day’s worth of hard work.

  A shadow stretched at the end of the driveway, and Danny froze. Her hand leapt for the piece tucked into the waist of her jeans.

  Until Adrian Dukas stepped past the fringe of bushes, appearing at the bottom of the drive between her and Bella. A Mustang she assumed was his sat further down the street.

  Shit.

  Her jaw dropped at the sight of him. His olive skin glowed in the sunlight, and his brown leather jacket slung over his shoulder, revealing a black tee that looked criminal plastered to those gorgeous abs. Danny was licking her lips before she could help herself. He wore a cord necklace with a silver teardrop pendant, one she remembered from all those years ago. One she’d gotten him. The sight of it slammed into her like a one-two punch, knocking any thought of escape from her brain.

  “Hey, stalker,” she called out, slipping her hands into her pockets as she approached. “Third time’s too much to be coincidence.”

  Adrian shrugged, meeting her halfway up the driveway. He stopped in front of her, sunlit and real in a way that begged her to reach out and touch. The urge to grab his hand and run as far and fast as she could slammed into her like a pick-up truck.

  He lifted his hands in defense. “Guilty. Unlike you, Camilla didn’t bolt at the club and happened to mention where the both of you work. Look, can we walk and talk?” Adrian cast a glance to the Horntree manor, which loomed in the distance like a disapproving parent.

  Her rules choked even harder right now, and the fears of her father showing up messed with her head to the point she just needed any sort of distraction. And here Adrian Dukas stood in front of her making her body scream with need through mere existence. If she was going to dangle her life on the line as bait, then for once since her time in WitSec began, she’d steal what precious moments she could.

  “Let’s go to Waterfront Park,” Danny responded, grabbing her keys from her pocket. “I’ll drive.” His tongue slipped out to wet his lower lip, and she couldn’t help how her thighs clenched at the sight.

  “Lead the way,” he responded. She didn’t need to look back to know he followed.

  Danny quickened her pace to the car, allowing time for the flush staining her cheeks to fade. Her pale skin betrayed her every time, but truth be told, even if he spoke in the same smooth, serious tone, and even if he stared at her with those adoring eyes, they’d grown into different people.

  This was her chance to learn who Adrian Dukas had become, and even though she should’ve brushed him off again, curiosity was the mistress she’d never been able to deny. That and a home-cooked bowl of grits.

  “Careful,” Adrian said, tapping his fingers on top of the car. “A walk by the fountains veers awfully close to date territory, and as you stated, that’s no dice.”

  Danny cocked an eyebrow at him before she slipped into the driver’s seat of Bella, the blush fading from her cheeks. “Please. Don’t mistake stretching my legs for a walk with romance, Romeo.”

  He snorted as he hopped into the passenger seat beside her, and she revved Bella’s engine. As she pumped the gas and sped off down the road, she couldn’t help the prickle across her skin at having him so near. Here in her car, he somehow seemed even closer than when they were grinding against each other in the club. His presence felt like the first plunge of a spade into fresh soil, a soothing she hadn’t realized she was missing.

  “If you want me to back off, I will,” Adrian said, his solemn tone delivering a promise. “You pulled a Houdini back in the club, and after losing you in high school, I couldn’t rest easy if I let you vanish out of my life again without at least trying.”

  Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as she soared across the highway, hoping the hundred miles an hour found a way to surpass the way her heart raced. Her throat tightened with emotions she thought had gone fallow years ago. “Nah, you read me right,” she said, the words coming out on tiptoes. “You always do.”

  She shouldn’t be indulging in any of this.

  She should be pushing him away as far and fast as possible. But the threat of her father loomed too near, and the idea of acting as bait had her short-circuiting any attempts at logic. If she were being honest, it had her pissed too. The misery march existence she’d led so far brought her to this, and Adrian was the one gasp of sunlight she grasped onto.

  His shoulders relaxed as he sank into the seat. She was a twisted knot of need and regret, one too bungled to ever sort out. Her electronica pulsed in the background between them, the bass beats reverberating through the car.

  “You mean people actually listen to this music outside the club?” Adrian asked, a smirk on his lips.

  Danny cast him a pointed look and turned up the volume, letting the music blare through the car. He rolled his eyes, and the tension between them dissolved as her smile burst out, mirrored by his own. Gold streaked across the sky as the sun began to near the horizon line, moving closer and closer to the end of the day. Adrian Dukas should’ve been all sorts of off-limits, one hell of a gorgeous man wrapped head to toe in caution tape. However, his closeness scrambled any remaining reason.

  “So how did the big fancy doctor find the time to slum it out here to visit me?” She glanced to him quick, hungry to devour more glimpses of the striking man who leaned along the side of her car, the wind from the open window tossing his dark strands around. She took the first pale green exit in the direction of her favorite park on the planet.

  “I’ve pulled so much overtime the past year they begged me to take some time off,” he responded, staring out the window. His voice sharpened like they stepped into broken glass territory.

  “Distraction’s useful like that,” she murmured. She didn’t know what sliced him open in the past, but Adrian never bothered hiding his emotions much. Unlike her. Danny plastered on so many masks over the years that half the time she forgot what she looked like beneath it all.

  She pulled up to the parking lot amidst the other cars, the Waterfront Park teeming with people after a lush day and the promise of a gorgeous night. The click of the car door shutting echoed as Adrian hopped out. Danny leaned back in her seat, fingers pausing on the ignition key. Part of her was tempted to drive off again and shield herself from the inevitable. The few times she’d managed to get attached, the sudden moves she had to make shattered what remained of her hollowed heart.

  Danny turned her engine off. She’d denied herself for so long she couldn’t feel anything but the yearning.

  The moment she stepped out of the car, the heady salt breeze rushed by her, sending goosebumps up her arms. Adrian leaned against Bella’s hood, a level of calm and composed she could never be. His blue eyes arrested her on the spot, more alluring than the cerulean tides rolling to the shore in the distance. Laughter pealed from the dozens of folks strolling through the park, the sound mingling with the splas
h of the surrounding fountains.

  “All right, Dukas. You wanted to talk? Let’s do this.” She turned toward him as they stood on opposite sides of her car, facing each other over the hood.

  His lips quirked. “Try to look a little less like we’re heading to a funeral march. I promise, as shit of a conversationalist I am, it won’t be that painful.”

  Danny scrubbed her face, her nerves prickling. Sweat from her palms left streaks on her cheeks, and she heaved a sigh. Adrian was gorgeous, calm, and dressed like he owned a dozen businesses, while she was a snowman in the middle of July, her sanity melting to a puddle on the steaming concrete.

  Adrian reached out, extending his hand. “Come on. We drove over here to walk around, so let’s walk.” She licked her lips before slipping her palm to his. The touch jolted like a taser to her system, a total reboot. Even though she could feel the smudges of dirt staining her cheeks and caught the stray curls of her messy strands, he stared at her like she stepped out in a Versace gown and Louboutins.

  “Why did you track me down?” Danny asked as they strolled along the brick walkway closer to fountains gleaming golden from the advancing sun. “You’ve never been a screw around kind of guy, and I’m a temporary thrill. I can’t make any promises when I don’t even know if I’ll still be here in a month.”

  Adrian let out a sigh, his shoulders sinking. “Maybe I’m looking for a friend right now. I’m low on them, and I can’t confide in my family when they’re running to me with every last problem.”

  The tightness in Danny’s chest released. Friend was a tame description to the tempest that descended every time they locked eyes, but if that’s what he offered… God, maybe for once she could soak in the relief. She squeezed his hand in response, eliciting a flash of those heartbreaker blues. Her thighs squeezed tight. Like there was anything friendly in his wolf’s gaze.