Adam turned his body toward his friend, but he couldn’t manage to pull his eyes from the ball of energy and sunshine lighting up the dance floor. He could practically see a glow of warmth around her, drawing people to her. “I just met her tonight. Some guy was harassing her, so I pretended to be her boyfriend so he’d leave her the hell alone.”
“If you’re her boyfriend, why aren’t you out there dancing with her?”
Because he had to be a rude, stubborn ass when she’d asked him. A decision he was regretting more and more.
Adam’s upper lip lifted in a snarl as he watched her partner’s big hand slide “innocently” over the generous curve of her ass.
That was it. He’d had enough. Adam slammed his empty beer bottle down on the bar. “I’ll be back,” he told Lex.
“Go get her, tiger,” he said, his eyes glued to the television screen behind the bar as he watched the New Year’s celebration happening in Times Square.
The whole time Adam was weaving his way through the dancers, he wondered what the hell he was doing. He still didn’t have a good answer by the time he reached her, but he was going to do it anyway.
When Faye’s partner noticed him blocking their way, he pulled her to a stop. “You know this guy?” he asked her, lifting his chin toward Adam.
She looked back over her shoulder. “Hey!” she greeted Adam. The smile she gave him nearly blinded him. “This is my friend, Adam,” she told her dance partner.
“I’m cutting in,” he informed her. Then his eyes flicked over to the guy she was dancing with. He was tall, but he was skinny. If it came down to a fight, Adam would easily win, even if he didn’t have the strength of a shifter.
But the guy just grinned amiably and handed Faye over to Adam. “Here you go, man. She’s all yours. Have fun!”
Adam took Faye into the circle of his arms as he scowled after him. But his attention was quickly diverted by the feel of all the womanly softness he now held tight against him.
“I thought you didn’t dance,” she said as his eyes met the twinkle of amusement in hers.
Loosening his hold just enough to let her breathe, he frowned. “I changed my mind.”
Adam didn’t like the way her mouth twitched as she fought to keep the amusement off her face. “Okay,” was all she said. “We should probably start doing it then before we get run over.”
Right then, the music changed and something slow and angsty came over the speakers. He didn’t recognize the song, but it didn’t matter. His mother loved to dance, and she’d made damn sure Adam could hold his own on a dance floor, whether it was a ballroom or a country bar or anywhere in between. Not that he’d wanted to learn, but there were times—such as this one—when he was mighty glad she’d been so insistent.
Pulling their joined hands close to his chest, he tightened his other arm around her until he could feel the fullness of her breasts pressed against him and started shuffling his feet. As they started to move together, their hips would touch off and on, and much as he tried to fight it, Adam’s cock thickened painfully in his designer jeans. He dug his fingers into the silky material of her shirt, gathering it into his fist as he tried to get himself under control. He couldn’t recall what color the shirt was, or anything else she was wearing, for that matter. He was too immersed in the way she felt. The way she smelled. Like she was already under his skin, dancing with his wolf.
Faye was a bit stiff in his arms at first, but gradually, she relaxed. She even tucked her head under his chin, fitting against him like she fucking belonged there, her scent in his nose and her body moving perfectly with his as he led them slowly around the dance floor. Just like she would in bed.
He didn’t know how he knew that.
He just did.
They hadn’t made even one full circle around the room before the hair on the back of his neck rose and tingles ran up and down his spine. Adam met the eyes of her spurned admirer. He was glaring daggers at them, his posture stiff and angry. But pissing him off was only part of the reason Adam insisted on holding her so up close and personal. The other reasons were…well, he didn’t fucking know. All he knew was that she felt damn fucking good.
“So, Adam,” Faye raised her head and looked up at him. She was even prettier this close up. There were no thick layers of makeup or weird colors on her face, just fresh skin and long eyelashes and glossy lips that he would bet his life savings were naturally that color.
He was quickly becoming obsessed with those lips.
“What brings you to our cozy little town?” She raised her eyebrows in question as she waited for his answer.
“What makes you think I’m new here?”
She gave him a look, and then glanced around the bar before coming back to him. “Because just about everyone who lives in this town can fit into this bar, and I’ve lived here my whole life. So, trust me, if someone who looked like you had come along sooner, I would’ve heard about it.”
“What’s wrong with the way I look?”
Her clear blue eyes darkened as they traveled over his face and shoulders, or maybe it was just a trick of the light. “Not a damn thing,” she said. “As a matter of fact—and I say this at the risk of making your head swell—you and your friend over there at the bar make the rest of the guys in this town look like backwoods swine.”
A ripple of possession ran through him at her including Lex in that statement, and his arms tightened around her as he navigated them in a turn around another couple and forced her eyes back on him. “I wouldn’t call them ‘swine.’ Pigs are actually really clean if you take them out of the mud.”
Faye threw her head back and laughed. He wasn’t sure what was so funny, exactly, but he wasn’t about to say or do anything that would wipe that expression of joy from her face.
