He smiled. “You want to try a spin?” Before she could answer, he spun her under his arm and right back into the waltz step. She didn’t step on his toes once. Not once.
She tipped back her head and laughed, enjoying how the sound echoed through the empty building. When she looked back at him, he was watching her intently. As if he’d never seen a woman laugh before. He probably hadn’t seen one laugh at something as silly as dancing in a dusty building.
She sobered. “Sorry, but I just didn’t think I would ever be dancing at Honky Tonk Heaven.”
He slowed his steps, his eyes intense. “And why does that make you so happy?”
“It would make any girl in this town happy. Until the fire, dancing at Honky Tonk Heaven was a right of passage for the women in this town. When I was in high school, that’s all most of the girls could talk about. It wasn’t their first dance at prom. Or their first dance at their wedding. It was the first dance at Honky Tonk Heaven. What they’d be wearing? And what song would be playing? And who would be their partner?”
“And what were you wearing? And what song was playing?” He hesitated. “And who was your partner?”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t included in those conversations. So I really didn’t have to come up with anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean you weren’t included?”
She looked away. “I’m sure you heard what kids called me. Tully the Tattler. And I couldn’t blame them. I was a rule-following tattletale. No one wants to include someone like that in their conversations.”
“So you’re telling me that you didn’t pick out clothes, or a song, or a partner for this coming of age dance?”
“Nope.”
He stopped dancing and placed a finger beneath her chin, lifting her gaze to his. “Bullshit. Maybe you didn’t pick out the clothes you would wear or the music you’d be dancing to, but you picked out your partner.”
She swallowed hard and shook her head.
His hand tightened on her hip, his eyes reflecting the moon like two bottomless pools of molten gold. “Tell me, Tallulah? Who was he?” His head lowered and his lips brushed hers in a heated stroke that took all the air from her lungs. “Who was this Honky Tonk Heaven angel who swept you across the dance floor?” His breath heated her lips before he took a nip of her bottom lip, scraping his teeth across the plumpness. “Or was it an angel?” He drew back and his thumb slowly spread the moist he’d left over her lip as his gaze followed. “Maybe there was nothing angelic about the boy at all.”
Her legs trembled, her heart beat out of control, and her breathing came in and out of her mouth in loud huffs that echoed off the new beams.
He removed his thumb and moved closer, his breath falling hot and heavy. “Say his name, Tully.” He sipped at her lips like he was sucking a bead of moisture off the rim of a glass of sweet tea. “Say it and I’ll give you what you want.”
What she wanted was to feel those firm lips back on her. Not just on her lips, but everywhere. She wanted him to hungrily devour her until there was nothing left. She knew he would. That was what bad boys did. All she had to say was two words and he’d devoured her without any care of the carnage he left behind.
And there would be carnage.
Which was why he couldn’t be trusted with something as sacred as her most well-kept secret.
She shoved out of his arms and took more than a few steps back. “It wasn’t you. It could never be you.” She turned and headed for the back door.
Once outside, she wasted no time getting into her car and backing out. She was so busy looking over her shoulder to make sure she didn’t hit the dumpster that she didn’t realize Jaxon had followed her until she turned and saw him standing in the flood of her headlights.
He didn’t have to speak for her to know what he was thinking.
Go ahead and run, Little Tully, but I know the truth.
CHAPTER NINE
“Still, trying to act like the caring head of the family, Jax?”
Jaxon glanced up from the flour he’d been measuring and saw Poppy standing in the doorway of the kitchen wearing baggie pajama bottoms with the Disney dwarfs printed all over them and one of her signature tank tops. Her hair hung over one shoulder in a messy braid, her bangs sticking up in all directions.
He went back to measuring the flour. “Just making breakfast.”
She pulled out a barstool from the island and flopped down. “I can make my own breakfast, thank you very much.”
Jaxon nodded and dumped the flour into a bowl. “I’ll be sure to keep my pancakes to myself.”
“What kind of pancakes?”
