His best was pretty darned good. “Behave?” He certainly didn’t have to do anything special to get and hold attention.Nearly every woman in the room had checked him out multiple times. “We’re only dancing.”
“But there are so many ways to dance. Only I’m not Clyde, so I’m honoring your wishes.”
Meaning . . . what? Tipping her head back to study him, she admitted, “I don’t understand you.”
“Want me to explain? I will, as long as you keep in mind that you’re in charge, so no matter what I say, you don’t have to worry about me overstepping, not in any way.”
From the beginning, everything with him was different. The only thing that worried her was her own reaction to him. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“You’re nearly irresistible. A hundred times, I’ve thought how easy it would be to kiss you.”
The flush seemed to start from her heart and expand everywhere until she was suddenly too warm.
“Like now,” he said low. “With you looking like that.”
Her gaze strayed to his mouth again. She could almost feel his kiss. Taste it.
Of course, his lips curved in acknowledgment. “Anything you want, Skye, just say so. You set the parameters, not me.”
Bull! Staring up at him, she said, “You don’t want involvement any more than I do.”
“I didn’t,” he conceded.
That clarification rang like a bell in her brain. Breath held, she waited.
“Now?” One muscular shoulder lifted to let her know he was rethinking the situation. “I don’t mind being honest . . . if you want to hear it.” His attention went beyond her, and a chill replaced the heat in his eyes. “But I want no comparisons to your ape.”
Maybe she should be honest, too. “I never completely trusted Clyde.”
He ended the dance, right there in the middle of things. The intensity of his gaze boring into hers kept her pulse galloping. “Come on.” Taking her hand, he led her off the floor and to a quieter corner. The second they stopped, he asked, “You trust me?”
It was such an enormous concession, and yet, after seeing him at the shelter, everything had changed. “I do. Is that alarming?”
“No.” Muscles in his face shifted, indicating some type of struggle, until finally he said, “Thank you.”
Those simple, heartfelt words got her, making an enormous difference—in everything. Stepping closer, her hands on his shoulders, she went on tiptoe . . . and kissed him.
Too soft. Too fast. Such a tease.
But kissing him had been somehow necessary.
An inferno of heat returned to his gaze, but his tone remained quiet. “There will be more of that?”
“I hope so.” From the start, their relationship—first as neighbors, then as cohorts in her scheme to fend off other men—had been shallow and meaningless, the only type of relationship she’d accepted lately.
Until she’d seen Ford with her sister. Laylee hadn’t beguiled him as she did so many men. Ford had joked with her, was amused by her, and seemed to understand her. But he hadn’t instantly fallen under her spell.
And then with Maybelline and her tiny buddy. The love he felt for that massive, sadly unattractive dog had been as obvious as his green eyes. She sensed patience, affection, longing, and a sort of kinship with the unwanted creature.
He clearly loved his friends, giving them not only loyalty but room to grow and love, whether their new lives included him or not.
Nothing about Ford was the norm in the men she usually encountered, so she couldn’t feel the usual way about him.
“Good.” He leaned back on the wall, the epitome of a man at leisure, except now she sensed an alert readiness. “Yet you keep glancing at Clyde, like you did during the dance.”
Such a dolt. She’d probably offended him, and she’d never want to do that. “Sorry. It just . . . It surprises me that Clyde is keeping his distance.”
“You made it clear you’re not interested in him, and he can see Iaminterested in you. That’s a losing combo for him, no matter how he looks at it.”
