I tense at his polite probing, reminding myself that it’s normal for people to ask other people questions about themselves. It’s how they get to know each other.
Just conversation.
“You southerners are awfully chatty, aren’t you?” I tease when he slides behind the wheel.
“When we want to know someone,” he answers, echoing my earlier thought.
“Shiloh…”
“Reva…?”
“We really don’t need to know each other.”
He gives me a slow grin that makes me suddenly hot, and I squirm in the leather seat. “Where are we headed, anyway?”
“There’s a bar down the road a piece. They have live music on the weekend.”
“Sweet. Thanks for…keeping me entertained.”
“Can’t have you getting bored.” He slanted those hazeleyes of his sideways at me. “Besides. I think we’ll probably entertain each other.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Mighty cocky of you.”
“Not cocky if it’s true.”
“Ohhh.” Inwardly, my ovaries—or some other part of my female anatomy—clench with a littleooohof appreciation.
Milt’s Place is appropriately dim and smoky, even though there’s no smoking inside the premises. We find a couple of seats at a small, round table against the wall and far enough back from the raised stage that we’re not in danger of being trampled by anyone dancing and sit, a couple of beers between us.
After a couple of attempts to talk we fall silent and just listen to the band. It’s too loud, and shouting at each other isn’t sexy.
Shiloh’s lips are, though, when he leans in after the third set to say something into the shell of my ear. “Another?”
A shiver courses through me, and I nod without speaking, gulping the last sip of my beer.
He notices.
Rising, he reaches in and grazes his thumb against the flesh of my bottom lip, catching the alcohol that lingers there. Holding my gaze, he brings his thumb to his mouth and licks it, swirling his tongue around it, then turns and disappears into the crowd.
I shake my head to clear it. “Shit.”
While I wait, the syncopated strains of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” drift my way and for the first time that evening, I find myself driven by a need to dance. Maybe it’s because Shiloh isn’t sitting right there; maybe it’s because I’ve always felt an affinity for this song with its cutting lyrics about feeling forsaken by one’s own heart…whatever the reason, I need to move.
Shifting a few feet into the stream of people, I lift my arms over my head, close my eyes, and begin to move. It’s not a slow song. Not one given to swaying hips and lazy rhythms. It’s more sharp twists and rolling, swinging jerks. I look like I’m on something, I’m sure, but I ignore that and allow the song to embed itself into every nerve and cell.
When KT Tunstall transitions into something slower and sexier and a pair of hands settle on my hips, I jump and then ease back into the warm, solid body I know instinctively belongs to Shiloh.
“I don’t know why, but that train wreck I just watched was hot as fuck,” he murmurs close to my ear, his hands roaming the flat of my stomach to just beneath my breasts and back down. He pulls me against him, and I feel him against my ass, hard and thick.
I don’t reply, afraid whatever I say will emerge as a moan. Instead, I let my arms hang limp, arch my lower back, and press against him in tacit reply.
He holds me to him with one hand splayed firmly across my lower stomach, his fingers creeping beneath my tee shirt to explore skin. The other drifts down, squeezes the back of my thigh, then tracks a slow trail back up my body.
I stopped dancing several minutes ago, moving straight to a fine trembling. It’s like I’m cold, but I’ve never been this hot. He’s burning me from the inside out, but I don’t fear the fire.
I am the fire.
His hand skates along the side of my torso, briefly cups my breast, then shackles my neck before turning my face to his.
