“You know,” Evan said when they were alone, “I came here to dance.”
“Well,” she said, trying to ignore his eyes, and his hand lying on the table too close to her own, “don’t let me stop you. I came here for the same reason, and you’re cramping my style.”
This wasn’t her. She was never nasty, never even snippy. Except that she’d just been exactly that.
Evan’s hand slid over to hers, touched it, and she forced herself not to jump and tried to pretend her nipples weren’t springing to attention like they remembered that hand and they wanted it. He said, “You bought the nail polish.”
She shoved a charcoal-gray-nailed hand into her hair and threw it back over her shoulder like somebody she wasn’t. “Like a badass.”
He smiled, the waitress brought their beers, and Evan took a long swallow, then stood up. “We could drink,” he said, “or we could dance. Like badasses. Since we’re both here.”
She shouldn’t do it. Absolutely not. But she was standing up, too, putting her hand in his, and getting another sharp, hot charge right down her body. And then Evan was leading her onto the floor, his hand settling over her back, right above the low waistband of her jeans, his other hand holding hers tight. Like before. Like she was his, and he wasn’t going to let her go.
Which was crazy.
He shouldn’t have done it. He hadn’t meant to do it. He definitely wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been wearing those boots.
Gray lizardskin cowboy boots with pink roses, the same ones she’d worn that night when she’d swung one of those long legs out of her bedroom window, dropped down and dangled from the sill by her hands for a heart-stopping moment, then fallen into his arms.
After that, she’d turned around with the boldness of the secret woman she kept bottled up inside, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He’d felt the silk of her hair between his fingers, her sweet, warm body against his, and had wanted, with a ferocity he could barely control, to take her away and do everything to her.
He could say it was youth, but it wasn’t. He’d been twenty-four at the time, not that young at all. He would’ve said, by then, that all his illusions were gone, but clearly they weren’t. Not when he’d run up the driveway with her hand in his, the heels of her boots making too much noise against the concrete, and she’d let out a breathless, excited giggle that wasn’t like Beth either. Or maybe it was. Like the Beth she’d barely shown him, the one she was finally letting loose. Because she trusted him, and because he excited her.
Not when she was behind him on the motorcycle, either, her breasts pressed tight against his back, her arms around his waist, and he was already so hard he was aching. When the wind and the roar of the big engine were filling his ears and all he could feel was the eagerness in the body behind him sending the message he needed to hear. And definitely not when they were dancing at Moe’s, the little tavern at the edge of the lake, and she was pulled up tight against him once more, her gray-booted feet sliding across the scarred hardwood floor in perfect time with his while the voices on the speakers sang about longing and loss and holding on and letting go until Evan had forgotten about the time and her parents and their future and every single reason this whole reckless thing was impossible. Until her mouth was at his ear, whispering, “Let’s go,” and he put her on the bike and took her back to his place.
Fast and hot and urgent, tumbling inside the door with her and shoving her up against it, kissing her, yanking her clothes off while her inexpert hands tugged his shirt up and ran over his chest, and he couldn’t get inside her fast enough.
Except he didn’t. As eager as she was, as hard as she was breathing, it was her first time, and he didn’t want to hurt her. So he picked her up and carried her into the tiny bedroom with the view of nothing and lowered her onto the bed he’d made up clean that morning as he had four weeks in a row now, hoping this would be the night. Then he came down over her, feeling like the king of the world, and started showing her everything he felt about her the best way he knew.
He wasn’t good with words, but he was good with his body. When he was moving, his body knew how. When he’d been charging down a wide receiver, choosing his path, making his tackle, he’d been good. When he’d been back-to-back with his best friend Riley, taking on Dakota’s tormenters in the parking lot, he’d been good. And when he was kissing his way down Beth’s pale body, stroking and touching and licking into her while she drew in a startled breath and her hands went to his hair and every last bit of restraint left her body—then, he was very, very good.
There was a time and place for fast and urgent and hot, and there was a time and place for patience. He had every one of those things, and nobody he wanted to show them to more than Beth. So if he needed restraint? He had it. He had everything she needed.
Yeah. He did. He’d had it then, and he had it now. Except maybe not. Right now, Beth was the last person he should be holding in his arms, and he was doing it anyway. It was those gray boots, that shiny hair, the curve of her waist, and the warm vanilla-almond scent of her skin. They were all too familiar, and they were everything he wanted to touch. And she still knew how to dance, even though she was stiff at first. Cautious. He had less restraint, and she had more. Until she didn’t. Until the music picked up and he was twirling her, and her hair started to whip around her and she started to laugh. Until he spun her straight back into his arms and the band began to play a slow one, and he pulled her in and she came to him like she meant it.
Like a boss.
Beth had never been more aware of her body. If she’d felt frozen before? Now, she was on fire. The tips of her breasts brushed against the soft fabric covering Evan’s broad chest, and she felt it. Her thighs met his, and she felt that, too. And when he tightened his hand around hers, spread his other one against the bare skin of her lower back, and pressed her up close?
Oh, hell, yeah. She definitely felt that.
He didn’t talk, and neither did she. She didn’t need to manage this situation. She couldn’t have done it if she tried. She just pressed herself closer, reckless and bold, and stepped and swayed around the floor with Evan. She was aware of the moment when she gave it up, melted into him, and let him take her where he wanted, and she knew with absolute certainty that he was aware of it, too.
Nobody’s body was like Evan’s. Nobody who’d ever held her since had felt as strong or as sure, and she was floating on a haze of alcohol and desire, the rhythmic thrum of the music echoing the beat of her heart and the throb at her core, and those powerful hands moving her across the floor.
She could tell the song was ending, and she didn’t want this moment to stop. She whispered, “Let’s go,” and knew he couldn’t hear it.
Except he did. His hands tightened on her, and then he was pulling away and pulling her with him. Across the floor and out the door, around the back of the building where it faced the lake. Then he was backing her up against the wall, one hand at her waist and the other one behind her head, and his mouth was coming down over hers, and she wanted it.
He tasted like Evan, and his mouth was demanding, slanting over hers, kissing her like he needed her, his hand fisting in her hair. She was on her toes, trying to climb his body, trying to pull him even closer. Above her, on the deck of the Yacht Club, she could hear laughter and voices, but down here? It was just the thudding of her heart, Evan’s body pressing hers back into the hard wall, and Evan’s mouth taking hers.
Still no words. His hand stroking up over her ribs, sliding its stealthy way inside the V-neck of the halter and closing over her breast like it was his to hold, and she was gasping.
She hadn’t worn a bra, because she hadn’t had a halter one, and she’d been feeling the difference it made all night, like she was naked in public, like she was wild and everybody could see it. Like a different woman. His fingers found the peak and teased it, his fingers opening and closing, pinching, and it was killing her, the sharp little shocks jabbing her. And
still he kissed her and didn’t say a thing, his hair rough at the nape of his broad neck under her hand, the heavy muscle at his shoulder bunching tight beneath her palm.
The voice brought her back to herself. “Whoops,” the woman said, then laughed, and Beth thought, Wait. What? The familiar panic rose, and she dragged her mouth away from Evan’s and tried to catch her breath, to bring her body back from the edge.
“Damn.” It was barely a breath, and Evan hadn’t let go of her. His hand had dropped from her breast, was at her waist again, and his fingers were still wrapped in her hair.
“I have to—” she said. “I have to go.”
He dropped his hands, took a step back, and her body missed him.
“Evan.” She couldn’t think of what to say, how to be. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy. I can’t—I don’t—” A night with Evan wasn’t the answer to her problems. It would mess her up for good, she knew it. Besides, she was a good fit for nobody right now, much less Evan, whose protective instincts went all the way down to the bone.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice like sandpaper. “I get it. I got it the first time. Where’s Dakota?”
She blinked. “What?”
He was turning away, walking to the water’s edge, taking his phone out of his back pocket, and talking, and then he was shoving it back into his jeans and saying, “She’s in the bar. I’ll walk you there.”
Beth didn’t answer. She was already around the corner. Already gone, knowing that he was watching her the whole way. Checking that she was safe, when she wasn’t safe at all.
Charcoal-gray nails, blonde hair falling free, and a black halter top more daring than anything she’d ever worn. And the same old her.
But she’d stopped herself from using him. At least there was that.
It was warm and musty in the old theater on Sunday afternoon, but Evan didn’t care. Work was good. It got you somewhere, unlike other things.
He held Gracie in her baby carrier and walked down the aisle of the old Nu-Art movie theater with its new owner, a Portland Devils wide receiver named Harlan Kristiansen, who looked more like a Viking than any Viking had probably ever looked. His blond hair waved to his shoulders, but was pulled back at the top into a sort of ponytail thing. If anybody had ever told him that was a girly style, they probably hadn’t said it twice.
“Thanks for coming out at short notice,” Kristiansen said. “Sorry to change the day on you. Management calls. This your little girl, huh? That’s a heartbreaker right there.” Which, as much as Evan wanted to hate him, was too much of a normal-guy thing to say to make the hating work.
“Yeah,” Evan said. “Tried to see if my mom could take her, but she square dances.”
“I didn’t know anybody still square danced,” Kristiansen said. “Not in North Dakota, they don’t.”
“That where you’re from?”
“That’s right.” The bright blue eyes were amused, as they’d been every time Evan had talked to him, like none of life should be taken too seriously and he was just here for a good time. “North of Bismarck. You could say it’s where the Devil goes to take a break from the fire and be just about right.”
“Portland a big step up?”
“You could say so. Wild Horse is a big step up, even. You’ve got actual elevation change. Whoa, Nellie. Sportsman’s paradise, that’s what this is.”
“Yep,” Evan said. “Good fishing.” He set Gracie down on the stage at the front of the building. She was in one of her contented moods, right after her nap, which helped. “I’ve got you scheduled in here, top priority. I get that you’re in a hurry, but I hope you’re going to tell me you’ll wait until I finish painting to do the seats and floors and all. I’d have a hell of a time doing these ceilings without dripping some paint.”
Kristiansen turned and took in the old-fashioned one-plex in all its shabby glory. Dusty, faded red velvet seats, torn black curtain, ornate gold light fixtures near the top of the high ceilings, and all those Moorish arches and curlicues that had been carved into the wood trim back when craftsmanship had meant something.
“Yeah,” he said. “I see what you mean. And I know I said red and gold and black before, trying for a Devils tie-in, but now I see it again, I’m not so sure. Not sure about the whole thing, for that matter. I woke up in the middle of the night after I bought this monster and wondered what I’d been smoking. Decided I’d probably just wanted to give another generation the satisfaction of making out at the movies, because there’s nothing in the wide world like having that high-school girlfriend in the back row. That’s as good an explanation as anything else I can come up with, anyway.”
Evan said, “Yeah,” and didn’t think about meeting Beth here when she’d sneaked out to meet him the very first time. About sitting, not in the back, but all the way over to one side, where there was nobody around them. About the way she’d gripped his arm during the scary part, and how he’d put his hand over hers, and then held it, and how good that had felt. And how, afterwards, they’d taken a walk in the plowed path at the edge of the lake on a night as cold and clear as crystal. How they’d looked at the moon and at the clouds of their breath, and how soft her fluffy white hat had felt under his fingers when he’d finally held her at the back of her neck and kissed her, there under the stars, and the little noise she’d made when he’d done it. A sound of surprise and pleasure, so he’d had to kiss her again. Or how, when she’d left at the end of that week to finish her senior year of college, he’d tried to convince himself that she wouldn’t come back to him that spring, that summer, and had made his plans anyway like she would.
“Got any ideas?” Kristiansen asked.
Evan hesitated. Dakota had been the color sense of the partnership, but Dakota wasn’t here. And maybe he was tired of people’s assumptions. Maybe so.
“Go on and say it,” Kristiansen said. “I’m real good at only doing what I want.”
Evan could bet that was true. “I was thinking about it last week,” he said slowly, “and I thought about peacocks.” He’d gotten the idea when he’d been reading Gracie an animal book, but he wasn’t going to say that. “Jewel colors on all that woodwork,” he went on, taking another step out onto that uncertain ice, “blue and gold. Like peacock feathers. Deep blue seats. Blue velvet curtain. Over the top. Make it better than Netflix on the couch. Make it an occasion. High-end snacks, get a wine and beer license, put some seats in the lobby.”
Kristiansen scrutinized him, and Evan stared stolidly back at him. “You got an artistic side?” Kristiansen asked.
“No,” Evan said. “Just a thought I had. There’s not that much entertainment in Wild Horse. Lots of people head over to the Indian casinos. But here, you’d be right in town. Walk over from the Resort.”
“Peacock Theater, you think?”
“No. Kristiansen Theater. Might as well use your name, get the big spenders at the Resort excited about maybe bumping into you. But peacock logo. Have Dakota make you a big stained-glass piece for the lobby, light it from behind. Get her to give her opinion, if you want,” he forced himself to say, “on the colors. She’s good at that. But I’d say it’s right.”
Kristiansen laughed, and of course he had strong, straight white teeth. “Saying I’m a pretty boy?”
Evan let himself smile a little too. “Saying go with what’s working for you.”
“What I figured,” Kristiansen said. “I’m a peacock. I like it, though. I do. If I go down, I’ll go down in a blaze of glory.” He grinned. “Fluffing my tail feathers all the way.”
Evan was up on a ladder taking some measurements, multiplying quantities and estimating gallons in his head, when he heard the faint sound of a door closing.
Well, damn. It had been a nice dream, but Kristiansen had probably had second thoughts. Going with the safe option, the Devils angle. And if Evan didn’t want to paint Devils colors onto an entire auditorium, that was his own problem. He’d just have to get over i
t, because he had a family to support. He came down the ladder without rushing, ready to hear it.
He was halfway down when he heard the voice all the way across the room, muffled by an acre of carpeting and tattered velvet seats. “Don’t come down. I’ll wait.”
His hands and feet were frozen. Oh, yeah. He needed this. He made them move again, climbed down the rest of the way, and turned to face her.
Beth. Hair back in that French braid of hers, the one that said rich girl, honey and caramel and gold all mixed together and falling in a glossy plait over her shoulder. Wearing khaki shorts and a sleeveless blue blouse, looking not at all like the vixen of the night before. Back to conservative, buttoned up and closed down.
Gracie let out a squawk like if he was that close, he ought to pick her up. Evan stored the paint quantities into his memory bank, lifted her out of her seat, settled her in the crook of his arm, and asked, “What?”
Maybe that wasn’t nice enough. Too bad. He didn’t feel nice. It had taken him forever to fall asleep the night before, and there was nobody to blame but himself. Way to run back into the burning building, O’Donnell. And “burning” was the word.
How could she turn him on so much and still look so cool and reserved to everybody else? He didn’t understand it. He never had. It was like she was in 3-D, and he was the only one who had the glasses.
She walked around the front of the seats, looking around the old theater, at the arches and the elaborately embellished column tops—looking anywhere but at him. “The owner let me in. I asked if you were in there, and he opened the door for me and said, ‘Go on in.’ He’s casual, huh? I wanted to whisper ‘Liability issues’ at him and see if he jumped.”
Evan didn’t answer that, just kept looking at her. Gracie was pedaling her legs, so he swung her around and let her walk up his chest the way she liked until she was standing backward on his shoulders, and focused on keeping his cool.
No Kind of Hero (Portland Devils Book 2) Page 6