Chapter 8 #2
She cringed. “Sorry.”
“Now just follow my lead.” He pulled her into the dance and she tried to follow, but she ended up being as clumsy as always. She stumbled every other step and repeatedly had to apologize for stepping on his toes. Finally, he gave up and stopped. “There is no dance competition, is there?”
Since the jig was up, she told the truth. “No. I just wanted to dance at Honky Tonk Heaven . . . just once.”
He studied her for a long moment before he lifted her completely off her feet.
She might have asked what he was doing if her brain cells hadn’t been completely wiped out when he loosen his hold and she slid down his half-naked body like a pornographic slip-and-slide.
The man was hard everywhere . . . like everywhere.
And there was no overlooking the hard length that pressed against her on the way down.
But her libido only had a second to react before her boots settled on the tops of his boots and Jaxon started sliding his feet and counting into her ear.
She thought she’d feel ridiculous, like some child dancing with their daddy.
And she did, at first. But his grip was firm and secure and the husky timbre of his voice hypnotic.
Soon, she forgot about how ridiculous she looked and started to enjoy the feeling of dancing with someone other than her mama for the first time in her life.
Jaxon might not have asked any girls to dance when he was younger, but somewhere along the lines, he’d learned how to dance. Even with a clumsy woman attached to him like a toddler, it was obvious he knew what he was doing.
And he made her feel like she did too.
He was right. The waltz was just making a box repeatedly with their feet. Once they’d made two full circuits around the floor, he lifted her off his boots and she was on her own.
She stumbled a few times, stepped on his toes a few more, but he never gave up like her mama had. He just kept leading her around the floor until she was dancing.
She was dancing.
She lifted her gaze from their feet to his face. “I’m doing it!”
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.