Chapter 22
NOELLE
Gravity.
Time.
They ceased to exist.
The moment Cade twirled me into his hard chest and expertly eased us into a cluttered dance floor, I forgot everything but the feel of his iron arms around me. He held onto my waist with one arm, my hand with the other. Our fingers braided, a clear intent he didn’t mean to let go.
The smell of his musky cologne, the sensation of nearness to a man that I hadn’t experienced in years, took the breath out of me. Cade attempted to spin me, but I stumbled. I tightened my arms, bracing myself to fall, but his hold tightened around my waist before it was possible.
“Relax,” he whispered against my ear.
His breath grazed my earlobe. A shiver wracked my spine. Heat flooded my cheeks as he stepped us to the side, out of the rushing dancers who seemed to be everywhere, all at once. He’d plunged us into the middle of a tilt-o-whirl.
With a laugh in his voice, he said, “Noelle, what are you afraid of? I’d never let you fall.”
But I clung to him, irrationally scared, while the world danced.
I was overwhelmed, out of my depth. Cade, more than the noise and the smells and the sounds, was so near.
So close. And he’d asked me here tonight, which seemed like a streak of luck that I couldn’t hold onto too tight or else it might burn me.
“I know you wouldn’t,” I managed to say, breathless. “I just . . . I don’t know how to do this.”
But I didn’t mean dance.
Both of us knew it.
His hand lifted from my waist to my chin, elevating it until I had to look in his eyes. I expected kindness and compassion, but I saw hunger and ferocity.
If you knew, I thought, the precipice of love that we walked in my family. The expectations. Demands. Nothing came for free. Nothing.
Cade whispered, “Trust me.”
I had no breath to answer with, so I nodded.
He glanced around, made an instant assessment, and melded us into the flow.
We became the storm, and this time I focused on his firm hand.
The not-too-tight-but-still-possessive grip, as if a dancing partner gave him claim, for however short a time, on me.
When I released my legs, instead of checking my steps, focusing on how he moved instead of me, I stopped stumbling.
Cade looked right into my eyes.
“That’s it, Noelle. That’s it. Keep it up. Trust me. Stay with me. And now we’re going to have fun.”
The rumbling promise in his voice heated my blood.
If dancing is what he called it when we moved together in rhythm and synchronicity, then what happened next would be labeled wild abandon.
He flung me into the maze of bodies, then flicked a wrist and brought me back to his chest. My body twirled.
The room spun dizzily, coating me in the too-close scents of perfume and cologne. I laughed, floating.
The way he smiled, sang, stomped, dodged other dancers with expert movements, I couldn’t comprehend. He chuckled when I executed three turns and pressed our hands together again.
Cade laughed. It was full bodied, deep. The low lights and heady thud-thud-thud of cowboy boots on the wooden floor was a thrilling melody.
Cade was a poem.
No, a poet.
His cryptic explanation of letting go and trust made sense. In order for Cade to move, to spin, to adjust to the music, I had to let him. There was trust and surrender and a wild, deeper sense of rightness to Cade’s hand being in mine, the flowing world. Nothing else mattered but the two of us.
The dance stretched into eternity, yet finished too quickly. Before I realized what had happened, he spun me into his arms, tossed me to the other side, and dipped me at the exact moment the song ended.
Panting, I looked up at him.
His smile turned from raw enjoyment to primal study. Gingerly, he brought me up, but his hand didn’t release.
“You good?”
His query was breathless. His shoulders worked up and down, though not as much as mine. Lips pressed, I nodded.
“Yeah. Good.”
A lone fiddle cut into the room, setting a fast tune that worked with greater speed in mere moments. Excitement lit up his eyes.
“Wanna go again?”
“Please never stop.”
I couldn’t remember how many minutes we pirouetted, laughed, sashayed, stomped. At first, I failed at every line dance I attempted, but Cade patiently taught me each step. By the time an hour had passed, I thought it had been minutes.
“Hoss!”
Cody came up behind Cade, whacked him on the shoulder. It stalled us mid-dance, but didn’t ruffle Cade. He paused, kept a hold of my hand, and half-spun toward Cody.
“Looking good, old man!” Cody cried, then tipped his hat to me. “You as well, Miss Noelle. You’re a natural out on the floor. Doesn’t hurt when the old grand champion is here to throw you around.”
He slammed a fist into Cade’s shoulder, and my interest piqued.
Grand champion?
Before the question could cross my lips, and at the exact moment a murderous glare formed in Cade’s eyes, another hand grabbed my free one, tugged, and twirled me away. I had my arm curled around an unknown shoulder before I recognized Wyatt’s devilish smile.
“Evening, Miss Noelle,” he called, spinning me fast away from an astonished and chagrined Cade. “I didn’t think that would actually work!”
I laughed, recognizing the setup for what it was. Wyatt spun me into a whirl almost as impressive as Cade’s. I pirouetted and returned to Wyatt’s side. He grinned, cutting me a quick wink.
“Fancy meeting you here. Smile big. No, better yet, laugh!”
“What are you doing?”
He had to shout over the crowd. “Making Ol’ Hoss angry!”
He tipped his head to punctuate the point, and I caught a glimpse of Cade’s irritated expression in between another couple.
But he didn’t charge in after me, and it was rather adorable that Wyatt looked so pleased with himself.
Wyatt was an experienced country dancer, but he lacked Cade’s confidence and raw power.
“How long have you been dancing?” I asked in between spins.
“Just a year or two. Cade brought us here to teach us how to speak to women. Cody needs the practice.”
His grin widened. Wyatt certainly didn’t need any help in the confidence arena.
“Doesn’t Cade dance anymore?”
Wyatt shook his head. “Too busy.”
Despite the less-than-ideal atmosphere, I couldn’t help shouting, “He was a grand champion of what?”
“This place used to host different kinds of dancing competitions,” he called over a particularly fast guitar solo. “He won all of them. Twice!”
The tidbit felt like a golden nugget in my hand. Quiet, calm, steady Cade had a love for something completely outside my idea of him. It was novel, discovering this new facet. If possible, he delighted me more.
Unwittingly, I sought Cade out of the crowd, eager to see him in this new light. But I could only make out a very quick glimpse. Several women surrounded him, clustering along the edges. Cody stood at his side, attempting to blend into the wall.
A streak of jealousy filled me from head to foot. I step away for less than a minute and a bunch of women descend?
“They’re buckle bunnies,” Wyatt called, smirking. “Chasing the cowboy. That whole crowd knows Cade, and they ask us about him all the time. They’re upset that he hasn’t been here in a while.”
Buckle bunnies.
Huh.
“He’s very popular,” Wyatt added with a wicked grin before he almost sent me spinning into a post, but pulled me back at the last moment.
“He’ll be there for a bit, trying to extract himself from them.
Cody’s no help, because he’s too quiet and shy.
The only time I can get him to speak to a girl is to dance with her.
He loves it. He’s almost as good as Cade, too. ”
“You’re an excellent dancer yourself,” I said after a particularly intense round of spinning, desiring only to stop the line of thought that centered around other women fawning over Cade.
All at once, it became overwhelming, too much.
The crowd. Elbows. Whirling. My head whipped round with a sensation not unlike rolling down a grassy hill when I was a kid, and I wanted to sit.
Wyatt smiled charmingly, and with all his white teeth.
“I learned from the best.”
The song ended on a particularly quick fiddle solo that ceased unexpectedly. Relief made me weak; I needed a break.
Wyatt bowed.
“Thank you, Miss Noelle. I believe it’s customary to escort the lady off th—”
“Find your own date,” a growly voice snapped, and Cade materialized out of nowhere. He shoved a crowing Wyatt out of the way and gathered me in his arms, pulling me close.
Wyatt chortled as he stumbled off, probably seeking out Cody, and vanished into the bodies. Along the dance floor rim, Cody doubled over, slapping a knee, laughing at Cade’s expression.
The hot, nauseating air that had smelled like fried food and bodies immediately disappeared into cool musk, leather, and outdoors.
The iron grip of Cade’s arms surrounded me again.
In his arms, all the dizziness faded into rightness.
Dancers filtered off the floor as the strains of a slow Garth Brooks song melted into the room.
Cade wrapped his arm around my waist, pulled me to his chest, and threaded our fingers together. Like pieces fitting in a known groove, I stepped into him, and let our feet take us where they might.
I felt breathless; fluttery. It didn’t improve even after my body calmed and my head righted itself.
“Sorry,” he grunted.
I laughed. “Wyatt was a charming dancer.”
He snorted.
I tilted back a little. We didn’t go far, mostly swayed in a circle.
“Grand champion?”
His scowl could have ignited water. I had to school my laugh, sensing a deeper ire beneath the heat in his eyes. Mentioning the title bothered him; or was it something else?
“Dancing was a part of my old life,” he finally said, and it felt like he’d handed me something hot. “Not this one.”
“Is that why women surrounded you?”
A quick glance confirmed that the same women watched us carefully. The pressure of their stares exerted a real force on my back, and I couldn’t blame them. If Cade was the one who got away, I’d hate the other woman, too.
“Those women just like dancing with someone that knows how,” he said.
“Ah . . . I think they like you.”
He met my stare for the first time since we started to slow dance, and the discomfort in his tight jaw, the quick, bobbing swallow, was far more pronounced this close. Our lips were so close, a mere breath away.
Cade whispered, “Well maybe I don’t care what they think.”
“No?”
My heart slammed, and the dizzy whirling came again even though we barely moved. I gripped him harder, and he pulled closer. Any tighter against him and I’d have to bend backward.
“There’s only one person in this room who I care about,” he rumbled, his lips a caress against my temple.
I didn’t need to ask who. Because he tilted his head gradually closer to mine.
Our noses touched, and his breath was a minty slam on my cheeks.
My eyes went to half-mast, drunk on the feeling of Cade surrounding me.
My fingers tightened around his neck while Garth Brooks belted a ballad that would forever imprint on my heart.
“Cade?” I whispered.
“Hmmm?”
His throaty noise almost broke me. If I moved my lips, he’d touch them. And oh, how I wanted nothing more than Cade’s lips on mine.
“Kiss me.”
He brought us together in a gentle, but fierce, attack. The pressure of his lips, the warmth of them opening, sent a bolt into my toes. His hand glided up my side, cupping the back of my head. The other tightened around my waist, forcing me to tip my head back for better access. I lost the battle.
Let go.
Trust.
Surrender.
It encompassed everything in the softest, most ravaging kiss I’d ever felt.
There on the dance floor, swaying to Garth Brooks and the raucous sound of other cowboys and women.
My heart was a murderous staccato against my ribs when he pulled away, breathing hard.
Cade pressed his forehead to mine, eyes closed. In all that, he hadn’t stopped swaying.
“Noelle?”
“Hmm?”
His voice was a rasp. “I’m sorry. It’s not very gentlemanly to paw you in a public place like this. But I wanted them to know—all of them—where I stood. Here, with you. They can leave me alone. It would be better where we had some privacy, but I . . .”
I kissed him again. He moaned, giving as good as he got, until I almost melted to the floor. With a frustrated grunt, he pulled away.
“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that, Noelle. Well, yes I can. Since I saw you in the airport.”
Laughing, delirious, I pressed a hand to his cheek.
“Me, too.”
“I think I’m done here.” He searched my eyes, looking agitated, frustrated. “Can we go home? I don’t want to be around all these people.” His brow furrowed into deeper grooves. “I just want to be with you.”
“Home,” I whispered in agreement.