Chapter 3
Adam
For a damsel in distress, Faye was having a mighty fine damn time.
Without him, he might add.
The male who’d saved her.
Adam scowled as she danced past, completely ignoring him as she grinned up at her dance partner, a guy who looked like he was still in high school and who he’d seen snuggling up with another woman not thirty minutes before.
“Your scowl is extra scowly right now.” Lex Chapman, the only wolf Adam fully trusted with his life and who scared the actual hell out of him at the same time, took a seat on the empty stool that Faye had abandoned, despite the fact her coat was still slung across the back.
With his shaved head and neck tattoos, he was the exact opposite of Adam in the way he looked and dressed.
Biker boots, torn jeans and old T-shirts were Lex’s go to, and the two of them always got strange looks when people saw them hanging out together.
Lex waved down Greg and ordered a dark beer.
“I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” Adam told him.
Lex picked up the mug of Guinness Greg set down in front of him and tilted it toward the bottle in Adam’s hand. “I don’t know how you drink those girly beers.”
“An IPA isn’t girly.”
“If you say so.” Lex toasted him with a smirk and took a big swallow of his beer.
Adam went back to keeping an eye on Faye. He told himself that the only reason he kept his eyes glued to her was to make sure her not-so-secret admirer didn’t give her any more problems, but the way his wolf was prowling beneath his skin begged to differ.
He felt Lex’s dark eyes on him for only a few seconds before he saw him look over his shoulder and find the object of Adam’s undivided attention. “Who’s the hottie?”
“Faye,” Adam answered automatically. “My new fake girlfriend.”
“It doesn’t look so fake to me,” Lex observed.
Adam turned his body toward his friend, but he couldn’t manage to pull his eyes from the ball of energy and sunshine lighting up the dance floor.
He could practically see a glow of warmth around her, drawing people to her.
“I just met her tonight. Some guy was harassing her, so I pretended to be her boyfriend so he’d leave her the hell alone. ”
“If you’re her boyfriend, why aren’t you out there dancing with her?”
Because he had to be a rude, stubborn ass when she’d asked him. A decision he was regretting more and more.
Adam’s upper lip lifted in a snarl as he watched her partner’s big hand slide “innocently” over the generous curve of her ass.
That was it. He’d had enough. Adam slammed his empty beer bottle down on the bar. “I’ll be back,” he told Lex.
“Go get her, tiger,” he said, his eyes glued to the television screen behind the bar as he watched the New Year’s celebration happening in Times Square.
The whole time Adam was weaving his way through the dancers, he wondered what the hell he was doing. He still didn’t have a good answer by the time he reached her, but he was going to do it anyway.
When Faye’s partner noticed him blocking their way, he pulled her to a stop. “You know this guy?” he asked her, lifting his chin toward Adam.
She looked back over her shoulder. “Hey!” she greeted Adam. The smile she gave him nearly blinded him. “This is my friend, Adam,” she told her dance partner.
“I’m cutting in,” he informed her. Then his eyes flicked over to the guy she was dancing with. He was tall, but he was skinny. If it came down to a fight, Adam would easily win, even if he didn’t have the strength of a shifter.
But the guy just grinned amiably and handed Faye over to Adam. “Here you go, man. She’s all yours. Have fun!”
Adam took Faye into the circle of his arms as he scowled after him. But his attention was quickly diverted by the feel of all the womanly softness he now held tight against him.
“I thought you didn’t dance,” she said as his eyes met the twinkle of amusement in hers.
Loosening his hold just enough to let her breathe, he frowned. “I changed my mind.”
Adam didn’t like the way her mouth twitched as she fought to keep the amusement off her face. “Okay,” was all she said. “We should probably start doing it then before we get run over.”
Right then, the music changed and something slow and angsty came over the speakers.
He didn’t recognize the song, but it didn’t matter.
His mother loved to dance, and she’d made damn sure Adam could hold his own on a dance floor, whether it was a ballroom or a country bar or anywhere in between.
Not that he’d wanted to learn, but there were times—such as this one—when he was mighty glad she’d been so insistent.
Pulling their joined hands close to his chest, he tightened his other arm around her until he could feel the fullness of her breasts pressed against him and started shuffling his feet.
As they started to move together, their hips would touch off and on, and much as he tried to fight it, Adam’s cock thickened painfully in his designer jeans.
He dug his fingers into the silky material of her shirt, gathering it into his fist as he tried to get himself under control.
He couldn’t recall what color the shirt was, or anything else she was wearing, for that matter.
He was too immersed in the way she felt.
The way she smelled. Like she was already under his skin, dancing with his wolf.
Faye was a bit stiff in his arms at first, but gradually, she relaxed. She even tucked her head under his chin, fitting against him like she fucking belonged there, her scent in his nose and her body moving perfectly with his as he led them slowly around the dance floor. Just like she would in bed.
He didn’t know how he knew that.
He just did.
They hadn’t made even one full circle around the room before the hair on the back of his neck rose and tingles ran up and down his spine.
Adam met the eyes of her spurned admirer.
He was glaring daggers at them, his posture stiff and angry.
But pissing him off was only part of the reason Adam insisted on holding her so up close and personal.
The other reasons were…well, he didn’t fucking know.
All he knew was that she felt damn fucking good.
“So, Adam,” Faye raised her head and looked up at him. She was even prettier this close up. There were no thick layers of makeup or weird colors on her face, just fresh skin and long eyelashes and glossy lips that he would bet his life savings were naturally that color.
He was quickly becoming obsessed with those lips.
“What brings you to our cozy little town?” She raised her eyebrows in question as she waited for his answer.
“What makes you think I’m new here?”
She gave him a look, and then glanced around the bar before coming back to him. “Because just about everyone who lives in this town can fit into this bar, and I’ve lived here my whole life. So, trust me, if someone who looked like you had come along sooner, I would’ve heard about it.”
“What’s wrong with the way I look?”
Her clear blue eyes darkened as they traveled over his face and shoulders, or maybe it was just a trick of the light.
“Not a damn thing,” she said. “As a matter of fact—and I say this at the risk of making your head swell—you and your friend over there at the bar make the rest of the guys in this town look like backwoods swine.”
A ripple of possession ran through him at her including Lex in that statement, and his arms tightened around her as he navigated them in a turn around another couple and forced her eyes back on him. “I wouldn’t call them ‘swine.’ Pigs are actually really clean if you take them out of the mud.”
Faye threw her head back and laughed. He wasn’t sure what was so funny, exactly, but he wasn’t about to say or do anything that would wipe that expression of joy from her face.
The song ended, and “Touch” by July Talk started playing.
As the majority of people on the dance floor headed for the bar, Faye tried to pull away from him, but Adam pulled her back and looped her arms around his neck as he swayed back and forth to the intro.
When the beat picked up, he took her hand again and moved her into a faster step, spinning her around just to hear the sweet sound of her laughter.
The deep gravel baritone of the male singer rumbled through his blood, the lyrics about letting a woman in hitting Adam in a certain kind of way.
He, too, wanted to slice open his skin and pull her inside. It was the only way he’d ever feel close enough to her. He wanted to feel her blood race with his. Hear her heartbeat in his ears…
The song ended way too soon. Faye was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling deliciously against his own.
Adam inhaled, breathing her into his lungs, allowing the scent of her to absorb into his cells.
She stared up at him for a long time, and Adam didn’t need her to tell him what she was feeling in that moment, because he was feeling the same thing.
Another song came on, breaking the spell.
“You never answered my question,” she said as he led her over to Lex and the two cold beers waiting for them.
Adam handed hers to her and took a long drink of his before asking, “What question is that?”
“What brought you two here,” she reminded him, glancing at Lex with a smile.
“Lex, this is Faye. Faye, Lex.”
Lex gave her a nod. “Nice to meet you, Faye.”
“You, too,” she told him.
“Work,” Adam told her.
“Work?”
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re here for work. Specifically, to help out our friend Riko with some things.”
“Oh, I know Riko. He grew up here, but he moved away right after high school. He was a few years ahead of me, but my brother graduated with him. He comes into the coffee shop sometimes with Addison.” She gave him a quizzical look. “Does that mean you aren’t staying?”
“I hadn’t planned on it, no,” he told her honestly.
Her face fell just a bit, but she hid it so fast, he almost wondered if he’d imagined it. Still, his wolf growled at the thought of her being unhappy. “That’s too bad,” she said softly, her eyes on his.
“Faye! Come dance with us!”
She smiled and waved at the group of girls on the dance floor, but hesitated to join them. Adam tore his eyes away from her and took another drink. He needed to get his shit together. He wasn’t here to make eyes at a pretty girl. “Go on,” he told her. “Go dance.”
She glanced nervously in the direction of a rowdy corner of the bar where Jeff was leading the toasts.
Adam hadn’t missed the way he’d been keeping one eye on Faye the entire night.
“You don’t have to worry about him,” he told her.
“Me and Lex here will cut him off if he tries anything tonight. Right, Lex?”
“Sure,” he said as he waved Greg down for another beer. “I’m always up for a fight.”
“No,” Faye told him. “No fighting.” Then she backed off a bit. “Although I appreciate the gesture. But I can handle Jeff.”
Adam caught her eyes with his. “I know you can, but you don’t have to. Not tonight, at least.”
She gave him a smile that made his chest hurt. “Thank you. You’re the best fake boyfriend ever.” And with that, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek near the corner of his mouth.
Adam turned his head on instinct, but she was gone before he could capture her lips with his, hurrying out onto the dance floor to join her girlfriends.
His wolf pushed at his ribcage, eager to taste her.
Gritting his teeth and wondering what the fuck was wrong with him, Adam forced himself to let her go.
When he turned back to the bar, Lex was staring at him. “What?” he growled.
“Nothin’,” his friend told him with a smirk. “Not a goddamn thing.”