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Somewhere between giving his toast and listening to mine, he’d taken off his suitcoat. The mountainair was cool. I was to the point where I was ready for a jacket, and he was having the opposite problem?
“Nice speech,” he said. His scent wafted toward me, pine and spice and amazing. “Short and sweet.”
“Thanks,” I said.
My table was close. I was almost there. I’d managed to avoid him thus far—I couldn’t break my streak now.
“You want to dance?” he asked.
“Oh—”
So much for my determination to keep my hands from clamming or to avoid any more stomach fluttering.
I considered. I could keep going to my seat. Act like I hadn’t heard him.
But I wasn’t completely heartless.
With a defeated sigh, I made the mistake of looking at him. He was so handsome and smirking at me with suave focus.
He tilted in, stirring my blood with his nearness. “Come on. All we have is tonight. Just one dance.”
I allowed myself to swim in the depths of his blue eyes. What remained of my resistance melted like new snow down the mountainside.
It was true—we were going back home tomorrow. I could handle one dance with him, couldn’t I?
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”
He inclined his head toward the dance floor and took my hand. The touch zinged straight into my nervous system, offsetting everything and startling me. Moving assuredly, herotated, facing me for seconds before sliding his hand behind my back.
My breath caught in my lungs. He held me closer than I expected, and yet I didn’t want to pull away.
I was mesmerized by his scent, by the shape of his mouth and the gleam in his eyes, so much so that I barely registered the words he spoke.
“You look stunned,” he said.
“I am.”
He laughed at this. Tipped his head back and laughed. “You’re confident in your arsenal—I’ll give you that.”
“What’s so funny? You said I look stunned. I was completely thrown by you asking me to dance.”
“I said you lookstunning.”
Mortification flooded me. He did? “And I said?—”
Hawk laughed again, pulling me closer so the rumbling in his chest reverberated in mine. I inhaled him, unable to keep my own laughter from leaking out as well.
He reared back enough to take in my expression, and his softened. He scrutinized me. “There it is,” he said with a trace of wonder.
I couldn’t guess what he was talking about—especially because he was looking right at me as he said it.
“There what is?”
“I knew your smile was going to knock the world off its hinges, and I was right. I’ve been trying to get you to smile sincewe met.”
“You have not.”
“I have.” He guided me out away from him and drew me back again. I tingled under his every touch.
